King Rother and His Bride: Quest and Counter-Quests (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

King Rother and His Bride

Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture

King Rother and His Bride Quest and Counter-Quests Thomas Kerth

Rochester, New York

Copyright © 2010 Thomas Kerth All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2010 by Camden House Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.camden-house.com and of Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN-13: 978-1-57113-436-3 ISBN-10: 1-57113-436-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kerth, Thomas. King Rother and his bride : quest and counter-quests / Thomas Kerth. p. cm. — (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-57113-436-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-57113-436-0 (hardcover) 1. König Rother. 2. Courtship in literature. 3. Kings and rulers in literature. 4. Epic poetry, German — History and criticism. I. Title. PT1551.K63K47 2010 831.'21—dc22 2009048039 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America.

For George C. Schoolfield Im Zeitstrome bleiben oben Die Werke, die den Meister loben. Wers umkehrt, ist Gesell; sein Werkchen trinkt Des Stroms und sinkt. —Klopstock

Contents Foreword

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

1: Minstrels and Bridal Quests

1

2: Sources and History

21

3: Rother

45

4: Constantin and his Queen

63

5: Rother’s Quest

87

6: The Active Bride

107

7: Merging Quests

120

8: Counter-Quest

158

9: Doubled Quest

168

10: Reconciliation and Consent

182

11: Eternal Quest

192

12: Conclusion

210

Bibliography

223

Index

245

Foreword

T

in its various forms is one of the major themes of international folklore and world literature. Individual treatments of this theme reflect varying cultural traditions, but their superficial differences reveal themselves to be mere variations on the same basic set of narrative structures and the same constellation of narrative motifs. The overwhelming majority of bridal quests are structured solely from the perspective of the wooer, and logically so, since in most cultures it is, at least officially, the male who initiates the courting ritual. The main conflict in the quest does not concern the willingness of the bride to accept the proposal of her wooer, but whether the prospective father-in-law deems the wooer of sufficient status to marry his daughter. The bride herself is almost always a relatively passive figure in these negotiations. Bridal quests were particularly popular in German and Scandinavian literature of the twelfth century, both as episodes within larger narratives and as independent works. The German minstrel epics dating from the last half of that century are all structured as perilous bridal quests, in which the wooer, concealing his identity and true purpose through a series of successful ruses, defies the objections of the bride’s father or guardian and abducts her with her consent. König Rother (King Rother), the earliest of the minstrel epics, differs from those to follow, in that the quest structure is doubled: Rother must win his bride a second time from her father, who has re-abducted her. Another exceptional feature of this text is the portrayal of Rother’s (unnamed) bride, the daughter of King Constantin of Constantinople, who plays a much more active role in her own wooing than her counterparts in the other minstrel epics and, indeed, in bridal quests in general. The purpose of the present study is to rebalance the traditional focus in scholarly studies on the male protagonists of König Rother and the rivalry between wooer and father, Rother and Constantin, by examining the portrayal of the female characters: Constantin’s wife, his daughter, and, to a lesser extent, her lady-in-waiting, Herlint. Our analysis will demonstrate that the poet has also employed the normally male-oriented structure of the bridal quest as a means of elevating the narrative function of the bride from that of passive object, whose fate is determined exclusively by the outcome of the rivalry between wooer and father, to active subject. She undertakes her own wooing expedition, limited as it is by her circumstances, that is structured essentially as a parallel counter-quest for the groom. In the course of this counter-quest she displays her own HE BRIDAL QUEST

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cunning through a series of both successful and unsuccessful ruses. This underscores her status as Rother’s equal and demonstrates that they are destined for each other; they are, in modern parlance, soul mates. The quest structure additionally serves, in a consciously negative version, as the basis for Constantin’s counter-quest to regain custody of his daughter after she has eloped with Rother and for Rother’s second, doubled, quest to retrieve her from him. Initial elements of the bridal-quest structure can even be found in the events that lead up to the decision by the elderly spouses to enter the monastic life at the end of the epic. The elevation of the bride to a subject of the action demands that the traditional analysis of the text based upon the bipolar conflict of status between wooer and father in the bridal quest be reconsidered to include a third point in a triangular competition to assert preeminence. As the text makes clear, no one is more concerned about her status than the bride herself: every action she takes in her counter-quest has as its goal the assessment of Rother’s worthiness to be her groom, the very same consideration that led Rother to seek her as his bride. Their quests for each other intersect when wooer and bride meet face to face in secret for the first time and each is permitted to assess the qualities of the other without regard for the intermediating and negative figure of her father. From this moment they share a common purpose, and their separate quests merge. Our analysis will reassess the often debated issues of the intended bride’s actions toward and the nature of her regard for Rother’s alter ego, Dietrich, and whether the secret meeting between Rother and his intended bride constitutes an engagement ritual or is to be regarded as the marriage act itself. King Rother represents the idealized and exemplary ruler of the West, and his union with the princess of Constantinople is often understood as symbolic of the translation of power from the ancient survivor of the Roman Empire in Byzantium to a new world order in Western Europe: according to the text, their grandson is Charlemagne, the first modern ruler to style himself emperor of Rome. The text contains numerous references to historical personages and places, as well as assertions that the work is not fiction, but history. In the course of this analysis we will address the historical and political subtext of the narrative: the portrayal of Rother and Constantin in light of contemporary views on kingship and the feudal compact; the historical figures that have been proposed as models for their respective characters; the negative representation of Constantinople both as a product of prejudice based on the experiences of western diplomats and Crusaders, as well as its function as a negative narrative space in the bridal-quest structure; the political and feudal implications of the relationship between Constantin and his queen; the portrayal of the Moslem rivals for world domination; the legitimacy of Rother’s heir and the significance of his knighting; and the political implications of Rother’s decision to abdicate and enter the monastic life.

Abbreviations ABäG

Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik

ATB

Altdeutsche Textbibliothek

DVjs

Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte

GAG

Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik

GRM

Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift

HRG

Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte

JEGP

Journal of English and Germanic Philology

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

MTU

Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen

PBB

Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur

PBBH

Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle)

PL

Patrologiæ cursus completus sive bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, œconomica, omnium SS. patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum

PSuQ

Philologische Studien und Quellen

ZfdA

Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur

ZfdPh

Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie

WdF

Wege der Forschung

1: Minstrels and Bridal Quests

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ROTHER IS THE EARLIEST of the works that comprise the genre traditionally designated as the minstrel epic, Spielmannsepik, anonymous verse narratives that were once believed to have been recited by a minstrel (Middle High German spil[e]man), either itinerant or resident, before a courtly audience.1 Alone among contemporary epics of the twelfth century, these works show no hint of French influence, as do, for example, the classically inspired Eneide (Aeneas, ca. 1175–86) by Heinrich von Veldeke or Pfaffe Lamprecht’s Alexander (ca. 1150), or Konrad’s Rolandslied (Song of Roland, ca. 1170), a chanson de geste. They seem to have been an entirely indigenous development in German literature, based on folkloric tradition that “antedates the fashion of French romance” (Andersson 1987, 68).2 The works generally included among the minstrel epics, in addition to König Rother, are Orendel, St. Oswald, Salman und Morolf, and, usually, Herzog Ernst.3 There is, however, no known documentary evidence to support the assertion that they were composed by minstrels, nor that there was, at the time of their composition, a distinct class or guild of minstrels who were regarded or who regarded themselves not merely as entertainers and reciters, but as composers of epics (Naumann 1924/77, 135–37). The validity of both the terms “minstrel” and “minstrel epic” in this context, and exactly what they mean, has been a subject of scholarly controversy ever since the term Spielmann was first used by Wilhelm Grimm — in his 1808 essay “Über die Entstehung der altdeutschen Poesie und ihr Verhältnis zu der nordischen” (Concerning the Emergence of Old German Poesy and Its Relationship to the Nordic) — to designate the reciter of such tales. While a detailed examination of the genre and its history lies beyond the scope of this study, a brief discussion of the Spielmann and the nature of his putative Spielmannsepen can serve as reminders of the issues involved for those familiar with the subject and inform those who are not.4 Grimm’s Spielmann was meant to designate, contrary to the medieval meanings of the word — spielmann, fahrender sänger, musikant, gaukler (minstrel, wandering poet, musician, mime)5 — not a low entertainer, but a preserver of the oral tradition of Volkspoesie (poetry of a nation), as that concept was understood by J. G. Herder and the German Romantics: the “Produkte einer dichtenden Volksseele,” products of the soul of a people as manifested in its poetry (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 15), as opposed to Kunstpoesie, artistic works composed by individual poets. The example Grimm ÖNIG

