König Rother, Salman und Morolf, the Münchner Oswald and Grauer Rock (otherwise known as Orendel) have had a troubled position in the literary history of medieval Germany. Forced into a normative generic framework as either 'Minstrel Epic' (Spielmannsepik) or 'Bridal-quest Epic' (Brautwerbungsepik), these texts have been viewed conventionally according to an essentially teleological classification or a schematic ideal. Bowden challenges the premises of such a view with a detailed history of the textual scholarship, and revaluates these so called 'Bridal quests' on their own terms, offering detailed and suggestive readings of each work without the distortions or limitations inherent in the traditional interpretative model. Sarah Bowden is Powys Roberts Research Fellow at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

This book presents the first collection of the earliest West Germanic bridal-quest narratives together with a comparative study of them. In contrast to earlier studies, the author locates the origin of this narrative tradition in the oral and written Germanic literary tradition, a result that leads to a re-assessment of the genesis of vernacular German and Scandinavian literature. The chapters deal in chronological order with the Latin chronicles of the Germanic peoples and with the early Latin and vernacular literature in Germany and Scandinavia.

Drawing upon the most current methodologies, the essays in this book pursue the multifarious functions of end-times in medieval German texts.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. "Whither Am I to Go?": Old Yiddish Love Song in a European Context -- 3. (Non- )Intersecting Parallel Lives: Pasquino in Rome and on the Rialto -- 4. Purim Play as Political Action in Diasporic Europe and/as Ancient Persia -- 5. Vashti and Political Revolution: Gender Politics in a Topsy-Turvy World -- 6. The Political Liminality of Mordecai in Early Ashkenaz -- 7. Feudal Bridal Quest Turned on Its Jewish Head -- 8. The Other of Another Other: Yiddish Epic's Discarded Muslim Enemy -- 9. Conclusion -- Appendix: Elia Levita's Short Poems (English translation) -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y

In The Giant Hero in Medieval Literature Tina Boyer counters the monstrous status of giants by arguing that they are more broadly legible than traditionally believed. Building on an initial analysis of St. Augustine’s City of God, Bernard of Clairvaux’s deliberations on monsters and marvels, and readings in Tomasin von Zerclaere’s Welsche Gast provide insights into the spectrum of antagonistic and heroic roles that giants play in the courtly realm. This approach places the figure of the giant within the cultural and religious confines of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and allows an in-depth analysis of epics and romances through political, social, religious, and gender identities tied to the figure of the giant. Sources range from German to French, English, and Iberian works.

The 9 essays collected in this volume are the result of a workshop for international doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Studies held at the Institute for Nordic Philology (LMU) in Munich in December 2018. The contributors focus on ›unwanted‹, illicit, neglected, and marginalised elements in saga literature and research on it. The chapters cover a wide range of intra-textual phenomena, narrative strategies, and understudied aspects of individual texts and subgenres. The analyses demonstrate the importance of deviance and transgression as literary characteristics of saga narration, as well as the discursive parameters that have been dominant in Saga Studies. The aim of this collection is to highlight the productiveness of developing modified methodological approaches to the sagas and their study, with a starting point in narratological considerations.

Uncovers the female voices, lived experiences, and spiritual insights encoded by the imagery of textiles in the Middle Ages.For millennia, women have spoken and read through cloth. The literature and art of the Middle Ages are replete with images of women working cloth, wielding spindles, distaffs, and needles, or sitting at their looms. Yet they have been little explored. Drawing upon the burgeoning field of medieval textile studies, as well as contemporary theories of gender, materiality, and eco-criticism, this study illustrates how textiles provide a hermeneutical alternative to the patriarchally-dominated written word. It puts forward the argument that women's devotion during this period was a "fabricated" phenomenon, a mode of spirituality and religious exegesis expressed, devised, and practised through cloth. Centred on four icons of female devotion (Eve, Mary, St Veronica, and - of course - Christ), the book explores a broad range of narratives from across the rich tapestry of medieval English literature, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.

By the early middle ages vernacular aristocratic traditions of heroic narration were firmly established in Western and Northern Europe. Although there are regional, linguistic and formal differences, one can observe a number of similarities. Oral literature disseminates a range of themes that are shared by narratives in most parts of the continent. In all the European regions, this tradition of heroic narration came into contact with Christianity, which led to modifications. Similar processes of adaptation and transformation can be traced everywhere in this field of early European vernacular narrative. But with the increasing specialization of academic fields over the last half century, inter-disciplinary dialogue has become increasingly difficult. The volume is a contribution to renew the inter-disciplinary dialogue about common themes, topics and motifs in Nordic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature, and about the different methodologies to explore them.

The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First-Century Perspectives examines a wide range of texts to argue in favour of a thirteenth-century animal turn which not only generated a heightened scholarly awareness of animals but also had major implications for society more generally. Using diverse primary sources, the book considers the role of Aristotle in shaping thirteenth-century perspectives on natural history; Pope Innocent III’s encouraging the use of animals in the theological and moral instruction of the laity; the increasing relevance of animals to the promotion and assertion of lay aristocratic identity; and the tension between violence and affection towards animals that pervaded the thirteenth century as it does the twenty-first. Analysing these many considerations, Nigel Harris also argues that the thirteenth century was an era in which traditional conceptions of the fundamental ‘anthropological difference’ between humans and animals was subjected to increasingly urgent questioning and challenge.