Entertainment, laughter, and reflections as a training ground for communication in public and private: The case of Heinrich Kaufringer, ca. 1400

Late medieval verse and prose narratives have been regularly recognized as didactic, informative, and entertainment in their purpose, whether we think of Boccaccio or Chaucer, Poggio Bracciolini or Margarethe de Navarre. We have not quite understood yet to what extent those tales also served to illustrate to the audiences how people ought to communicate with each other, either within marriage or in public, within the city or in closed social groups. However, Heinrich Kaufringer's verse narratives from ca. 1400 prove to be most explicit in that regard and address ultimately what most other poets of this kind of texts had obviously in mind, instructing their audiences social structures. Studying Kaufringer's mæren in light of communication theory, we gain deeper insight into the fundamental intentions behind the entire genre of late medieval short verse and prose narratives, serving as a kind of fictional laboratory to explore the critical approaches to functioning and productive human communication.