Reappraisal of Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois, showing how it confronts and takes issue with - rather than simply imitating - earlier German Arthurian romance.

New essays on the first flowering of German literature, in the High Middle Ages and especially during the period 1180-1230.

Explores a core medieval myth, the tale of an Arthurian knight called Wigalois, and the ways it connects the Yiddish-speaking Jews and the German-speaking non-Jews of the Holy Roman Empire.

Inhalt Tette Hofstra: A.D. Kylstra 1920-2010 Elena Afros: Gothic Relative Clauses Introduced by izei and sei revisited Guus Kroonen: Færoese ta and its relevance to the Germanic Auslautsgesetze Frederik Kortlandt: Vestjysk stød again Elżbieta Adamczyk: On Morphological Restructuring in the Old English and Old Saxon Nominal Paradigms Arend Quak: Hintergründe eines altniederländischen Textes Michael P. McGlynn: Bergþór¿s Voice: Orality in the Homicide Laws of the Old Icelandic Grágás John M. Jeep: Heinrich von Veldeke¿s Eneas and the Tradition of the Alliterating Word-Pair Helmut Beifuss: Wirnts von Gravenberc Wigalois. Ein Artusroman konzipiert als dichterische Auseinandersetzung mit den politischen Wirren seiner Zeit Annelies Roeleveld: The Holy Rood in the Netherlands and North Germany. A comparative study of nine Middle Dutch and two Middle Low German recensions of the legend about the Provenance of the Cross Erika Langbroek: Die Kreuzholzlegende im `Hartebok¿ und ihre Verwandten Elly Vijfvinkel: Lehrer und Propheten im Luzerner Osterspiel Besprechungen

Medieval German Literature provides a comprehensive survey of this Germanic body of work from the eighth century through the early fifteenth century. The authors treat the large body of late-medieval lyric poetry in detail for the first time.

From the twelfth century onwards the legends of King Arthur and his knights, including the Tristan legend, spread across Europe, producing a vast range of adaptations and new stories. German and Dutch literature were of central importance in this expansion of Arthurian material from the 12th to 16th century. This title deals with this topic.

In Imagining the Text, James Brown examines ekphrasis – the verbal representation of a visual representation – in Wirnt von Gravenberg’s thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Wigalois, one of the most popular and enduring stories in the Middle High German literary tradition. Through close reading of the text and examining illustrated Wigalois manuscripts, early print editions, and frescoes, Brown explores how ekphrasis structures the narrative, harmonizes potential conflicts in the text, and contributes to the construction of courtly identity. Imagining the Text demonstrates that the vibrant symbiosis of word and image is crucial to the poem’s sustained popularity for more than six hundred years, and contributes to the history of the book and to the study of medieval and modern modes of perception.

This publication uncovers two previously dismissed pre-modern adaptations of the Middle High German Wigalois (1215) by exploring their different approaches to female agency in comparison with the original Wigalois, the Yiddish Viduvilt (14th ct.) and the German Wigoleis (15th ct.). Traditionally, scholarship often concentrated on the Yiddish text presenting female figures as behaving in a "Jewish manner" or embodying famous Jewish mythical figures such as Lilith (see Achim Jaeger / Robert G. Warnock). Rather than trying to argue for or against a figure’s "Jewishness," I evaluate these interpretations from the perspective of Arthurian Literature by showing that the construction of female agency is at the center of all three adaptations of this important chapter of German-Jewish literature and culture.

First published in 2001, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive guide to the German and Dutch-speaking world in the Middle Ages, from approximately C.E. 500 to 1500. It offers detailed accounts of a wide variety of aspects of medieval Germany, including language, literature, architecture, politics, warfare, medicine, philosophy and religion. In addition, this reference work includes bibliographies and citations to aid further study. This A-Z encyclopedia, featuring over 500 entries written by expert contributors, will be of key interest to students and scholars, as well as general readers.