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gives of the “noble minstrel,”6 Volker the Fiddler from the Nibelungenlied, a fierce warrior of noble status also gifted with musical skills, makes it clear that Grimm was not thinking of those medieval itinerant entertainers who peddled their art for money.7 Grimm’s Spielmann was not himself a composer of songs, as, for example, the Celtic bard or the Germanic skop are assumed to have been, but their transmitter. It was left to subsequent literary historians to conflate these two types of singers of tales — transmitter and poet — then to merge them with the figure of the wandering minstrel. Wilhelm Wackernagel was the first to suggest, in his literary history of 1848,8 that the minstrel himself was or could have been an epic poet; this merging of the two roles had been made possible by Ludwig Uhland’s logical observation that Volkspoesie, as the collective poetic expression of a people, can only be expressed by individuals, but individuals whose personal identity disappears within the general character of the people (Waremann 1951, 13n4; Bahr 1954/77, 303–13). In the fourth edition of his own literary history, which appeared after that of Wackernagel, G. G. Gervinus, who had previously regarded the wandering minstrels as the curators (Pfleger) of Volkspoesie, true to Grimm’s original view, changed his mind to agree with Wackernagel. According to this revised scholarly opinion, then, the minstrels are no longer merely disseminators of Volkspoesie; they can also be viewed as poets and composers of epics, “fahrend[e] Lohndichte[r], die die epische Kunst umhertrugen zu Burgen und Höfen,” wandering, paid poets, who spread epic art to castles and courts (Gervinus 1853, 1:192). Maurice O’C. Walshe gives a particularly vivid description of this nineteenth-century view of the Spielmann, which he himself rejected, that persisted well into the twentieth: Who were the authors and retailers of such tales as these? The answer which used to be given was: Spielleute or gleemen; and such works as this were labelled Spielmannsepen. The existence of a numerous class of wandering minstrels and popular entertainers is well enough attested. In Latin they were called mimi or ioculatores, and from this latter word come the French term jongleur and the English juggler. Every fair and market, and doubtless every village inn near a main road, was liable to be visited by a host of travelling singers, dancers, bear-trainers, tightrope-walkers, fire and sword-swallowers and so on; not infrequently, it seems, they were invited to display their arts at the castle of the local bishop or count, though strictly speaking bishops and other clerics were forbidden to receive them. It would be strange if some reciters of tales of love and adventure were not to be found among this motley crew, and it therefore seemed natural enough to scholars to ascribe to them the composition and preservation of such carefree stories as König Rother and the like, and even of more serious tales in which the deeds of old Germanic heroes were narrated. (Walshe 1962, 63–64)

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Walshe was, of course, not the first scholar to question whether or not such itinerant, often illiterate entertainers could be responsible for the composition of epics that demonstrate a relatively broad understanding of historical and, sometimes, theological material. It was particularly the latter that Hans Naumann found incongruous with the idea of the minstrel, that “liederliche[s] Gesindel” (licentious rabble, Naumann 1924/77, 141), which he characterized, in the main, as “musicians, dancers, vaulters, sleight-of-hand swindlers, conjurors, buffoons, fire-eaters, puppeteers, sword-swallowers, fencers, acrobats, tightrope-walkers, circus riders and animal-tamers; in short, all those performers whose artistry consisted of movement and gesture, rather than words, of mimicry rather than poetry” (author’s translation).9 For Naumann, the only possible composers of true literature were knights or clerics, and in the case of minstrel poesy, it must have been the latter: minstrel epics were composed not by the minstrels, but for them (Naumann 1924/77, 138–39.). Karl zur Nieden also recognized the difficulty of ascribing to the same mentality and social stratum the composition of works that would not only find resonance with merrymakers in the village square but also appeal to a courtly audience with more refined taste, and he theorized as to how a distinction between entertainers for mass consumption and those who sought to amuse a more select audience could have developed over time. Based on an examination of minstrel poetry and heroic poetry (Heldendichtung), the dissemination of both of which genres he attributed to the minstrel, as had other scholars before him, zur Nieden suggested a division of minstrels into three categories. First were the low mimi and joculatores, who performed their tricks before a general audience that included the nobility. His second category consists of the best among these low entertainers, who, having abandoned the itinerant life for positions as court poets and private tutors, revealed in their work a constant striving toward the courtly ideal; these poets composed Heldendichtung, as well as certain minstrel epics, König Rother, Herzog Ernst, and Salman und Morolf. The third category is made up of the best of the mimi in the Rhineland, who functioned as religious propagandists and composed the minstrel epics that are more religious in tone, Orendel and St. Oswald (zur Nieden 1930, 168). Most scholars in the second half of the twentieth century also voiced dissatisfaction with the designation “minstrel epic” and sought to free these texts from the constraints implied by assigning their composition to minstrels. Helmut de Boor (1949/79, 238), for example, judiciously terms these texts “so-called” minstrel epics, while Walshe (1962, 53) eliminates the minstrel entirely and emphasizes their place in the literary chronology with the relatively non-committal “pre-courtly epics.” Where subject matter or treatment of themes would suggest that the author is a cleric, not a minstrel, Julius Schwietering (1931/57, 107) speaks of “volkstümliche Legende[n],” popular legends; de Boor (1949/79, 250),

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of “Legendenromane,” legendary romances. Christian Schmid-Cadalbert would create a new genre altogether, the bridal-quest epic, that would include the texts traditionally designated as minstrel epics, minus Herzog Ernst, as well as some of the works currently assigned to heroic poetry, especially Ortnit (1985, 210–11). Walter Haug (1988, 179) notes that Waltharius manu fortis (Walter of the Strong Hand) and Kudrun could also be placed in this bridal-quest genre. Michael Curschmann (1964, 154–55) proposes a slight modification, “Spielmännische Dichtung,” poetry after the fashion of minstrels, that is meant to characterize only the provenance of the plot material and not make leveling assertions about unifying elements such as a style distinctive from other genres or the social status of the poets. However, “der stolze Spielmann” (the proud minstrel), with his roots in the proletariat Volk, still had his modern champion in the East German scholar Ewald Erb, who divides the texts into verse romances and legendary epics after the fashion of minstrels, “Spielmännische Versromane” and “Spielmännische Legendenepen” (1964, 2:753 and 780). Werner Hoffmann (1974, 33) objects not to the term “Spielmann” in the Spielmannsepik, but “Epik”; he would rather term them minstrel romances, a good idea that has not found scholarly support. It is Curschmann’s designation, a compromise that retains the idea of the minstrel who may have disseminated the work, but does not attribute authorship to him, that is now generally employed in histories of literature and other reference works. In truth, the designation of these texts as minstrel poetry, with its roots in nineteenth-century Romanticism and emerging German nationalism,10 is more a term of convenience for literary historians, a passe-partout (de Vries 1922/74, cxiii) that masks their differences, than a meaningful designation that implies specificity; indeed, it says very little about the character of these works as a group. Bearing these considerations in mind, it is simply a matter of convenience to retain the traditional designation, minstrel epic, in these deliberations, at the same time acknowledging that it is inadequate. While it does seem logical to assume that at some point minstrels played a significant role in the development and dissemination of both Spielmannsdichtung and Heldendichtung in smaller narrative forms — songs, ballads, and so forth — during an oral phase preceding their textualization as full-length epic poems in book form, there is nothing to suggest that minstrels were instrumental in the transition from the oral tradition to the written format.11 One can at best only speculate as to the actual nature of these transitional narratives, their literary quality and their structure, that doubtless existed between the heroic lays in the Germanic oral tradition, on the one hand, and the heroic epics in book format that one finds in the High Middle Ages, on the other.12 Whether the minstrel can be termed a poet, as opposed to merely an oral transmitter of poetic material, however, may be simply a matter of semantics. One

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could say that each oral performance, if it evidences the slightest variation from other oral performances, is in some ways a new creation, a new work of poetic art that reflects individual artistic decisions by the reciter. In oral performance, as Albert Lord has observed, the definition of “poet,” normally so easily established for written texts, is blurred: We must eliminate from the word “performer” any notion that he is one who merely reproduces what some else or even he himself has composed. Our oral poet is a composer. Our singer of tales is a composer of tales. Singer, performer, composer, and poet are one under different aspects but at the same time. Singing, performing, composing are facets of the same act.13

