That from Kürenberg

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That of Kürenberg ( Great Heidelberg Song Manuscript , early 14th century). The "talking" coat of arms shows a blue hand mill with a red handle

The von Kürenberg was a Middle High German poet of Minnelieder in the 12th century.

Tradition and author

The tradition

Under the name Der von Kürenberg, 15 stanzas have come down to us in the Great Heidelberg Song Manuscript (Sigle: C; written just after 1300); of the somewhat older 'Budapest Song Manuscript' (Sigle: Bu; Vizkelety found similarities in the phonetic level with manuscripts created in the last two decades of the 13th century) only fragments, a total of three sheets, are included; including the headline 'Der Herr von Kürenberg' and the first 9 of the 'Kürenberger strophes'. According to the linguistic findings, Bu was written in the Bavarian-Austrian dialect in the Danube region between Regensburg and Vienna.

The author

It is not known whether the collector had an author's name or whether he only derived the name from the words “in Kürenberges wîse” in the so-called 'Zinnenlied'. The formula is also interpreted as a family name, whereby Worstbrock has pointed out that only in the tradition of Bu there is an education that was already in use for the 12th century. He translates accordingly: "in the melody of the Kürenberger". There are several places called 'Kürnberg' (or similar): they are to be kvern; `` Mill '' formed shortly . Among these "mill mountains", the Kürnberger Forest west of Linz on the Danube was often mentioned as the poet's possible home. The argument for this was that the most stylistically and thematically related poems are the songs of Dietmar von Aist ; the Aist flows into the Danube near Linz. In addition to several settlements in Bavaria, a settlement in today's St. Peter in der Au , also located near the mouth of the Aist, is called Kürnberg .

Whether the poet belonged to the ministerial family of the Kürenbergers, which can be found in various places in Bavaria in the 12th century and in what is now Upper and Lower Austria, cannot naturally be inferred from the stanzas, but this assumption is plausible. The only thing that is clear and undisputed is that he belongs to the group of Danubian minstrels . Since the manuscript Bu comes from the poet's homeland and the same order of the stanzas in C and Bu shows that both manuscripts go back to an older collection, it is likely that the naming of the author is not a fiction of the time around 1300, but that actually a ' Herr von Kürenberg 'was the author. However, this does not help to identify with a certain person. There were several attempts at identification; recently by Peter Volk.

Volk wants to identify the minstrel Kürenberger as Sigihard, brother of Count Heinrich von Schala (both died around 1191/1192) from the Tengelinger tribe and the place referred to as 'Kürenberg' as Kirnberg an der Mank (south of Melk, Lower Austria). This identification of 'Kürenberg' with Kirnberg an der Mank already mentioned in 1857 Moriz Haupt in the comments on 'Minnesang's Spring' a possible alternative to the Kürnberger Wald near Linz; Lachmann - Haupt also mentions documents in which Herren von Kürenberg from the middle of the 12th century to 1217 are mentioned. However, such attempts at assignment can never attain evidential value.

The stanza form

The traditional stanzas of the Kürenberger use two different stanzan forms ; the majority the second, which is referred to in the 'Zinnenlied' as 'Kürenberges wîse' and therefore counts as the actual 'Kürenberger strophe'. It was adopted from the Nibelungenlied and is therefore the best known medieval stanza form. It consists of four long lines, each of which is separated into two half-lines by a caesura. The anverse (first half lines) have four syllables (= have four stressed syllables); the verses of the first three verses are three-carved, the fourth is four-carved. The longer closing line emphasizes the closeness of the stanza. There is no record of a melody to which these stanzas could be sung.

