Peter the Quail Sack

Peter the Wachtelsack (* in the 13th century; † after 1309 ) was a minstrel who lived in western Hungary during the High Middle Ages. There is only one known work by him, the Quail Fairy .

Apart from this minstrel song, there are only very few other testimonies to his life, for example in Ottokar's Styrian rhyming chronicle from the Gaal , where he appears as a messenger from the Güssing people in the course of the Güssing feud . Apparently he had powers to negotiate peace independently. He is mentioned a second time in the rhyme chronicle as the bearer of a letter to the Austrian duke.

Through his rise from royal trumpeter to notary and ambassador, he came to considerable property. His daughter married into the West Hungarian German nobility. The field name Wachtelleiten occurs twice to the northwest of Schwarzenbach Castle , which could be traced back to him.

The Wachtelmärme was probably composed by him as a young minstrel around the middle of the 13th century; its last documentary appearance dates back to 1309.

literature

• Alfred Ratz: Peter the quail sack. The knight poetry in Burgenland. Berger, Horn et al. 1949 ( Burgenland Research. Issue 7, ISSN  1608-2559 ).