The discrete artistic variations introduced by individual reciters at particular performances do not, however, affect the essential identity of a work, since its meaning lies not in the variations, but in the structure of the plot itself; in this sense the singer does not interpret the tale, but gives voice to that meaningful structure that remains constant in all variations (Haug 1988/95, 8). The minstrel epics manifest similarities to both the courtly romance and the heroic epic but represent what Bahr and Curschmann (1984, 4:120) have termed a third stylistic mode. They are bound together by their common preference for certain specific narrative plots and structures, as well as common themes: piety, sagacity, bravery, feudal loyalty, and faithful love.14 They differ decidedly in tone from courtly narratives, which are almost exclusively based upon written sources; however, they cannot be precisely identified with the heroic epic, which also has it roots in the oral tradition, although they have clearly been influenced by it in particular instances. It is has proven difficult to reach a scholarly consensus on a concise definition or even a meaningful description of the minstrel epic that goes beyond generalities. This is partly the result of the inability to agree upon which works beyond the core texts — König Rother, Orendel, St. Oswald, Salman und Morolf — actually make up the genre, and partly, the transmission of the core texts themselves. The minstrel epic emerges as a literary genre in the second half of the twelfth century, and the most important manuscript of König Rother dates from the end of that period. The earliest manuscripts of Orendel, St. Oswald, and Salman und Morolf, however, date only from the late fourteenth century, although these works are generally believed to have been composed ca. 1180, 1170, and 1160, respectively (Curschmann 1964, 125, 84 and 100). Their late date of transmission renders them suspect as evidence for conclusions as to the nature of the genre, since there is no way of determining what revision or reworking they may have undergone between their presumed textualization in the twelfth century and their known written form two centuries later. Indeed, Hoffmann (1974, 33), who detects

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in Orendel, St. Oswald, and Salman und Morolf, as we now know them, a vulgarization he believes is meant to appeal to a less cultivated audience, has suggested that one should probably date them to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries, and not consider them together with the earlier texts at all. For Gisela Vollmann-Profe the characteristic of the minstrel epics lies in the fact that they preserve the moment of transition from oral to written literary culture or, rather, the moment in which the encounter between these two forms of literary existence was still open and at the experimental stage. They are also related and comparable in the way they establish the conventions, in content and structure, for narrating the new kinds of experiences that resulted when Europeans first encountered the exotic East on a large scale.15 Much of their action takes place in a fictitious, fabulous Orient (Schneider 1943, 244) and is told in plots derived from Hellenistic and Byzantine traditions16 likely transmitted orally into the German-language territories by returning Crusaders, particularly following the Second Crusade (1147–49). Among these may well have been minstrels, as Erb (1964, 12:764) suggests, who could later entertain their audiences at home with accounts of their adventures and military campaigns, of strange peoples and curious customs encountered there. This “wonderland of the East” proved an opportune location for their fairytale fantasies (Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:299). The plots from the Middle East, embellished with fabulous descriptions of oriental splendor, became the reservoir of a broader tradition of Eastern tales and legends (Gellinek 1968, 73); these soon merged with traditional elements from Germanic lore, sagas, fairytales, and myth to form new oral narratives that subsequently entered the written tradition through the minstrel epic.17 On the broadest thematic level the minstrel epic is characterized by the creation of a narrative world that integrates the East into the European experience by means of a symbolic and dangerous exploration of its geographical space by a prince who journeys there in order to win a bride. In that she, to some extent, may be said to represent the human face of this alien and exotic world, his triumph over the many obstacles to his goal and eventual success in winning her hand symbolizes the potential for Western dominance over a “feminized” East. This bridal quest is accomplished in two stages, an epic doubling different in each work, in which a first false or unsuccessful attempt is followed by a second, successful, one.18 Another defining characteristic of the minstrel epic is the intensity and excitement of the narrative persona’s engagement with the narration (Wareman 1951, 146). There is clearly a genuine desire on the part of the narrator to entertain the audience, even when addressing, for example, religious themes19 or the moral implications of fealty. Amusing the public was the minstrel’s profession (Wareman, 60), and the audience’s delight

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at his strange, artistic, and interesting tales was doubtless important to their reception (Kokott 1978, 236). The narrator’s efforts to engage the reader are manifested in a clear fascination with the details of clothing and food, a penchant for disguises and crafty deceptions (liste), for humor and hyperbole, and a penchant for the fantastic and the miraculous (Hoffmann 1974, 35). There is also a distinctly burlesque quality about them (Bahr 1954/77, 320). On a stylistic level, the minstrel epic is characterized by the doubling or recycling of plot elements with but the slightest variation, sometimes with no variation at all,20 a free hand with meter, and a lack of concern for pure rhyme. The language of the texts is somewhat cumbersome, massively focused on the description of objects, and at times even coarse, especially in Salman und Morolf. Typological numbers abound, and the narrator, with minor exceptions, relies on formulaic expressions for the description of characters, even when the formula contradicts what the character is doing at the time. Rhetorical devices are used sparingly, and when they occur, they usually follow the conventions (Schröder 1962, 12).21 Although these works certainly share common thematic, stylistic, and compositional features, their commonalities are not truly sufficient criteria by which to set them apart as a group from other contemporary texts that also set a high value on entertainment (Böckenholt 1971, 3). It is precisely their stylistic features, which could be deemed primitive when compared to the great flowering of German literary culture around the year 1200, that led scholars to date all the minstrel epics to the twelfth century, even in those cases where they are only preserved in manuscripts from the late Middle Ages. But where their style led many to dismiss these texts as inferior when compared to the courtly and pre-courtly romances, all of which were derived from written sources, research into oral-formulaic theory makes it now seem likely that the formulaic expressions and repetitions, and the sheer liveliness of the narrative style in the minstrel epics, should be attributed to their recent roots in the oral tradition, since formulaic language is the hallmark of oral composition (Schreier-Hornung 1981, 58).22 These characteristics survived even after the texts were textualized in their fixed form. While this theory seems plausible, objections have been raised: the formulaic nature of a medieval text cannot necessarily be equated with the oral phase of the compositional process, since it is impossible to distinguish for certain exactly which formulaic expressions found therein represent a specifically oral formula (Curschmann 1979, 88). If this theory is accurate, however, the manuscript evidence would indicate that the minstrel epics coexisted alongside the written courtly romances for the next three centuries without losing their essentially oral stylistic character. The most popular subject of the minstrel epic, and one which, as indicated above, can be viewed as one of its constituent elements (Frings

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1940/77, 196), is the bridal quest, a theme found in some form or other in narrative traditions the world over.23 Bridal-quest narratives, as “Denkstrukturen und Denkmodelle,” conceptual structures and conceptual models (Bräuer 1970, 82), vary from culture to culture and are characterized by details that reflect particular regional and social factors during a particular time, as well as the limitations of particular literary forms.24 Concerning the textualization of bridal-quests in twelfth-century Germany, one can say that an older, but thematically limited, native tradition merged with a much broader, more modern tradition in world literature (Bahr and Curschmann 1984, 120). According to Theodor Frings, the traditional northern European model was a simple abduction of the bride (Brautraub), in which a wooer captures the object of his desire by force; the modern tradition, derived from the above-mentioned Hellenistic and Byzantine traditions, as well as Arabic tales, was a wooing expedition involving not violence, but guile (Frings 1940/77, 199–207). Underlying Frings’s theory, however, are preconceived notions concerning cultural stereotypes: wooing by means of force and abduction were essentially Germanic and reflected the “Einheit von Dichtung und Leben,” the unity of poesy and life, while wooing ruses and abduction ruses were Mediterranean and un-Germanic (ungermanisch, 205); moreover, his characterization of the traditional model is itself based upon rather specious evidence (Andersson 1987, 57–58). Bornholdt (2005, 23–24) finds in Merovingian chronicles only one lengthy account of the abduction of a bride during a state of war and concludes: “Although bridal abduction was certainly a common practice in medieval Germanic societies, such abductions apparently did not interest medieval authors and did not lend themselves to a broader literary expansion” (40). One can say, at least, that Frings’s theory does indeed describe the form of the bridal quest as manifested in the minstrel epic, which contains elements of both abduction and wooing by means of ruses. His assumption, however, that guile became thematized only in the twelfth century is clearly incorrect, since it can be found already in the tale of Andarchius’s wooing of Ursus’s daughter in Gregory of Tours’s sixthcentury Historiæ Francorum (Bornholdt 2005, 26–27).25 One must conclude, with Claudia Bornholdt, that “the use of disguise and cunning as the means to win a bride in bridal-quest narrative is indigenous to northwestern Europe, and it is not possible to isolate older stories in which the bride was won by force” (214). One of the preeminent hallmarks of medieval literature, as opposed to modern literature, in which for the last 200 years innovation has been the norm (H. D. Zimmermann 1979, 35–41), is its schematic nature; this is particularly true for those texts rooted in the oral tradition, such as the bridal-quest epics (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 41 and 45). Although Jan de Vries (1921–22/77, 93) maintained that the genre is so multifaceted that