Dating and reference to the Nibelungenlied

The dating of the Kürenberger stanzas is very uncertain; they give a rather old-fashioned impression; long-line stanzas are no longer to be expected in poetry after 1200. With the exception of a few anonymous stanzas (or in the collective manuscripts, obviously incorrect, handed down under the names of lecturers of the later 13th century, but actually anonymous stanzas), none of the songs of German minnesong make a more ancient impression than those of the Kürenberger. He is therefore described as the oldest known poet of love poetry in the German language. This relative dating to the other minstrels offers little help for absolute dating in years. The absolute dating of the Kürenberger also plays a role in the discussion of how closely the connection between the Kürenberger stanzas and the 'Nibelungenlied' is to be seen.

The very early dating (before 1160), which is mostly given, also in the article by Günther Schweikle in the 'author's lexicon', is based on just one argument: Heinrich names his abbot Erkenfried in his poem 'Von des todes gehugede'. Erkenfried von Melk died in 1163; there were few places where there was an abbot with this rare name; the identification is therefore very likely, and the designation of this author as Heinrich von Melk and the dating is right. In this poem, which demands asceticism instead of the enjoyment of life, he mentions the knight's troutliet singing ('singing love songs'), which leads to hell. It is believed that this already testifies to the existence of courtly minstrels, the earliest representative of which is the Kürenberger. The Kürenberger should therefore be scheduled by 1160 at the latest. This argument is not only weak, but even untrustworthy: Heinrich von Melk means by the troutliet probably unproblematic love songs in the style of the anonymous little songs, as they should be for the earlier time. The Kürenberger testifies to a reflective handling of the problem, which is still alien to the naive little songs that Heinrich von Melk accuses the knights of. The Kürenberger already reflects the courtly love culture. The popularity of scavenger hunt and its availability as a literary symbol should also not be addressed too early. A later date, around 1180, is therefore also being considered.

The literary environment

The 'falcon song' by Kürenberger and 'Kriemhild's falcon dream'

In addition to the thematic relationship with the songs of Dietmar von Aist, the connection that the Nibelungenlied makes to the Kürenberger is obvious: it uses its stanzan form, and the plot begins with a Kriemhild's dream of a falcon, which evokes the Kürenberger's 'falcon song'. The relationship between the texts is as follows: The Kürenberger's 'falcon song' ( Minnesangs Frühling 8.33; wording after C) reads:

'I give myself a valken mêre danne a jâr.
Dô me in zamete when I in wolte hân,
and I in sîn gevidere with gold wol,
he huop himself ûf vil hôhe and vlouc in otheriu lant.

I raised a falcon for over a year.
When I had tamed it the way I wanted it,
and when I had beautifully wound its plumage with gold thread, it
rose up and flew into foreign territory.

then 'as' in the comparative. - gezamen , tame; tame'. - overcome ' wrap around '.

Sît I sach the valken schône viegen:
he vuorte an sînem vuoze sîdîne belt,
and what in sîn gevidere alrôt guldîn.
Got send si zesamene, the geliep waves like to be. '

Since then I have seen the falcon fly beautifully:
it had silk straps on its handle ('foot'),
and its plumage was completely red-gold.
God send them together who would like to be dear to one another.

in 'him'. - al-rôt 'very red'. - ge-liep love one another. - wellen subjunctive (indicative would be wel-lent).

The last line proves that the falcon is a symbol for a person and not an escaped hunting falcon. Peter Wapnewski found out that in the falconer's language, 'otheri lant' means 'foreign territories'. The 'I' of the song is likely to be thought of as a woman trying to tie her lover to herself; he tore himself loose and 'flew into foreign territories'. But he still carries the traces of the old bond with him (a falcon wearing the jewelry of a strange owner could not be recognized by a falconer, even if he circled over the old territory from time to time), and from this the female 'I' draws the hope that he could return. The audience will find this attitude unrealistic. Also, hardly anyone will trust the woman to realize that her attempt to tie the man to himself is contrary to his desire for freedom. “Those who would love to love one another” is not the reality and is not prevented by the mistresses of the “other countries” (obviously other women he is interested in, but without being bound by them in the same way), but it is one-sided Hope of the woman with no prospect of fulfillment.

