AUGSBURG, ANOS 90
(séc. XX)
De passagem por Augsburg, Frank Davey
(escritor canadiano) conta resumidamente uma das versões da história de Agnes e
mostra bem como a lenda tem alimentado o marketing e o turismo. Seguem-se
alguns excertos do relato e das apreciações que o autor faz sobre Augsburg e
Agnes. Convém apenas corrigir um anacronismo evidente; ecoando a informação de
um panfleto publicitário, Frank Davey afirma que o pai de Agnes era um “taberneiro
do século XIII”, o que não corresponde à verdade; Agnes nasceu já em pleno
século XV, por volta de 1410. Também não há provas de que Albrecht e Agnes
casaram, apenas de que viveram juntos e que Agnes chegou a frequentar a corte
do ducado. Só não se sabe ao certo se foi como serviçal ou como companheira de
Albrecht.
«(…) With the menu my waiter
brought an English translation of the history of
Agnes Bernauer. Augsburg, birthplace of the Holbeins, has preserved or
reconstructed almost every one of its Renaissance houses, churches and
guildhalls. The fountains, unfortunately, are boarded up in winter. The Agnes Bernauer Restaurant is located in several
small rooms of a sixteenth-century building, each room decorated with
traditional Bavarian hunting emblems and with stuffed game birds, foxes,
marmots and the head of stags and bear.
(…) A small portrait of an attractive young woman in medieval dress marks the
signboard and menus of the Agnes Bernauer Restaurant.
The Agnes Bernauer that is remembered in
the Agnes Bernauer Restaurant is the daughter of a
thirteenth-century tavern keeper. Augsburg, home of Rudolf Diesel, was
once one of the most important towns in Roman Germany. The
remembered Agnes Bernauer is beautiful, pious, graceful and modest, and
manages to be so while serving the tables of her
father’s tavern.
(…) The alternate
Agnes Bernauer remembered by the city of Augsburg is the daughter of a barber is but less suitable for a
wild-game restaurant. (…). At a jousting tournament the only son of the Duke of
Bavaria, met and fell in love with Agnes. (…) In
many German folk tales the peasant girl is
shown to have virtues the upper classes cannot equal.
(…) The Duke forbade
his son and Agnes to marry but they may have already done so. (…) Agnes
is remembered at the Agnes Bernauer restaurant as cheerfully
serving her father’s tables and later praying a great deal for god’s guidance.
During the writing of the Augsburg Confession, Luther could not appear publicly
in Augsburg because of death threats from various noble families. Two or three years after the clandestine marriage
of the prince and Agnes Bernauer, she was murdered by his family and her body
thrown into the Danube.
The story of Agnes Bernauer implies a critique of the morality of medieval power. The
prince is sometimes portrayed as more appreciative of her piety than of her
exuberant beerbringing beauty. (…) The beauty of Agnes Bernauer is also
portrayed as more simple and natural than
that possible within the baronial class. (…)
The name of Agnes Bernauer occupies an ambiguous position in the quest for justice and for
market-share among Augsburg restaurants. (…) Agnes would have only one
or two opportunities for social mobility. This unusual restaurant commemorates
a saintly heroine of the class struggle. (…)
(…) The prince obliged his father to build a chapel in Agnes’s memory at the site of
her murder. (…) Yes, the stylized portrait of on the Agnes Bernauer signboard
suggests a generic role. Later events will
show how futile. Then there is the Duke’s son, who in the story at least
survived, remarried, and the various roles the spiritual beauty of Agnes has
continued to offer him.»
(In Agnes Bernauer by Frank Davey from Popular Narratives, Talonbooks,
Vancouver, 1991)
Das palavras de Frank Davey depreende-se que Agnes Bernauer se tornou simultaneamente um símbolo (da luta de classes e da busca de justiça) e um instrumento de marketing. Não é um estatuto muito diferente do de Inês de Castro, de Maria Antonieta, de Joana d’Arc, de Ana Bolena, da Maria da Fonte… e de outras figuras históricas, sobretudo femininas, recriadas pela lenda, pela literatura e pelo marketing turístico. A história real destas personagens perde-se no turbilhão de imagens, versões e utilizações comerciais e, assim, perdem grande parte da sua dimensão humana. E neste mercado da História ninguém paga direitos de autor. Será que ainda existem descendentes vivos de Agnes Bernauer? Provavelmente sim, mesmo que vivam num local diferente, sobretudo se eram de facto de origem judaica terão sido forçados a abandonar a sua terra natal.
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