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it is impossible to schematize its structural elements and nearly hopeless to attempt to reconstruct the vectors of influence within the seemingly desultory series of motifs that bind its members together, he and subsequent scholars have made valiant — and occasionally convincing — attempts to do so. Friedmar Geissler (1955, 1) distinguishes three different types of wooing expeditions in international folklore: a maiden is wooed by a man with the goal of marriage; a man is wooed by a maiden with the goal of marriage; and a man or a maiden woos the other with the goal of sexual union, the latter occurring only in tales from the Middle East and those based upon them.26 In their study of Serbo-Croatian and Russian bridal quests, Brautwerbung (1947, 31–39), Frings and Max Braun made a distinction between the abduction as such and the quest, the latter being associated with the higher strata of society. They posited three types of abduction: abduction without consent or with only subsequent consent of the bride; abduction with consent of the bride; and abduction in the context of a raid. Where there is no bridal consent, an attempt is always made to rescue the bride from her abductor, which is successful if the rescuer is an enemy of the wooer (32). According to Frings and Braun, abduction with consent derives from the Middle-Eastern novella and occurs most often in Moslem bridal quests; unsuccessful rescue attempts are also usually based upon this oriental model. Hinrich Siefken (1967, 14–35) proposed an outline of the typical elements that can contribute to an abstract structuring of the episodes that narrate the sending and receiving of messengers in the minstrel epic and the heroic epic, a standard structure that can be augmented to include bridal-quest narratives. Siefken’s model is based upon the geographical spaces in a text: (1) the first location: initiation and preparation; (2) the journey; (3) the second location: arrival, reception, and wooing; (4) the return journey: elopement or abduction; and (5) the first location: concluding festivities. Siefken’s categories ignore the for him unnecessary distinction between abduction and quest, and offer an overarching model that encompasses both means of gaining a bride. Typologically, Siefken discerns four varieties of quests in these narratives, which he divides into two main groups. Bridal Quest Simple Wooing (type A)

Perilous Wooing Winning through Deeds Abduction (type B) With Consent Without Consent (type C) (type D)

The first group comprises the non-perilous variant, type A, which he defines as a simple wooing (einfache Werbung). In the simple wooing the suit of the wooer does not meet with resistance: “The hero, or, more

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frequently, his proxy wooer approaches the father of the bride directly and negotiates the terms of the betrothal; a process that closely resembles historical marriage negotiations” (Bornholdt 2005, 13). The second group is a difficult or perilous wooing (gefährliche Werbung), which is further divided into two subgroups, in which the wooer gains the support of the bride with or without the consent of her family. In type B, winning through deeds (Erwerbung durch Taten), the wooer must pass a test or tests assigned by her family. Types C and D are grouped together, for they both entail the abduction of the bride. This abduction can be either type C, abduction with her consent (Entführung mit Einverständnis), the most popular medieval variant, or type D, abduction without her consent (Entführung ohne Einverständnis). Type D can be linked to type C when the bride’s family re-abducts her. In type C, deception replaces the violence inherent in type D, which allows the narrator a great deal of freedom to use his imagination in concocting elaborate ruses. The ruses are generally of three varieties: they serve to allow the wooer access to the court of the bride’s father, who opposes his daughter’s marriage (Aufnahmelist); to allow him private access to the bride herself (Werbungslist); and to facilitate their elopement (Entführungslist). Bornholdt (2005, 12), who considers a broader group of quests than those contained solely in the minstrel epics, suggests that Siefken’s categories should be augmented by a further type, the “unsuccessful wooing story,”27 and that type C should be renamed “successful wooing by means of cunning.” Schmid-Cadalbert (1985, 69–70) views the structure of the simple wooing as linear, proceeding directly from the wooer’s decision to woo to his eventual marriage: description of the ruler (Herrscherbeschreibung) → council scene (Ratszene) → description of the bride (Beschreibung der Braut) → wooing and betrothal (Werbung und Vermählung) → marriage (Ehe). There is no known work of Middle High German fiction in which the complete structure is based solely upon the model of the Simple Wooing, although it can typically be found in individual wooing episodes in chronicles.28 König Rother, along with the other bridal quests among the minstrel epics, belongs to the more common variant of the perilous wooing, type C, which is also typical of wooing episodes within larger literary texts such as Dietrichs Flucht (Dietrich’s Flight), Wolfdietrich, the Nibelungenlied, Eilhart’s Tristrant, and Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan. The absence of the simple wooing as the structure for a complete work may well lie in the fact that it manifests no conflict between the wooer and the bride’s father that inherently creates narrative tension in the text and arouses suspense in the audience. In the simple structure, the bride’s father views the wooer’s claim to his daughter as legitimate and does not regard it as a threat to his own status. With regard to the perilous bridal quest, Schmid-Cadalbert (1985, 88) suggests that the plot is made up of specific fixed points (Handlungsfixpunkte): (1) a council scene; (2) the selection of the messengers and

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their journey; (3) the promise of support by the wooer’s men (only if the wooer himself makes the journey); (4) the landing of the wooer in a secret place (only if the wooer himself makes the journey); (5) the progress of the wooer from the secret place to the residence of the bride’s father (only if the wooer himself makes the journey); (6) a chamber scene, where the wooer, his messengers, or an extraordinary helper meets with the bride; (7) abduction of the bride; (8) a battle between the wooer and the bride’s father; (9) the return home with the bride; and (10) the wedding. Based on his examination of the minstrel epics, he breaks down these fixed points into the following schematic structure: A

B

C

Initiation and preparation of the wooing 1 Description of the ruler: residence, realm, personal characteristics 2 Council scene: Namer, Knower, Wooer 3 Obligation of assistance by loyal followers, enlistment and designation of messengers or helpers Wooing journey 1 Messengers’ journey a Messenger outwits the bride’s father b Messenger is taken prisoner by the bride’s father; freed by the bride c Messenger is taken prisoner by the bride’s father 2 Wooer’s journey a Wooer wins the bride by fulfilling tasks b Wooer outwits the bride’s father c Wooer vanquishes the bride’s father Return with the bride and subsequent wedding 1 Simple structure a Return with the bride (part 1); pursuit by military force b Battle with pursuers: reconciliation with or death of the bride’s father c Return with the bride (part 2) d Wedding 2 Doubled structure a Return with the bride b Wedding c (Re)abduction of the bride d Possible transferring of the bride to a rival suitor e Wooer’s journey and arrival in the bride’s homeland f Decisive battle (i) reconciliation with the bride’s father (ii) possible slaying of the rival suitor g Return with the bride h Court celebration: rewarding of the loyal followers29

