Die ›Geschichte zweier Kaufleute‹. Zur Polysemie von Exempelerzählungen anhand eines Beispiels aus dem Schachbuch Heinrichs von Beringen

Abstract

Virtue-ethical moral didactics are not about conveying fixed norms but rather about enabling the person being taught to respond correctly according to the situation. The aim is to inspire them to knowledge: self-knowledge, a knowledge of what is good, and a knowledge of God. Within premodern ethics, examples play an important role in this augmentation of knowledge. In many cases they are by no means simple, single-layered narratives that only illustrate facts, even if moralisatio may sometimes suggest this. Based on the example of the ‘Geschichte zweier Kaufleute’ from Heinrich von Beringen’s Schachzabelbuch it is shown how the exempla serve the internalization of the scholar (imaginatio) in a polysemous approach to reading trained by the hermeneutic practice of the multiple sense of writing in addition to illustratio and open up a cognitive gaze on God (ostentio).