Wapnewski's interpretation has been contradicted several times, but all alternative attempts overlook important details; either that the last line clarifies the symbolic character of the falcon, or that it is only possible to recognize one's own jewelry, not that of someone else's, and that the songs of early minnesong generally address the contradiction of the male urge for freedom against the woman's desire to bond. The original audience could see nothing in the 'I' other than a woman talking about the loss of the loved one.

The stanza form "Kürenbergerstrophe" was taken over from the Nibelungenlied, which not only corresponds to it formally, but also in Kriemhild's Falkentraum, according to general opinion, evokes the Kürenberger's 'falcon song'; older versions of the Nibelungenlied contain even more precise details than the main version 'B' of the Nibelungenlied, namely both the version 'A' and the reflex in Old Norse in the Völsunga saga (13th century), which translates the German Nibelung poems into Old Norse . The texts are: Nibelungenlied version 'B', verse 11:

In these heights, Kriemhilde dreamed of how she wriggled
a valken, starc, beautiful and wilde,
the two arenas, that you had to see that,
unfortunately, any inquiry in dirre will not happen.

Instead, Nibelungenlied Hs. A has in the first two lines:

Kriemhilde was dreaming in virtues, the si pflac,
like si a wild valken towards manigen tac.

The words “manigen tac” are not found in the Nibelungenlied 'B'.
The Völsunga saga, chap. 25, before the murder of Sigurd / Siegfried, Gudrun / Kriemhild lets her confidante tell a fearful dream that begins like this:

Þat dreymdi mik, at ek sá an fagran hauk mér á hendi. Fjaðrar hans váru með gulligum lit.
I dreamed that I saw a beautiful falcon on my hand. Its plumage was colored with gold.

This motif of the Kürenberger Falkenlied is not found in any German version of the Nibelungenlied. These observations bring the tradition in which the Nibelungenlied is even closer to that of the Kürenberger. However, speculation as to whether the author of the two could have been the same person is futile.

The Nibelungenlied can be grasped spatially and temporally insofar as it has been passed down anonymously, but contains references to its origin: While no spatial details are told at the main locations of the narrative (a large part of the plot takes place in Worms, but we do not learn any details about these City), both the procession of Kriemhilds von Worms to her second marriage with the Hun king Etzel, whose kingdom is commemorated in Hungary, as well as the procession of her brothers, the Burgundy kings, who follow their treacherous invitation to go into decline, from Worms to the Hunnisch-Hungarian royal court, on the section between Passau and Hainburg (then: border with Hungary; today: border between Austria and Slovakia) precisely described with numerous place names. Both Kriemhild and then her brothers come through the city of Passau, where they are accommodated by the bishop, who is her uncle. On this occasion, not only is the name of the bishop of Passau mentioned (Pilgrim; a historical bishop of the late 10th century who was active in the missionary work of Hungary), but also a monastery and the town's merchants, and it is mentioned that the Inn 'mit fluzze' ("with a strong current") flows into the Danube (Nibelungenlied version B Str. 1292). Kriemhild's wedding to Etzel, king of the Huns, then takes place in Vienna. From these passages of the Nibelungenlied we cannot infer the person of the author, but the naming of places that are irrelevant for the saga and the relocation of events of the saga to these places can only have the function of being the home of the audience or the To include mansions of patrons in the seal. This brings us to the diocese of Passau, to which Vienna and Austria belonged up to the Hungarian border, and in this in particular to the bishop's court in Passau and the ducal court in Vienna; Only Wolfger von Erla (Bishop of Passau 1191-1204) is documented as a literary patron of the Passau bishops at that time . Wolfger's community of interests with the Austrian duke existed primarily under Leopold VI's government . (from 1198). Such clues make it possible not to prove the time of origin of the Nibelungenlied, but to fix it on the basis of presumptions to the years just before 1204. By naming a monastery and the merchants in Passau in the Nibelungenlied one comes to further personal references of the author to a wealthy audience in Passau itself. In this room, even if not at the Passau bishop's court, but on one of the aristocratic seats on a 'Mühlenberg' of this room or at the seat of a family named after such a family, the Kürenberger's poetry apparently originated.

