Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects such as Gawain,Lancelot,Perceval and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's chivalric romances,including Erec and Enide,Lancelot,Perceval and Yvain,represent some of the best-regarded works of medieval literature. His use of structure,particularly in Yvain,has been seen as a step towards the modern novel.
Hartmann von Aue,also known as Hartmann von Ouwe,was a German knight and poet. With his works including Erec,Iwein,Gregorius,and Der arme Heinrich,he introduced the Arthurian romance into German literature and,with Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg,was one of the three great epic poets of Middle High German literature.
Middle High German is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350,developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High German is defined as those varieties of German which were affected by the Second Sound Shift;the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch languages spoken to the North and North West,which did not participate in this sound change,are not part of MHG.
Erec and Enide is the first of Chrétien de Troyes' five romance poems,completed around 1170. It is one of three completed works by the author. Erec and Enide tells the story of the marriage of the titular characters,as well as the journey they go on to restore Erec's reputation as a knight after he remains inactive for too long. Consisting of about 7000 lines of Old French,the poem is one of the earliest known Arthurian romances in any language,predated only by the Welsh prose narrative Culhwch and Olwen.
Der Stricker is the pseudonym of a 13th-century Middle High German itinerant poet whose real name has been lost to history. His name,which means "The Knitter," may indicate he was a commoner;he was likely from Franconia but later worked in Austria. His works evince a knowledge of German literature and practical theology,and include both adaptations and works with no known sources.
Daniel von dem blühenden Tal is an Arthurian romance composed around 1220 by the Middle High German poet Der Stricker,who claimed he had received the story from a French troubadour. It tells how Sir Daniel,heir to the kingdom of Blumenthal,becomes a Knight of the Round Table and engages in fantastic adventures to defend King Arthur's land from an enemy ruler.
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven was the author of the Middle High German Arthurian romance Lanzelet. Ulrich's name and his place of origin are only known definitively from the work itself. However,it is generally accepted that Ulrich is the same person as a lay priest ("Leutpriester") from Lommis in the canton of Thurgau by the name of Uolricus de Cecinchoven,who occurs as a witness to a deed of gift dated 29 March 1214,executed by the family of the Counts of Toggenburg in favor of the monastery of St. Peterzell.
Lanzelet is a medieval romance written by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven after 1194. It is the first treatment of the Lancelot tradition in German,and contains the earliest known account of the hero's childhood with the Lady of the Lake-like figure in any language. The poem consists of about 9,400 lines arranged in 4-stressed Middle High German couplets. It survives complete in two manuscripts and in fragmentary form in three others.
Blumenthal is a German name meaning "flower dale". The English name Bloomingdale is composed of the same Germanic roots. A spelling reform in 1901 omitted the letter h in the word Thal in normal use. It may refer to:
Garel von dem blühenden Tal is a Middle High German Arthurian romance composed by Der Pleier around 1230-40. It appears to have been written in contradiction to Der Stricker's Daniel von Blumenthal. It consists of 21,310 lines in rhyming couplets;the beginning is missing. The story is illustrated in frescoes to be found at Runkelstein Castle in South Tyrol.
Der Pleier is the pen name of a 13th-century German poet whose real name is unknown. Three of his works survive,all Middle High German romances on Arthurian subjects:Garel,Tandareis und Flordibel,and Meleranz. Little else is known of him,but he was an important figure in the revival of Arthurian literature in Germany in the mid-13th century,after decades of declining interest in the subject.
Der arme Heinrich is a Middle High German narrative poem by Hartmann von Aue. It was probably written in the 1190s and was the second to last of Hartmann's four epic works. Combining courtly and religious narrative patterns,it tells the story of a noble knight who has been stricken by God with leprosy and can be cured only by the heart's blood of a virgin who willingly sacrifices herself for his salvation.
Iwein is a Middle High German verse romance by the poet Hartmann von Aue,written around 1200. An Arthurian tale freely adapted from Chrétien de Troyes' Old French Yvain,the Knight of the Lion,it tells the story of Iwein (Yvain),a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. It was written after Hartmann's Erec,and is generally taken to be his last work.
Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century,there was a sudden intensification of activity,leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit. This was the period of the blossoming of Minnesang,MHG lyric poetry,initially influenced by the French and Provençal tradition of courtly love song. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. again drawing on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes,many of them relating Arthurian material. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition,in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned,but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court.
Erec is a Middle High German poem written in rhyming couplets by Hartmann von Aue. It is thought to be the earliest of Hartmann's narrative works and dates from around 1185. An adaptation of Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide,it is the first Arthurian Romance in German.
The Ambraser Heldenbuch is a 16th-century manuscript written in Early New High German,now held in the Austrian National Library. It contains a collection of 25 Middle High German courtly and heroic narratives along with some shorter works,all dating from the 12th and 13th centuries. For many of the texts it is the sole surviving source,which makes the manuscript highly significant for the history of German literature. The manuscript also attests to an enduring taste for the poetry of the MHG classical period among the upper classes.
Guiomar is the best known name of a character appearing in many medieval texts relating to the Arthurian legend,often in relationship with Morgan le Fay or a similar fairy queen type character.
Cyril William Edwards was a British medievalist and translator. Teaching in London and Oxford,he published extensively on the medieval German lyric and Old High German literature,and translated four of the major Middle High German verse narratives.
In the Middle High German (MHG) period (1050–1350) the courtly romance,written in rhyming couplets,was the dominant narrative genre in the literature of the noble courts,and the romances of Hartmann von Aue,Gottfried von Strassburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach,written c. 1185 –c. 1210,are recognized as classics.
