Ulrich von Zatzikhoven

Ulrich von Zatzikhoven was the author of the Arthurian romance Lanzelet in Middle High German.

Ulrich's name and his place of origin (Zezikon) are only known definitively from the work itself. However, it is generally accepted that Ulrich is the same person as a lay priest ("Leutpriester") from Lommis in the canton of Thurgau by the name of Uolricus de Cecinchoven, who occurs as a witness to a deed of gift dated 29 March 1214, executed by the family of the Counts of Toggenburg in favour of the monastery of St. Peterzell.

The Middle High German verse romance Lanzelet is Ulrich's only known work, and is an imitation of an unknown Old French Arthurian romance. The hero of the work is Sir Lancelot, whose story had also been told a little earlier by Chrétien de Troyes in his Le Chevalier de la Charette (Knight of the Cart).

However, the content of Ulrich's Lancelot romance differs considerably from that of Chrétien's. Ulrich himself calls his model daz welsche buoch von Lanzelete (V. 9341) ("the French book of Lancelot"), and claims that it came to Germany in the luggage of the Anglo-Norman nobleman Hugh de Morville, one of the hostages for King Richard the Lionheart. Richard was imprisoned by the Staufen Emperor Henry VI from 21 December 1192 to 4 February 1194, and Ulrich would have had to become acquainted with the book in this period. By extension, it is presumed that Lanzelet was produced not long after 1193 in an unknown place.

Weblinks

• Template:PND
• E-Text in the Bibliotheca Augustana
• Cod. Pal. germ. 371: Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Lanzelet (the late mediaeval illuminated Heidelberg Lanzelet MS)

This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia.