Visio Tnugdali

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The Visio Tnugdali (Latin: Vision of Tnugdalus) is a 12th-century religious text reporting the otherworldly vision of the Irish knight Tnugdalus (later also called "Tundalus", "Tondolus" or in English translations, "Tundale").

The Latin text was written down shortly after 1149 by Brother Marcus, an Irish itinerant monk, in the Schottenkloster, Regensburg. He reports having heard Tnugdalus' account from the knight himself and to have done a translation from the Irish language at the Regensburg abbess' request.

The visio tells of the proud and easygoing knight falling unconscious for three days, during which time an angel guides his soul through Heaven and Hell, experiencing some of the torments of the damned. The angel then charges Tnugdalus to well remember what he has seen and to report it to his fellow men. On recovering possession of his body, Tnugdalus converts to a pious life as a result of his experience.

The Visio Tnugdali with its interest in the topography of the afterlife is situated in a broad Irish tradition of phantastical tales about otherworldly voyages, called immram, as well as in a tradition of Christian afterlife visions, itself influenced by pre-Christian notions of the afterlife. Other important texts from this tradition include the Visio Thurkilli, the Visio Godeschalci and the Purgatorium Sancti Patricii.

The Latin "Tundalus" was swiftly and widely transmitted through copies, with 172 manuscripts having been discovered to date. During the Middle Ages, the text was also a template for Middle Low German and Middle High German adaptations such as the rhyme version of "Tundalus" by Alber of Kloster Windberg (around 1190), or the "Niederrheinischer Tundalus" fragments (around 1180/90). In the early modern age, Marcus' original text was also translated into various vernacular languages and published several times.

[edit] References

Albrecht Wagner (ed.): Visio Tnugdali. Lateinisch und Altdeutsch. Erlangen: Deichert 1882.
Nigel F. Palmer: Visio Tnugdali. The German and Dutch translations and their circulation in the later Middle Ages. München 1982. ISBN 3760833764
Brigitte Pfeil: Die 'Vision des Tnugdalus' Albers von Windberg. Literatur- und Frömmigkeitsgeschichte im ausgehenden 12. Jahrhundert. Mit einer Edition der lateinischen 'Visio Tnugdali' aus Clm 22254. Frankfurt a.M./ Berlin et al.: Peter Lang 1999. ISBN 3631338171
Herrad Spilling: Die Visio Tnugdali. Eigenart und Stellung in der mittelalterlichen Visionsliteratur bis zum Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts. München: Arbeo-Gesellschaft 1975.