Gerhard Atze

Gerhard Atze (mentioned in a document in Thuringia in 1196 ; † after 1205 ) was a servant of Landgrave Hermann I , to whom two songs by Walther von der Vogelweides around 1204 and 1205 refer.

Life

Apart from a documentary mention as a witness in 1196 - possibly also in 1252 - nothing more is known about Gerhard Atze. He is likely to have worked as a ministerial or official at the Thuringian court around 1200 . Two of the earliest German poems written by Walther von der Vogelweide (songs 104, 7-22 and 82, 11-23) entwine around his presumably somewhat idiosyncratic person. The song Mir hât Hêr Gèrhart Atze ein pfert eschozzen zisenache is about a bizarre legal dispute before the common employer, the landgrave. The legal dispute was triggered by the fact that Gerhard Atze Walther is said to have killed a horse worth three marks in Eisenach because a related horse had previously bitten off a little finger from Gerhard Atze. Walther was supposed to refute the absurd assertion of kin liability for horses. The frame is fictional and makes Atze ridiculous. The alleged loss of the little finger threatened to result in perjury punishment. Walther also referred to Gerhart Atze in a second poem. A squire had the choice of either riding a golden cat or Gerhart Atze: Neither would you like to ride a guldîn katzen, / alder a wonderful Gêrhart Atzen , with which Walther equated Jacob Grimm Atze with a donkey.

literature

• Christoph Schmitz-Scholeman: Preliminary remark 2. Everything began in Eisenach , in: Literature, Law and Music: Conference in the Nordkolleg Rendsburg from September 16 to 18, 2005, BWV Verlag, 2007, p. 12.
• Tomas Tomasek: Thoughts on the Walthers 'Atze' sayings in: Lingua Germanica: Studies on German Philology; Jochen Splett on his 60th birthday, Waxmann Verlag, 1998, pp. 333–341.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Otto Dobencker: Regesta diplomatica necnon epistolaria Historiae Thuringia, Jena, 1900, ff. Unchanged reprint 1986, Regeste 999.
2. ↑ See German Dictionary, Volume 1, Column 596.