Edition and translation of the first freely invented German Arthurian romance. Der Stricker's Daniel is the first freely invented German Arthurian romance, bringing the genre to a new level of originality. Beginning with Hartmann von Aue's Erec (c.1185) and up until Daniel (c.1210-25), German poets had drawn their tales of King Arthur's knights exclusively from the world of the French romance, most commonly from the oeuvre of the great romançier Chrétien de Troyes; but in relating his eponymous hero's adventuresagainst giants, dwarves and fellow knights, der Stricker made a clean break with this tradition, claims that he received his story from the French poet Alberich de Besançon being considered a formula only. This volume presents for the first time together both the original Middle High German text of Daniel and a full English rendering of the 8,482 verses, on facing pages; the text is accompanied by extensive notes, bibliography, and index. MICHAEL RESLER is Professor of German Studies, Boston College, Massachusetts.

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.

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.

After an extensive introduction that takes stock of the relevant research literature on Old Age in the Middle Ages and the early modern age, the contributors discuss the phenomenon of old age in many different fields of late antique, medieval, and early modern literature, history, and art history. Both Beowulf and the Hildebrandslied, both Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel, both the figure of Merlin and the trans-European tradition of Perceval/Peredur/Parzival, then the figure of the vetula in a variety of medieval French, English, and Spanish texts, and of the Old Man in The Stricker's Daniel, both the treatment of old age in Langland's Piers the Plowman and in Jean Gerson's sermons are dealt with. Other aspects involve late-antique epistolary literature, early modern French farce in light of Disability Studies, the social role of old, impotent men in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlandish paintings, and the scientific discourse of old age and health since the 1500s. The discourse of Old Age proves to have been of central importance throughout the ages, so the critical examination of the issues involved sheds intriguing light on the cultural history from late antiquity to the seventeenth century.

There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.

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

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes gehen auf eine internationale Tagung zurück, die 2017 in Manchester stattgefunden hat. Sie untersuchen die Darstellung von Geschichte in der mittelalterlichen deutschen Literatur auf der Basis von aktuellen erzähltheoretischen Forschungsansätzen. Dabei wird ein breites Spektrum an Texten, Gattungen und Diskursen in den Blick genommen; als Angelpunkt für zahlreiche relevante Fragestellungen erweist sich die im 12. Jahrhundert entstandene ›Kaiserchronik‹. Geleitet von der Erkenntnis, dass Vergangenheit erst im Erzählen zu Geschichte wird, analysieren die Beiträge einschlägige narrative Strategien.