From ancient times Wheel of Fortune holds not the last place in symbolism and is extremely relevant in our time. A turn of Wheels of Fortune knows no mercy, it symbolizes the great global rotation, which has no payoff in advance for anybody - all men are equal. Anyone who is now at the top tomorrow will be humbled; one who is now at the bottom, tomorrow gets up to the top.
Wheel of Fortune, in its cosmic aspects represents the idea of cyclical time, as opposed to linear time; it is the embodiment of eternal cycle of life, a symbol of world order. In the architecture it was represent as gothic rose. In Rome fate was called Fortune and had the same meaning. Later, in Christian times, Fortune was perceived as happiness and unhappiness as two forces that affect a person: light - angel behind the right shoulder, and dark - devil, looking out of the left shoulder.
In the early centuries of the Middle Ages image of Fortune in popular culture became more close with Germanic notions of destiny, which included \"happiness\" and \"unhappiness\", \"success\" and \"failure\", \"fate\" and \"luck.\" This convergence is reflected in the heroic epic and skalds poetry. Winged Fortune served as a prototype of Christian angels.
Fortune took a special place in the culture of the West European High Middle Ages. We find her figure in medieval manuscripts in verses of troubadours and vagants; even medieval jurists applied interpretation of Fortune in legal incidents, not to mention the fact that Fortune - one of the favorite themes of medieval philosophy.
Symbol of Wheel of Fortune was reflected in many medieval treatises, «Carmina Burana» among them also known as the «Codex Buranus» - an illustrated manuscript of the XIII century, a handwritten poetry collection (currently located at the National Library of Munich).
Name of the manuscript in Latin means \"Songs of Boyern\" (the manuscript was found in 1803 in medieval monastery Beuern, now in Benediktbeuern, Bavaria). This is the largest known collection of vagants poetry made in southern Germany in the XIII century; it has 315 texts of various sizes.
Early music ensemble “Kings & Beggars” is proud to present to the public the new album «Rota Fortunae» (Wheel of Fortune) based on lyrics from this manuscript.
