George song
The Georgslied is an Old High German poem from the end of the 9th century .
In a handwriting of the first known Old High German poet Otfrid von Weißenburg (* approx. 800 , † after 870 ) at the turn of or at the beginning of the 11th century, an unknown scribe entered the Old High German poem of the Georgslied. The song tells of the conversion, the condemnation, the martyrdom and the miracles of the Cappadocian arch martyr and soldier saint George , whose festival was and is celebrated on April 23rd. The Old High German Georgslied is based on the Latin versions that emerged in the 9th century and which process the oldest Greek legend of St. George from the 5th century. Perhaps the Georgslied goes back to the end of the 9th century, perhaps the written version of the song was preceded by a longer oral tradition, but perhaps there was also a written model. Sometimes the authorship of the poet Otfrid was considered.
The Georgslied consists of about 57 verses in ten stanzas that have been handed down to us, which the writer has reproduced in an inadequate spelling. Alemannic and Franconian dialect features are present, some points to Rhine and Middle Franconian. Orthographic similarities can be found in the early High German Murbach hymns from the first quarter of the 9th century and glosses, which in turn are related to the early medieval Reichenau monastery ; Deliberate letter rearrangements, as they also occur in the Reichenau fraternization book , also occur.
When it comes to classifying the Georgslied in the general context of the early medieval veneration of George, the (historical and Germanistic) medieval studies do not agree. The Old High German Georg seal could have originated in the Eifel monastery of Prüm . The Carolingian house monastery had received an arm relic of the Cappadocian saint in 852 from Emperor Lothar I (840–855), the older brother of Louis the German. Thus Prüm became a center of the East Franconian veneration of George. But the creation of the Georgslied in Swabia or on the Reichenau does not seem to be excluded. By the Archbishop of Mainz and Reichenau Abbot Hatto III. (891–913) St. George's relics came to Swabia, a. a. the "Georgshaupt" to the Georgskirche in Reichenau-Oberzell ( 896 ). The fact that an intensive veneration of George spread from the Bodensee monastery in Swabia and beyond can be seen from the cult line, which extends from the Reichenau to the monastery of St. Georgen in the Black Forest (1084/1085). The linguistic findings of the Georgslied also refer more to Swabia and Reichenau.
literature
- Wolfgang Haubrichs : Georgslied and Georgslegende in the early Middle Ages. Text and reconstruction . Scriptor, Königstein iT 1979, ISBN 3-589-20573-3 .
- Eckhard Meineke, Judith Schwerdt: Introduction to Old High German . (= UTB 2167). Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2001, p. 115ff, ISBN 3-8252-2167-9 .
