life, vaunting, instead, his own power and arbitrariness.
Only in chapter 33 is the argument silenced when God
is called on to deliver a verdict in the case. Because the
plaintiff has fought well, God awards him honor, but
gives the victory to Death by affi rming the status quo.
The work ends with an impassioned prayer for the soul
of Margaretha.
The emotional verisimilitude of the argumentation
and the correspondence of biographical data in the text
to certain facts of Tepl’s life have raised the question
whether the work might not have been precipitated by an
actual bereavement of the author, perhaps his fi rst wife,
the mother of his two oldest children. Records show
Tepl to have been survived by a widow, Clara (possibly
a second wife), and fi ve children. The autobiographical
thesis seems to be at odds, however, with the tone of
the author’s letter to Rothirsch, which emphasizes the
stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies deployed in
the work.
More signifi cant than the unresolved autobiographi-
cal issue is the controversy over whether the arguments
and style place the work further within the realm of late
medieval or of early humanist thought. Although the-
matically and formally the Ackermann remains largely
indebted to earlier medieval traditions, stylistically its
language echos that of Johann von Neumarkt’s chancel-
lery German, which shows the strong infl uence of the
Latin rhetorical forms of Italian humanists.
Further Reading
Hahn, Gerhard. Der Ackermann aus Böhmen des Johannes von
Tepl. Erträge der Forschung 215. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftli-
che Buchgesellschaft, 1984.
Hruby, Antonín. Der Ackermann und seine Vorlage. Munich:
Beck, 1971.
Hübner, Arthur. “Deutsches Mittelalter und italienische Renais-
sance im Ackermann aus Böhmen.” Zeitschrift für Deutsch-
kunde 51 (1937): 225–239.
Jafre, Samuel. “Des Witwers Verlangen nach Rat: Ironie und
Struktureinheit im Ackermann aus Böhmen.” Daphnis 7
(1978): 1–53.
Johannes von Saaz. Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, ed. Günther
Jungbluth. 2 vols. Heidelberg: Winter, 1969–1983.
Johannes von Tepl. Death and the Plowman; or, The Bohemian
Plowman, trans. Ernst N. Kirrmann from the Modern Ger-
man version of Alois Bernt. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1958.
Schwarz, Ernst, ed. Der Ackermann aus Böhmen des Johannes
von Tepl und seine Zeit. Wege der Forschung 143. Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968.
Anne Winston-Allen
JOHN (1167–1216; r. 1199–1216)
Born on December 24,1167, he was the youngest of
the four sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine to
reach manhood. His father intended him to be the ruler
of an autonomous king dom of Ireland (and from 1185
he bore the title Lord of Ire land), but with the deaths of
his elder brothers he aspired to wider ambitions. After
the death of the childless Richard (1199) he became
king of England, duke of Normandy, duke of Aqui taine,
and count of Anjou, and he prevailed against the claims
of his nephew Arthur of Brittany, son of his brother
Geoffrey.
It was a diffi cult inheritance. The fi nancial burdens
of Richard’s reign had been extraordinarily heavy, for
his crusade and ransom, and for the defense of the
continental dominions against persistent attacks and
subversion by Philip II (Philip Augustus) of France. The
revenues of England, vital for survival, were devalued
by infl ation. The balance of advantage in resources and
infl uence had tipped decisively in favor of the French
crown. Normandy was war-weary, weakened, and
demoralized; when Philip renewed his attack in 1204,
the will to resist suddenly collapsed and John retired to
England without putting up a fi ght.
John never reconciled himself to the loss of Nor-
mandy. His efforts to accumulate a war chest were
remarkably success ful, but achieved by a relentless and
ruthless exploitation of royal rights over subjects that
exposed the arbitrary nature of many of his royal powers
and called their legitimacy into ques tion. His barons,
seeking to rebuild family fortunes after the loss of their
Norman estates, had to bid expensively for royal favors
granted, or withheld, capriciously.
Disaffection was for a time deflected by John’s
resistance to Pope Innocent III, who set aside a royal
nominee for the archbishopric of Canterbury and instead
appointed Stephen Langton, whom the king rejected.
John’s stand was generally supported by the laity, who
patiently endured an interdict for six years. John con-
fi dently disregarded a sentence of excom munication
while his coffers were augmented by the appro priated
revenues of the clergy. That the English clergy should
be so completely at his mercy was, however, a chilling
dem onstration of royal power to override established
rights, and there was a growing feeling among some
of the barons that their own safety and their families’
fortunes depended on get ting rid of him.
Faced by incipient rebellions and an invasion fl eet
mus tered by Philip of France, John could not ignore the
ultimate papal weapon, a sentence of deposition. He ac-
cepted the pope’s terms for lifting the sanctions and in
addition offered his kingdoms of England and Ireland
as fi efs of the papacy, in effect putting them under the
protection of the Holy See.
John’s carefully nurtured grand strategy for the de-
feat of the French king collapsed when his allies, the
count of Flanders and his nephew Emperor Otto IV
of Germany, were decisively defeated by Philip at the
Battle of Bouvines, May 1214. Open rebellion erupted inJOHANNES VON TEPL