administrators and his use of native institutions gave
his regime considerable authority.
Less of a diplomat than Henry V, Bedford sometimes
allowed pride and quick temper to get the better of him.
His relations with the Burgundians were not always
easy, and he never fully gained the confi dence of the
English aristocracy. His regency nevertheless was a
superb political and military accomplishment.
See also Henry V
Further Reading
Stevenson, Joseph, ed. Letters... of the Wa r s of the English in
France. Rolls Series 22. 2 vols. in 3. London: Longmans,
1861–64.
Stratford, Jenny. “The Manuscripts of John Duke of Bedford:
Library and Chapel.” In England in the Fifteenth Century:
Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel
Williams. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987, pp. 329–50.
Williams, Ethel Carleton. My Lord of Bedford, 1389–1435. Lon-
don: Longmans, 1963 [not critical, but a useful narrative].
Michael Jones
BEHEIM, MICHAEL
(1416/1421–1472/1479)
A prolifi c author and composer of almost fi ve hundred
song-poems, Michael (or Michel) Beheim (also Behaim;
Beham) was until the late twentieth century dismissed as
a Vielschreiber (scribbler) and mere cultural- historical
curiosity. He is now recognized as one of the most
important singers, composers, and publishers (Liedpub-
lizisten) of the fi fteenth century. Beheim’s reevaluation,
facilitated by the appearance of a critical edition of his
poems (Gedichte, published 1968–1972), coincided
with the reassessment of fi fteenth-century aesthetics in
general. Beheim is an important fi gure because of his
poetic range and the range of his ambition. A manu-
script scribe, poet, and composer, he produced a virtual
summa of medieval themes and poetic forms, creating
religious songs, moral and ethical poetry, political and
historical writings, autobiographical verse, love songs,
fables, and songs on the nature and status of the singer’s
art. (He even writes on Dracula, Vlad the Impaler.) As a
poetic musician (musicus poeticus) and lay theologian,
Beheim championed rechte kunst (proper art) and artistic
individuality, the latter grounded in the composition of
original songs, or Töne (occasion pieces with titles such
as Zugweise, Kurze Weise, Verkehrte Weise, Osterweise,
Trummetenweise, Gekrönte Weise, Slecht guldin Weise,
Hohe guldin Weise, Hofweise, Slegweise, Lange Weise,
Angstweise). Beheim also fashioned lengthy chronicles
in verse: Pfälzische Reimchronik (Palatine Rhyme
Chronicle), Buck von der statt Triest (The Book of the
City Treist), and Buch von den Wienern (The Book of
the Viennese). Since the poet set these chronicles to
music, thus making them sung epics (Sangvers-Epen),
they hold the distinction of being the fi nal specimens of
Middle High German epic material that was sung. All of
Beheim’s oeuvre can in fact be performed to music, and
he perhaps surprisingly leaves to his audience a choice of
modes of reception. In the foreword to the Buch von der
statt Triest he states, for example, that “you can read it
like a rhymed book or sing it like a song” (man es lesen
mag als ein gereimptes puch oder singen als ain lied).
By presenting an alternative to traditional, communal,
oral song performance, Beheim makes one of the fi rst
appeals in German literature to silent readers.
Literary criticism on Michael Beheim is devoted to
taxonomy; for example, whether he was a medieval or
modern poet, whether he was a Meistersinger, and if
the term “professional poet” (Berufsdichter), frequently
applied to him in research, helps us to understand him
any better. That his work is diffi cult to pigeonhole arises
from Beheim’s status as a transition poet par excel-
lence; as such, he embodies clashing and contradictory,
but not mutually exclusive, tendencies: For instance,
although he was a conservative author who cataloged
and recapitulated the entire repertoire of fourteenth- and
fi fteenth-century German political writers, or Spruchdi-
chter, Beheim sanctioned, and made a specifi c appeal to,
a modern reading audience, recognizing the power and
place of the book. Similarly, his great concern for the
accurate textual transmission of his “collected works”
on the manuscript page marks him as both a conservator
and a protohumanistic student of the word. Although
Beheim esteemed tradition, imitating and paraphras-
ing revered masters (Johann von Neumarkt, Heinrich
von Mügeln, Heinrich Seuse, Heinrich von Langen-
stein, Thomas Peuntner, the Nicholas von Dinkelsbühl
redactor, Muskatblüt), he reanimated not only poetry
but theology, promulgating an Augustinian renewal in
the vernacular that deserves the name of pre-Lutheran
biblical humanism. Using song-poetry as a medium for
proselytism among the laity, Beheim stylized himself as
a poet-theologian and transmitter of patristic theology,
who translated, versifi ed, and set to music Scripture,
sacred tractates, and sermons.
It is uncertain whether Michael Beheim was born in
1416 or 1421, or if he died before 1472 or after 1479,
but it is possible to reconstruct his life in otherwise re-
markable detail from rich autobiographical verses, for
example, Song 24, “On Michael Peham’s [sic] birth and
his travels to this country” (Von Michel Pehams gepurt
und seinem her chomen in dis lannd). In strophes bear-
ing the traces of emendation as authorial intervention,
Beheim alludes to his humble origins as a weaver’s son,
and sketches a career path that leads to no less than the
imperial court of Frederick III of Habsburg. Among his
prominent patrons were King Christian I of Denmark,
Konrad von Weinsberg (the imperial archchamberlain),BEDFORD, JOHN DUKE OF