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While a schematized structural norm provides a framework for understanding the standard course of the narration within the genre as a whole, it says next to nothing about the quality of a particular text, nor does it define its meaning. Indeed, Schmid-Cadalbert’s structure is essentially never found in its complete form in the written corpus of medieval German bridal quests, where one finds only variations on it (M. Schulz 2005, 249).30 His model, however, can be viewed as representing the sum of narrative possibilities, although variation from it should not be construed as some sort of deficit or failure on the part of an individual poet (Deutsch 2003, 86). By comparing individual variations to the supra-individual matrix, however, one can come to an understanding of how a specific text conforms to or modifies the traditional prerequisites of the genre and to what extent its narrative elements are bound to those prerequisites or represent a moment of individual creativity, in that the poet consciously deviates from the norm (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 98).31 It is the variation that defines a particular poet’s artistry. While König Rother, which takes the form of a doubled quest (S.-C. §A, B, C.2), does not violate structural norms in the sense of a systematic and purposeful disappointment of the horizon of expectations (Stock 2002, 102), the poet does indeed embellish his narration with structural doublings and variations that are his alone. Among the minstrel epics the successful re-abduction of the bride specifically by her father (S.-C. §C.2.c) takes place only in König Rother, and it is not present in any earlier Germanic bridal-quest narratives and chronicles (Bornholdt 2005, 141). Indeed, it is questionable whether or not it should be considered an essential part of the structure at all. The doubling of individual episodes can occur in both the simple and perilous wooings, and the doubling of the entire quest structure itself, the subsequent loss and reacquisition of the bride — the quest structure a second time (Kuhn 1973/80, 22) — is a rare, but not uncommon, phenomenon in the international bridal-quest tradition and occurs twice in the minstrel epics. One must remember, however, that even if the doubling is present in the written texts as we know them, it is impossible to know for certain whether it was always so, whether the structure was already doubled during the oral phase of the development of the narrative or only at the time of its textualization. The moment of textualization affords ample opportunity to modify the oral version, for here one has essentially two choices: one can either take over the plot material as is, along with the orally transmitted linguistic elements and structure, or attempt to adapt the traditional material to fit current circumstances by altering the linguistic elements to meet the expectations of a lay culture accustomed to the linguistic norms of a written literary culture.32 In either case, the written text represents a narrative that never existed in exactly that same form in the oral tradition, and the

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degree to which it retains the formulaic and structural elements characteristic of the oral tradition would depend on the use for which the written text was intended. The structural doubling, however, may not be merely, as was earlier believed,33 an “Anschwellung” (swelling up) — to borrow Andreas Heusler’s term (1905/56, 30–37) — of the plot by the minstrels to extend the narrative and “hold the interest of the audience for a longer period” (Jackson 1960, 57) by simply giving them more of the same thing, nor is it a necessary by-product of its textualization. The Rother poet clearly understands the structure of the perilous bridal quest and intentionally employs it, or variations on its elements, not only for Rother’s initial quest, by messenger and then in person, but also for what amounts to the bride’s counter-quest for Rother, as well as for her father’s machinations to regain custody of her and Rother’s second journey to retrieve her from him. Christian Kiening (1998, 212) summarizes the components that dominate in the perilous quest in terms of three overarching themes: the best man and the most beautiful woman belong together; their union obeys the rule of more or less radical exogamy; and the quest cannot be accomplished without difficulty. His emphasis on the significance of exogamy in these texts echoes the importance Siefken placed upon textual geography when constructing his structural model. Viktor Zhirmunskij (Schirmunski) has suggested that this requisite geographical separation of wooer from bride reflects an ancient element that goes back to the earliest phase of bridal-quest narratives in the oral tradition: societies organized according to patriarchal clans (Gentilordnung) placed a premium on exogamy, whereby a wooer seeks his bride from outside his own people, often by means of abduction with or without the woman’s consent (Schirmunski 1961, 41). There is, however, a theological reason for exogamy in these twelfth-century texts, one that does not require delving into folkloric tradition. It was the position of the church that marriage partners must not be related within seven degrees of kinship, that is, sharing common great-great-great-greatgrandparents, in order to avoid the impediment of incest, a ban no doubt very difficult to enforce, given the contemporary state of genealogical record-keeping for all but the higher nobility. What appears in the bridal quests as the motif of equality of birth and status, by which a ruler, as wooer, can find no partner of equal status in his own realm and must, therefore, seek a partner in the exotic East, may well derive from the incest impediment; so many possible partners in his homeland would have been otherwise forbidden to him that he has practically only two possibilities: seeking a foreign bride who cannot possibly be related to him or flouting canon law (M. Schulz 2005, 22). It was only with the Lateran Council of 1215, that is, after the textualization of at least König Rother and Herzog Ernst, that Pope Innocent III altered the official impediment of consanguinity to the fourth degree of kinship.

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The notion of the exogamous bride of equal status adds not only a geographical dimension to the concept of narrative space but a geopolitical one as well. Through the motif of equal status the inherent (psychological) rivalry between wooer and bride’s father becomes an international rivalry for supremacy: the wooer must convince the bride’s father that he is of sufficient status to woo her. When the bride’s father reclaims his daughter, as in König Rother, the doubled structure serves this thematic purpose: it comes into play when the wooer or his representative(s) have triumphed over the objections of the bride’s father in the private realm, as defined by the mutual consent of wooer and bride, but her father has not publicly acknowledged the wooer’s claim upon his daughter as legitimate (SchmidCadalbert, 1985, 64).34 The requirement of the equal status of the bride implies, of course, an equality of status between the wooer and her father or guardian, from whom she derives her social rank. The requisites of exogamy and equal status result in the division of the narrative space into two discrete spheres of power, that of the wooer and that of the guardian, and the sea that separates them (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 83). It is the voyage across the sea to a land in the East that distinguishes the bridal quest in the minstrel epic from all previous quests in the northern European tradition (Bornholdt 2005, 158). Although the sea clearly forms a geographical barrier between the rivals’ spheres of influence and is a central motif in König Rother — the text contains eighteen changes of location (Gellinek 1968, 13–14) — it seems not to function as a third space in the narrative sense, but merely a space to be traversed between the main locations of the action, Bari and Constantinople.35 This is also essentially true of the Munich Oswald, where the courtship messenger’s sea journey is interrupted by island adventures, and in Orendel, by storms and a shipwreck; however, these events are more the excuse for narrator to indulge himself in literary flights of fantasy than significant structural elements. One must, however, qualify the assessment of the third space in König Rother by noting that during the second of his four journeys across the sea, Rother fathers a son, Pippin, upon his new bride. The brief statement of this fact, indeed, makes up the total narrative description of that journey (lines 2942–46). One could make the case that this is the exception to the narrative emptiness of the third space that proves the rule: Pippin’s conception in the third space unites him to both realms, West and East, that of his father and of his mother. According to the text this Pippin is the father of Charlemagne, whose claim to imperial rank in the West brought him into conflict with the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople.

Notes 1

For the general remarks in chapters 1 and 2 we rely upon the standard literary histories such as Gustav Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis

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zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 4, Handbuch des deutschen Unterrichts an höheren Schulen 6, parts 1–2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922–35, 21959), 21:284–313; Hermann Schneider, Heldendichtung, Geistlichendichtung, Ritterdichtung, vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1943), 242–50; Helmut de Boor, Die deutsche Literatur von Karl dem Großen bis zum Beginn der höfischen Dichtung (770–1170), vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Helmut de Boor and Richard Newald (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1949), 238–45; Ewald Erb, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur: Von den Anfängen bis 1160, vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Gysi and Hans Günther Thalheim, 1 vol. in 2, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Volk & Wissen, 1963–64, 41982), 2:753–73; Gisela VollmannProfe, Wiederbeginn volkssprachiger Schriftlichkeit im hohen Mittelalter (1050/60– 1160/70), vol. 1, part 2 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Königstein/Ts.: Athenäum, 1984–), 213–18; 227–29. 2

See also Walter Haug, “Brautwerbung im Zerrspiegel: Salman und Morolf,” in Sammlung — Deutung — Wertung: Ergebnisse, Probleme, Tendenzen und Perspektiven philologischer Arbeit, ed. Danielle Buschinger, Mélanges de littérature médiévale et de linguistique allemande offerts à Wolfgang Spiewok à l’occasion de son soixantième anniversaire par ses collègues et amis (Amiens: Université de Picardie, Centre d’Études Médiévales, 1988), 179. 3

Other works that have occasionally had their champions as members of the genre are Dukus Horant (Duke Horant), Karl und Elegast, Laurin, Ortnit, St. Brandan, Reinhart Fuchs, Der Rosengarten zu Worms (The Rose Garden at Worms), Rudolf von Arras, and Wolfdietrich. 4

