German Proverbs from the Orient

In his comprehensive work, Das deutsche Lehnsprichwort , Friedrich Seiler traces the apparent origin of a vast number of proverbs and proverbial expressions current in Germany. He finds that the Greek and Roman classics, the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers yield many of the ancient proverbs still in common use. With regard to the large number of proverbs that have seemingly come from the French, Seiler, as he well realizes, treads on uncertain ground, and much of the material that he here gathers together will have to be reëxamined. It is quite evident that many of the proverbs in this latter group are common medieval proverbs, current over a large part of Europe, which first appear in the vernacular literature and collections of proverbs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To attribute French source to them often requires more evidence than Seiler presents. In his treatment of this large body of medieval and international proverbs that seem to have arisen during the Middle Ages and the early modern period—proverbs that give him the most difficulty in finding a possible source—Seiler quite overlooks influences that may have come from the oriental languages, through the Arabic via Spain or into southern Europe via North Africa, or, still more probably for many of these proverbs, via the eastern European countries bordering on Tartaric, Arabic, or Turkish territory.