ABSTRACT
The relation between pulpit and audience differs between the twelfth (Herbord and Ebo) and the end of the fifteenth century (Konrad Bischof) as the Death Sermon on Bishop Otto of Bamberg (d. 1139) shows. All three of these authors, the Benedictine monks (Herbord and Ebo) and the Franciscan friar (Konrad Bischof) view Otto as an example of all-encompassing and borderless mercy. Otto acted like Martha, a realistic model in the world but only the second-best one in comparison with Mary, who is never mentioned. Otto moved toward the inclusion of the poor and social outcasts of his time—like Jesus, but in contrast to him, he was a politician, a prince in the Medieval Roman Empire, and dealt with kings and Popes. The social criticism of the luxuriance of political decision-makers in the earlier Benedictine writers was no longer tolerable in Bamberg at the end of the fifteenth century. The Franciscan observant monk skipped over the objectionable paragraph and stabilized the existing hierarchy of actual society. This is, in a way, a “new world” that we could record more often in towns, but it is not necessarily rare in rural areas. The metaphorical phrase “New World” could indicate the social changes in societies and how a text—in our case a death sermon—and its writer react. In any case, the death sermon remembrance never discussed the mission’s issue, neither in the twelfth century nor in the fifteenth century. Bishop Otto of Bamberg is a wonderful example from the middle of the twelfth century of a missionary who received neither recognition nor reward for his strenuous efforts in this world.