For an analysis of the concept Spielmannsepik and its development in literary history see Piet Wareman, Spielmannsdichtung: Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung (Amsterdam: J. van Campen, 1951); Joachim Bahr, “Der ‘Spielmann’ in der Literaturwissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts,” ZfdPh 73 (1954): 174–96, repr. in Walter Johannes Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 288–322; Walter Johannes Schröder, Spielmannsepik, Sammlung Metzler, Realienbücher für Germanisten, Abt. D: Literaturgeschichte 19 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlerische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1962); Michael Curschmann, Spielmannsepik: Wege und Ergebnisse der Forschung von 1907–1965: Mit Ergänzungen und Nachträgen bis 1967 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1968), 1–6, with substantial bibliography on the subject; Joachim Bahr and Michael Curschmann, “Spielmannsdichtung,” in Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte, ed. Werner Kohlschmidt und Wolfgang Mohr, 2nd ed., 5 vols. (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1955–84), 4: col. 105–22; Uwe Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 1–19; and Hans-Joachim Behr, “Spielmannsdichtung,” in Reallexikon der Literaturwissenschaft: Neubearbeitung des Reallexikons der deutschen Literaturgeschichte, ed. Klaus Weimar et al., 3 vols. (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter: 1997–2003), 3: 474–76. 5

Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, S. Hirzel, 1872–78, 31974), 2: col. 1093. On the confusing multiplicity of Latin

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designations for such entertainers, see Antonie Schreier-Hornung, Spielleute, Fahrende, Außenseiter: Künstler der mittelalterlichen Welt, GAG 328 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1981), 26–41. 6

Wilhelm Grimm, “Über die Entstehung der altdeutschen Poesie und ihr Verhältnis zu der nordischen,” repr. in his Kleinere Schriften, ed. Gustav Hinrichs, 4 vols. (Berlin: F. Dümmler, 1881–87), 1:96. 7

Just such a historical warrior-minstrel seems to have been Taillefer (“hewer of iron”), who accompanied William the Conqueror on his campaign against England and amused the Norman troops at the Battle of Hastings by juggling with his lance and singing the deeds of Roland; he is said to have killed at least one enemy before he met his own death on the battlefield. Wareman, Spielmannsdichtung, 67. 8

Wilhelm Wackernagel, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur: Ein Handbuch (Basel: Schweighauser, 1848), 77, 97. 9

Hans Naumann, “Versuch einer Einschränkung des romantischen Begriffs Spielmannsdichtung,” DVjs 2 (1924): 777–94; repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 126–44, here 130: “der Hauptstrom der Musikanten, Tänzer, Springer, Taschenspieler, Gaukler, Possenreißer, Feuerfresser, Puppenspieler, Schwertschlucker, Fechter, Akrobaten, Seiltänzer, Kunstreiter, Tierbändiger, kurz aller jener Künstler der Bewegung und Gebärde mehr als der Worte, der Mimik mehr als der Poesie. . . .” 10

Uwe Meves examines the influence of the contemporary political climate in Germany on the concept in successive literary histories by G. G. Gervinus (1835– 42), Wilhelm Scherer (1875; 1883), Hermann Schneider (1925), and Ewald Erb (1963–64). Meves, “Zur historischen Bedingtheit literarischer Wertung: Das Beispiel ‘Spielmannsepik’ in der Literaturgeschichtsschreibung,” in Textsorten und literarische Gattungen: Dokumentation des Germanistentages in Hamburg vom 1. bis 4. April 1979, ed. Vorstand der Vereinigung der Deutschen Hochschulgermanisten (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1983), 317–34. 11

Rolf Bräuer rightly finds it remarkable that in none of the so-called minstrel epics in which a minstrel appears as a character is he portrayed as a musical performer at all, let alone a disseminator of epic material. Bräuer’s competing theory, that the oral transmission of heroic plot material was primarily done by the peasantry (Bauernstand) and was later textualized and modified by the newly developing urban bourgeoisie, “das junge aufstrebende Stadtbürgertum” (553) to suit its own purposes, was doubtless influenced by the political agenda of the German Democratic Republic. Bräuer, “Die drei Fassungen des Legendenromans vom heiligen Oswald und das Problem der sogenannten Spielmannsdichtung,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald: Gesellschaftsund sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 15 (1966): 553–54. 12

Werner Hoffmann, Mittelhochdeutsche Heldendichtung, Grundlagen der Germanistik 14 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1974), 38: “Der Spielmann ist ein Träger der mündlichen Überlieferung, teilweise auch der germanischen Heldendichtung im frühen Mittelalter. Indes hat er im 12. Jahrhundert nicht den Weg zur Schriftlichkeit und zum ‘Buchepos’ gefunden, und wie die ‘spielmännische’ Heldendichtung beschaffen war, die es zweifellos zwischen dem germanischen Heldenlied auf der einen Seite und der hochmittelalterlichen heroischen Großerzählung auf der

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anderen Seite, und zwischen diesen beiden den Übergang vermittelnd, gegeben hat, läßt sich bestenfalls vermuten.” 13

Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1960, 21964), 13. See also Lorenz Deutsch, “Die Einführung der Schrift als Literarisierungsschwelle: Kritik eines mediävistischen Forschungsfaszinosums am Beispiel des König Rother,” Poetica: Zeitschrift für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 35 (2003): 70–83. 14

“The most powerful of secular forces in the ‘Spielmannsepen’ is love,” according to Rodney Fisher, Studies in the Demonic in Selected Middle High German Epics, GAG 132 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1974), 124. 15 Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn volkssprachiger Schriftlichkeit, 12:215: “Die entscheidende Gemeinsamkeit der Epen sehen wir darin, daß sie den Moment der Transformation von der Mündlichkeit in die Schriftlichkeit noch festhalten — oder besser: jenen Moment, in dem die Begegnung der beiden literarischen Existenzformen noch offen und im Stadium des Experiments war. Auch auf der Ebene der inhaltlich-strukturellen Konkretisierung der neuen Welterfahrung sind die Werke in entscheidenden Zügen verwandt und vergleichbar.” 16

On the Byzantine and Middle Eastern origins of the bridal-quest plot material see, for example, Theodor Frings, “Die Entstehung der deutschen Spielmannsepen,” Zeitschrift für Geisteswissenschaft 2 (1939/40): 306–21; repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 191–212, here 191 and 202–3; Theodor Frings and Max Braun, Brautwerbung, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 96.2, 1944/48 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1947), 33, 66, 71–72, 141–48; and Viktor Schirmunski [=Zhirmunskij], Vergleichende Epenforschung I, trans. Christel Wendt, Deutche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin: Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Volkskunde 24 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961), 38 et passim. 17

See Frings, “Die Entstehung der deutschen Spielmannsepen,” 191–212; also Eva-Maria Woelker, Menschengestaltung in vorhöfischen Epen des 12. Jahrhunderts, Germanische Studien 221 (Berlin: Ebering, 1940; repr., Nedeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1969), 139. Christian Schmid-Cadalbert believes that the rejection of the oral tradition by medieval historians, who valued as authentic only that which was transmitted in written form, contributed to the reception of the bridal-quest material as literature, not oral history. Schmid-Cadalbert, Der Ortnit AW als Brautwerbungsdichtung: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis mittelhochdeutscher Schemaliteratur, Bibliotheca Germanica 28 (Bern: Francke, 1985), 81. 18

Bahr and Curschmann, “Spielmannsdichtung,” 4: col. 116: “ . . . die neue Welthaltigkeit des Erzählens, das gleichgerichtete Bestreben, dieses Diesseits in symbolischer, gefährlicher Raumerfahrung und Erfassung des menschlichen Partners zu bewältigen, und die Darstellung dieser Erfahrung in einer Doppelhandlung, in der — in jeweils verschiedener Weise — dem falschen oder mißglückten Anlauf ein zweiter mit günstigem Ausgang folgt.” 19

For an examination of the relationship between the minstrel epics and clerical poets, see Michael Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald und die deutsche spielmännische Epik: Mit einem Exkurs zur Kultgeschichte und Dichtungstradition, MTU 6 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1964), 127–55.

