Introduction

What marks out the German literature of the period 1100 to 1450 is the emergence and establishment of an autonomous German literary culture in written form, such as had not existed in the previous period. From the late eleventh century onwards it is possible to see a realignment of the relationship between German writings and Latin writings, and between written literature in the vernacular and oral tradition.

Let us take just one area as an example. The new German vernacular biblical epic in couplet verse begins in the second half of the eleventh century with the Altdeutsche Genesis (also known as the Vienna Genesis, most likely c. 1060–1100), continues in the twelfth century with the Altdeutsche Exodus (probably c. 1100–30), the biblical poems of Frau Ava (probably d. 1127), the Vorauer Bucher Mosis (The Vorau Books of Moses, probably c. 1130–40), the Anegenge (The beginning, probably 1170–80) and the Kindheit Jesu (The childhood of Christ) by Konrad von Fuβesbrunnen (probably c. 1190–1200). These major narrative texts in Middle High German provide a literary context for the Mittelfrankische Reimbibel (The Central Franconian rhymed Bible), an extensive compendium of Old and New Testament matter including stories of the martyrs and early Christian history in German verse (early twelfth-century, only fragments survive); for the Annolied (The song of Anno, c. 1077–81), where for the first time historiographical matters are addressed in German verse; and for the first European vernacular chronicle in verse, the mid-twelfth-century Kaiserchronik (The chronicle of the emperors). We know of no directly comparable traditions of written narrative literature in German before this period - notwithstanding Otfrid and the shorter Old High German poems.