The naked knight
Das Märe Der Nackte Ritter is a Schwank des Strickers , a Middle High German poet from the first half of the 13th century.
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The Schwank shows "how wrong it can go when you want to force something good on someone against his will."
A knight comes to a "landlord", which in Middle High German generally means "host", that is to say to a lord of the castle who entertains him well. The landlord lets his cook feed him well and make a fire. The landlord and his wife have three daughters, they all sit together in the room. When the heat in the room gets too great - nicely ambiguous - the landlord urges his guest by having the servants pull off his outer garment, whereupon it turns out that he is completely naked underneath and is not wearing any underwear. The guest then leaves the castle humiliated and angry.
The knitter adds a warning to the hosts after this story not to do anything against the guest's wishes. However, the punch line can also be seen as ambivalent, as the guest does not prove to be worthy of the exemplary hospitality - which is indicated by the lack of appropriate clothing.
literature
- German literature in the late Middle Ages, 1250-1350. First part. Helmut de Boor : Epic, lyric, didactic, spiritual and historical poetry. Revised by Johannes Janota . OO 1997, p. 207.
Web links
- EText (PDF file; 70 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Janota 1997, p. 207