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20

Ingeborg Köppe-Benath offers a list of the types of repetition or variation. Köppe-Benath, “Vergleichende Studien zu den ‘Spielmannsepen’ König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Ernst-MoritzArndt-Universität Greifswald: Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 15 (1966): 558. 21

For an examination of the stylistic characteristics of König Rother and Orendel, see Karl zur Nieden, Über die Verfasser der mhd. Heldenepen (Bonn: L. Leopold, 1930), 10–31; on the same in the Munich version of Oswald, see Bräuer, “Die drei Fassungen des Legendenromans,” 552. 22

On formulaic expressions and their indication of oral tradition see Edward Haymes, Das mündliche Epos: Eine Einführung in die “Oral Poetry” Forschung (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1977), 14–17; also Armin Wishard, “Formulaic Composition in the Spielmannsepik,” Papers on Language and Literature 8 (1972): 243–51. For a brief summary of the principle components of the oral-formulaic theory see, for example, Franz Bäuml, “Medieval Texts and the Two Theories of Oral-Formulaic Composition: A Proposal for a Third Theory,” New Literary History 16.1 (1984): 32. 23

Theodore M. Andersson, however, maintains that the only true bridal-quest epic among these texts is König Rother and questions the existence of this genre at all: “A single work is not sufficient to constitute a genre.” Andersson, A Preface to the Nibelungenlied (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1987), 69–71, here 71. 24 See Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, 21:289; Frings and Braun, Brautwerbung; Friedmar Geissler, Brautwerbung in der Weltliteratur (Halle/ Saale: VEB Max Niemeyer, 1955); and Schirmunski, Vergleichende Epenforschung, esp. 38–45. For a historical survey of bridal-quest scholarship see Schmid-Cadalbert, Der Ortnit AW, 25–39. 25

On the bridal-quest structure in Gregory of Tours, see also the earlier essay by Joaquín Martínez Pizarro, “A ‘Brautwerbung’ Variant in Gregory of Tours: Attalus’ Escape from Captivity,” Neophilologus 62 (1978), 109–18. 26

Marianne E. Kalinke distinguishes additional categories in Icelandic literature that supplement Geissler’s categories: Maiden-King Romances, in which a misogamous woman rejects all wooers and puts them through physical and psychological abuse (66); quest romances with a passive male protagonist (109); and those in which another male companion plays a determining role (156). Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, Islandica 46 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1990). For an examination of the bridal quest in early Scandinavian literature, see the chapter “Norse Nuptials” in Claudia Bornholdt, Engaging Moments: The Origins of Medieval Bridal-Quest Narrative, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 46 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005), 160–203. 27

Bornholdt finds only one true example of an unsuccessful wooing in the Frankish chronicles, that of Persian King Darius for the hand of the daughter of a Gothic king, Antyrus, in Jordanes’s De origine actibusque Getarum (Concerning the Origins and Deeds of the Goths, ca. 551). She also mentions the example of Frankish King Childebert’s breaking off the engagement of his sister, Clodosinde, to Authari, king of the Langobards, so that she might marry a Gothic king, as related in Gregory of Tours’s Historiæ Francorum (History of the Franks,

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ca. 575–90) and Paulus Diaconus’s Historia gentis Langobardorum (History of the Langobards), but acknowledges that the latter is a “less clear-cut” example of unsuccessful wooing; the wooing was not unsuccessful, but the marriage never took place (20–21). 28

See Bornholdt, Engaging Moments, 24–26, 37–39, 193–94, for examples.

29

In his article “Die Erzählkunst des Rother-Epikers,” Euphorion 54 (1960), repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 351–96, here 362, Hans Fromm had earlier proposed the following structural elements for the bridal quest, with particular focus on the variations found in König Rother: A ruler must marry. His advisors, in council, suggest the beautiful daughter of a foreign ruler. He sends an envoy to deliver his proposal; the father of the maiden rejects the proposal. or, He goes himself, in the disguise as an exile, and offers his services to the maiden’s father. He arouses the interest of the maiden and her mother, both of whom favor him. He is invited by the maiden, without her father’s knowledge, to her chambers. The maiden reveals her favor; he reveals his true identity. They consider how to deceive her father and escape. He flees with the maiden; her father (often) follows to get her back. See also Theodore M. Andersson, “‘Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar’ and European Bridal-Quest Narrative,” JEGP 84 (1985): 66–67. On the similar structuring of Icelandic bridal quests, see Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance, 12–13. 30

In Orendel, for example, there are no courtship messengers (S.-C. §B.1) whose wooing expedition precedes that of the protagonist, and the bride is not reabducted (§2.c). In St. Oswald the messenger is a raven. In Salman und Morolf Salme is not abducted by her father but flees with two different lovers who have used a magic ring to bewitch her. 31

As Bornholdt has noted, Schimd-Cadalbert’s scheme applies only to the Middle High German epics from which it was derived; her own study of Franconian bridal quests, as well as the Scandinavian tradition, makes it clear that the early Germanic bridal quest “allows for much greater variation than it appears to be the case” in Schmid-Cadalbert’s structure (Engaging Moments, 11). 32

Curschmann, “Nibelungenlied und Nibelungenklage: Über Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit der Episierung,” in Deutsche Literatur im Mittelalter — Kontakte und Perspektiven: Hugo Kuhn zum Gedenken, ed. Christoph Cormeau (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1979), 85–119, here 197: “Man konnte sie [=die Tradition] ins Literarische verlängern, d. h. mit dem Stoff zugleich die Sprache und den Baustil übernehmen und stilisieren. Oder man konnte versuchen, den alten Stoff ganz im modischen Formgewand und der Diktion einer neuen laikal orientierten Schriftkultur einzufangen. . . .” 33

For example, Frings, “Die Entstehung der deutschen Spielmannsepen,” 197.

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34

See also Naumann, “Versuch einer Einschränkung,” in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 138. 35

Markus Stock argues against the sea as the third geographical space, but suggests that one could argue for a tripartite division of the world in the second part of the text: the Christian West, the Christian East, and the pagan world. For Stock, Constantinople is quantitatively and qualitatively the central scene of the action. Stock, Kombinationssinn: Narrative Strukturexperimente im “Straßburger Alexander,” im “Herzog Ernst B” und im “König Rother,” MTU 123 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2002), 245.

2: Sources and History

K

ÖNIG ROTHER WAS PROBABLY composed in its present form around the middle of the twelfth century, between 1150 and 1160,1 although more recently the later date of 1160–70 has been proposed.2 The text is preserved in one nearly complete manuscript, H=Heidelberg, cpg 390, which dates to the end of the twelfth century, and four surviving fragments: M=Munich, cgm 5249; A=Berlin, ms. germ. Fol. 923; B=Nürnberg, Nr. 27744; and E=Ermlitz (in private hands). The plot is divided into two distinct sections,3 the second a doubling of the first, with doubled variations occurring on both the structural and the motivic level.4 Part 1 (lines 1–2942, –2946 or –2986),5 which may have been the complete tale in its ancient oral form (for example, de Vries 1922/74, xxxv), consists of a perilous bridal quest, in which the bride is abducted with her consent, Siefken’s type C. In part 2 (lines 2943–, 2946– or 2987–end) the bride’s father abducts his daughter from her abductor, who must win her again. Here the narrative structure of the perilous bridal quest is repeated, but with a reversal of motifs; it is, at least on the surface, a mirror image of part 1: one sees the same face, to use Schröder’s metaphor (1955/77, 342–44), but with the sides reversed. This implies that the doublings and variations in part 2 are purposely based upon the preexisting structures and motifs of part 1. Bipartite structures and motivic doublings are not, of course, particular to König Rother, but rather were dominant in Western literatures of the twelfth century as a whole.6 Walter Haug (1973, 148–49), however, points out the essential difference between the doublings in the minstrel epics and those that later appear in the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes and his successors. In the former they are essentially additive: the wooer departs and returns with his bride; then he departs and returns with her again — contrasting but independent cycles in a series of episodes that could be repeated, doubled, indefinitely. In the Arthurian romances, however, the hero is the protagonist of the Arthurian world, the integrity of which has been challenged. These cycles are bound inextricably together by their repetitions and cross-references; the first cycle of adventures leaves matters unresolved, but after the second cycle, the stability of the Arthurian world has been restored: there is and can be no further doubling. Based upon an examination of the differing artistic structure of the epic foreshadowings, the pervading religious tendencies,7 and the increase in historical, specifically Bavarian references (or interpolations) in the second

