The verse narrative Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach - one of the most important German authors of the Middle Ages - is a historical-legendary novel based on French heroic poems ("chansons de geste"). It tells the love story of Willehalm, Count of Toulouse, and Arabel, daughter of a Muslim king, and reflects the history of the conflict between these two medieval cultures. Since the 1360s it has been integrated into a unique cycle, together with the Arabel by Ulrich von dem Türlin, which tells the backstory, and the Rennewart, which tells the continuation. More than ten manuscripts and numerous fragments of this cycle have survived. (ber)

Online Since: 06/18/2020

This paper manuscript contains three rare prose adaptations of verse epics in High Alemannic. In addition to the Zürcher Buch vom Heilgen Karl, which connects Charlemagne's biography with the foundation legend of the Zurich Cathedral, and the Heroic tale Willehalm, the codex has a Lob eines alten Mannes auf die Liebe seiner Frau, which consists of three excerpts from the first translation of Niklas von Wyle. While the first two works are each witnessed by two other manuscripts, the last text of this compilation appears only in this manuscript. The mention of a scribe named Heirich on f. 69va dates this part to 1483. (bos)

Online Since: 12/11/2024