Interpretation of other well-known stanzas of the Kürenberger

In addition to the so-called 'Falkenlied', which is famous both for its own sake and is quoted in the author's question because of the question of its relationship to the Nibelungenlied, the so-called 'Zinnenlied' is also worthy of interpretation and widely interpreted for its own sake because of the mention of "Kürenberges wîse" in works on the author question. Here an old interpretation of the “Zinnenlied” and more recent attempts to find alternative interpretations are presented.

The 'Zinnenlied'

In both manuscripts, C and Bu, the following two stanzas can be found one after the other (Minnesang's Spring 8.1):

'I'm not late at a pinnacle
when I heard a rîter vil wol singing
in Kürenberg's wîse al ûz der menigîn.
He must rûmen diu lant for me, alder I enjoy myself. '

I stood on a pinnacle late at night.
Then I heard a knight
sing beautifully out of the crowd in the Kürenberger melody.
He has to leave me behind if I can't enjoy him.

stuont me 'stood me' = 'stood'. - alder 'or'. - rivet 'enjoy yourself '. - sîn genitive.

(Minnesang's Spring 8.9):

Jô stuont I nehtint late before dînem bed,
dô fooled you, vrouwe, niwet wake up.
'Des gehazze got the dînen lîp!
Jô enwas I niht a wild boar! ', Sô said daz wîp.

 Late at night I stood in front of your bed
when I didn't dare wake you, mistress.
For that God should hate you!
I wasn't a wild boar! 'Said the woman.

turren 'dare'. - dînen lîp 'you' (literally: 'your body').

A few stanzas later, only after Bu was broken off, and therefore only passed on in C, the following stanza can be found (MF 9.29):

Nû brinc me her vil balde mîn ros, mîn îsengewant,
wan I muoz one vrouwen rûmen diu lant,
diu wil des betwingen me, that I fetch you.
Si muoz the mîner minne iemer sîn.

Now bring me my horse and my armor at once,
for I have to evacuate a lady;
she wants to force me to love her.
She must do without my love forever.

vil balde 'very soon' = 'immediately'. - îsengewant 'armor' ('iron garment '). - wan ‚then; because'. - get sîn to be ' kind ' (someone) = 'love' (someone). - the here genitive fem. (Article on minne ). - darbe n (with the genitive of the thing) 'do without'.

In the opinion of many interpreters, the verse Minnesang Frühling 9,8 is a parody of the knight of the 'Zinnenlied', but not as it appears in verse 8.1, but as it appears in Str. 9.29. That would be a sign of understanding stanzas 8.1 and 9.29 as a song that was torn into two parts by the collector of the original from Bu and C, because he believed 8.9 to be the second stanza of the song. In the interpretation given by Carl von Kraus, 9.29 is the knight's reaction to the mistress' request to force him to love. The lady's elevated position - she stands on top of the battlement; the knight down in the crowd - symbolizes the difference in class: she appears as the sovereign; the singer has to obey her command. His pride does not allow that. He prefers exile to forced love. St. 8,9, a 'change' (that is, knight and lady speak alternately), exposes the knight's thirst for freedom and pride as an excuse for the man who is afraid of the woman and, in order not to have to admit this, masculine Pleading for freedom and pride. If one understands St. 8,9 as a parody, it is difficult to arrange any other arrangement than to combine 9.29 with 8.1 and relate 8.9 to 9.29. But one can also understand these stanzas for themselves; one attempt was made by Blank.

further reading

  • Edition: Spring of Minstrels. Edited by Karl Lachmann and Moriz Haupt, Berlin 1857, 38th edition, 1988 edited by Hugo Moser and Helmut Tervooren.
  • Joachim Bumke: History of German Literature in the High Middle Ages . 1990, p. 84 f.
  • Rolf Grimminger: Poetics of Early Minnesang (MTU 27, 1969).
  • The first phase of German minnesang (around 1150–1170): The "Donauländische Minnesang" and the Kürenberger. In: Sieglinde Hartmann: German love poetry from Minnesang to Oswald von Wolkenstein . Wiesbaden 2012, pp. 79-95.
  • Peter Kern: The Kürenberg texts in the Manessian manuscript and in the Budapest fragment. In: Origin and types of medieval poetry manuscripts. Files from the Graz Symposium 13. – 17. October 1999. Edited by Anton Schwob and András Vizkelety (Yearbook for International German Studies, Series A, Congress Reports, Vol. 52). Peter Lang, Bern. Pp. 143-163.
  • Hellmut Rosenfeld:  The one from Kürenberg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 232 ( digitized version ).
  • Christel Schmid: The songs of the Kürenberg collection. Single verses or cyclical units? (GAG 301), Kümmerle Verlag, Göppingen 1980.
  • Meinolf Schumacher : Introduction to the German literature of the Middle Ages . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-534-19603-6 , p. 123 f.
  • Günther Schweikle: The one from Kürenberg. In: The German literature of the Middle Ages - author's lexicon . 2., completely reworked. Ed. Vol. 5 (Koc-Mar), 1985, Col. 454-461.
  • Günther Schweikle: . The mhd I love poetry . 1977 (nhd. Translation).
  • Peter Wapnewski: The Kürenberger's falcon song. In: Euphorion 53, 1959, pp. 1-19. Reprinted in: Peter Wapnewski: Waz is minne. Studies on Middle High German poetry. Munich 1975.
  • Bernd Weil: The Kürenberger's hawk song. Frankfurt am Main 1985.
  • Max Wehrli: German Poetry of the Middle Ages Selection and translation by Max Wehrli, Zurich 1955.

Web links

Wikisource: Der von Kürenberg  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ András Vizkeleti: The Budapest song manuscript. In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 110 (1988), pp. 387–407. Here p. 398 ff. Several contributions from the Graz Symposium 13. – 17. October 1999: Origin and types of medieval poetry manuscripts. Files ed. Anton Schwob and András Vizkelety (Yearbook for International German Studies, Series A, Congress Reports, Vol. 52 Bern: Peter Lang, 2001) dealt with the question of the dating and localization of the Budapest manuscript and the meaning of the author assignments in the song manuscripts; however, they have not led to any significant modification of Vizkelety's results: the more precise an attempt to assign to a place of writing, the more hypothetical it appears.
  2. ^ Franz Josef Worstbrock: The tradition of the Budapest minnesang fragments. On the historicity of medieval text variance. In: Wolfram-Studien 15 (1998), pp. 114–142. Here: p. 135.
  3. Peter Volk: The Queen of the Manessian song manuscript. On the historicity of the Kürenberger. Alemannisches Jahrbuch 1999–2000 (2001) pp. 225–256.
  4. The Spring of Minstrels. Edited by Karl Lachmann and Moriz Haupt, Berlin 1857.
  5. The Song of the Nibelungs. Edited from the St. Gallen manuscript and explained by Hermann Reichert, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2005. (p. 373 ff.)
  6. Völsunga saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, Chap. 25th
  7. ^ Hermann Reichert: The Brynhildlieder of the Edda in a European context. In: Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. The Seventh International Saga Conference, Spoleto, September 4-10, 1988 (Centro Italiano di Studi sull 'Alto Medioevo. XII congresso internazionale di studi sull' Alto Medioevo), Spoleto 1990, pp. 571-596, pp. 577 ff.
  8. The Song of the Nibelungs. Edited from the St. Gallen manuscript and explained by Hermann Reichert, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2005 (p. 347 ff.).
  9. ^ Walter Blank: Minnesang Parodies. In: Poetry and utility literature in the German Middle Ages. Würzburg Colloquium 1978. Ed. Volker HONEMANN et al., Tübingen 1979, pp. 205-218.