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part of the text, Reiffenstein (1972, 565), among others, contends that part 1 represents the original, complete Rother, a bridal quest with a doubling of the motif of the messenger-wooer (=S.-C. §B.1 and §B.2), with part 2 a subsequent expansion of the original Rother epic.8 Using Reiffenstein’s own data, however, Stock (2002, 235) draws the contrary conclusion; for him, the number of foreshadowings in part 1 that are realized in part 2 show that the author emended the former in order to achieve the integration of the latter into a text that forms a new, integrated whole. According to this view, the doubling of the plot in part 2 represents not merely the poet demonstrating his creative bravura on the structural level, but also involves a systematic rethinking of the entire plot down to the smallest detail (Kiening 1998, 219).9 It is, however, by no means certain that the bipartite structure of König Rother emerged only in the last phase of its development, its textualization: it may well have been present during at least some part of the oral stage. A brief summary of the plot of König Rother suffices to illustrate the degree to which its structure influenced Schmid-Cadalbert’s model for the perilous bridal quest.10 Rother, who has been crowned in Rome and who resides in Bari, is a powerful ruler (S.-C. §A.1). Because the succession has not been secured by an heir, Rother’s vassals urge him to marry (§A.2). Count Luppolt agrees to undertake a wooing journey to King Constantin in Constantinople to seek the hand of his daughter for Rother (§A.3). Luppolt sets off with eleven other counts in his company (§B.1). After revealing their purpose to Constantin, they are imprisoned (§B.1.c). Rother makes for Constantinople himself (§B.2), leading a group of 2400 men, as well as twelve giants, including Asprian and Witold, who is so fierce that he must be kept in chains. Rother disguises himself as Dietrich, an exile driven out by King Rother, and is taken into Constantin’s service. The princess arranges a feast, in order that she might meet him, but her plan fails. With the aid of Herlint, her handmaiden, she subsequently arranges for “Dietrich” to meet with her in secret. He sends her a pair of mismatched shoes, gold and silver, then brings the proper matches to her. She puts her foot in his lap, that he might place the golden slipper upon it. She reveals her desire to marry Rother, who then reveals his true identity. He signals his presence to his imprisoned courtship messengers by playing the harp. He takes advantage of an attack on Constantinople by the infidel King Ymelot of Babylon to free his twelve messengers from their prison and flee with his bride (§B.2.b). On the journey home to Bari (§C.2.a), the princess conceives a son. Constantin employs the services of a minstrel to abduct his daughter (§C.2.c). In order to retrieve her, Rother sails back to Constantinople with a military force he conceals in a wood. Rother learns that Constantin has promised his wife in marriage to Ymelot’s son, Basilistium (§C.2.d). Disguised as a pilgrim, Rother enters the city (§C.2.e) and is able to make

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his presence known to his wife by means of a golden ring. His true identity is discovered, and he is sentenced to death; he demands to be hanged near the wood. Count Luppolt summons Rother’s army from the wood by sounding a horn. Rother is freed; Ymelot’s army is destroyed (§C.2.f), and Basilistium is killed (§C.2.f.ii). Rother reconciles with Constantin, who sanctions the marriage (§C.2.f.i). On the day of their landing in Bari (§C.2.g), Rother’s wife bears Pippin. Rother rewards his loyal followers with fiefdoms and lavishes his wealth upon the poor (§C.2.h). Twentyfour years later, Pippin assumes control of the kingdom. Rother and his wife enter the cloistered life. Although one will probably never be able to determine for certain exactly where the poet found the particular elements of his plot, significant parallels to other literary works do certainly exist. Whether these correspondences are the result of true poetic borrowing in whichever direction or are simply the result of different texts responding to the common structure of the bridal-quest narrative remains unclear. Friedrich Panzer (1925/74, 82–91) and Christian Gellinek (1968, 49–54) posit a relationship between König Rother and Mestre Thomas’s Anglo-Norman Roman du Roi Horn (Romance of King Horn), which also dates to the latter part of the twelfth century (ca. 1170). These texts share several plot elements, some of which are also preserved in King Horn, one of the earliest Middle-English romances (ca. 1225).11 Princess Rigmel hears the ladies of the court praise Horn’s exceptional attractiveness, which he displays at a feast; Rigmel sends her father’s seneschal, Herland, to bring Horn to her chambers; Horn takes a pseudonym, Gudmod, during his exile; Horn is excellent at harping; Horn disguises himself as a pilgrim; Horn returns just in time to prevent Rigmel’s marriage to another; Horn reveals himself with a ring. While these elements seem persuasive indicators of influence, Antje Mißfeldt (1978, 87–92) rejects any direct borrowing here but finds a formal relationship between the structural divisions of König Rother and the laisse-structure of the chansons de geste, of which Roi Horn is one.12 It should also be noted that this text is not a bridal-quest narrative that focuses on the male wooer, but rather its converse: the impetus for marriage comes from Princess Rigmel (Panzer 1925/74, 89). This variation on the bridal quest, one in which a man is wooed by a maiden, is also documented in international folklore (Geissler 1955, 1). More clearly related to König Rother, or at least the first part of it, is Ósantrix’s courtship of Oda, daughter of King Milias of Hunland, in the Vilcina section of the Old Norse Þiðreks saga.13 This collection of the heroic adventures of legendary figures associated with Dietrich von Bern, that is, Theoderic the Great (†526), is first documented in a vellum manuscript (Mb = Stockholm, perg. fol. no. 4) dated to 1275– 1300. The saga, which states in a preface that it is based upon German

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accounts, was likely written down or translated into Old Norse in Norway, either by a Norwegian or possibly an Icelandic scribe, between 1230 and 1250.14 Theodore Andersson (1987, 60–61) offers the following plot summary of the relevant sections according to the Mb3 version in Bertelsen, supplemented here with bracketed references to Schmid-Cadalbert’s structural model: Osantrix dispatches six knights to woo Oda, daughter of King Milias of Hunland [S.-C. §B.1]. They are entrusted with a letter vowing war in the event of a refusal. Milias reads the letter and rejects the suit, both because of the arrogant tone and because he cannot part with Oda. The envoys are thrown in prison [§B.1.b]. Osantrix’ nephews Hertnid and Hirdir, aged eleven and ten, now come to his court. Osantrix makes Hertnid an earl in his retinue and commissions him to renew the suit. Hertnid accordingly woos Oda with gifts and fair words [a doubling of §B.1]; when these are of no avail, he delivers a stern letter and is thrown in prison with the previous messengers [a doubling of §B.1.b]. Osantrix himself assembles forces [§B.2.b], including four giants, and appears before Milias under the pseudonym Thidrek and with the fiction that he has had a falling out with his lord Osantrix. He pleads to be taken into Milias’ service, but Milias is reluctant. Outraged by his master’s suppliant posture, the giant Vidolf protests loudly and Osantrix/Thidrek orders him chained to a wall. He then renews his plea. This time the giant Aspilian is so angered that he knocks Milias unconscious and calls aloud for Hertnid. Hearing him, Hertnid and his companions break out of prison, Vidolf snaps his fetters, and they join in a general slaughter. Milias flees. Osantrix, still in the guise of Thidrek, visits Oda and declares his intention of bringing her to Osantrix. He puts her on his lap and tries first a silver, then a golden slipper on her foot. They fit perfectly, and she expresses her eagerness to have a place in Osantrix’ high seat. Thidrek now reveals his identity, effects a reconciliation with Milias, and celebrates his marriage with Oda. [§C.1.d]

Among the most obvious elements shared by both these works — and they also share many other details in common — are Ósantrix’s twelve messengers; imprisonment of the messengers; Ósantrix’s disguise as his own exiled vassal; the use of a pseudonym, Dietrich=Þiðrekr; giants bearing similar names and attributes, Asprian=Aspilian and Witold mit der stangen=Viddolfr mittumstangi; the request to enter the service of the bride’s father; the expressed desire of the bride to marry the wooer; the mismatched shoes that bring about a recognition; and the final reconciliation between wooer and the bride’s father. Ferdinand Urbanek (1976, 139) goes so far as to propose that the very name Rother could possibly

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derive from the same source as the name Jarl Rodgeir in Þiðreks saga, but this suggestion has found little resonance. There has been much scholarly debate over the relationship between König Rother and Þiðreks saga. Current opinion seems to accept the conclusion of Thomas Klein (1985, 499–500), who after a close examination of the parallels concludes that the first part of König Rother could not have been derived from Þiðreks saga, and more specifically from its direct Low German source, as far as that can be reconstructed; on the other hand, König Rother, in the form we now know it, could have not have served as a source for Þiðreks saga. Rather, both texts derive from a common source, to which König Rother is more faithful than Þiðreks saga. Beyond this, nothing concrete can be proved.15 Some scholars, however, such as Kiening (1998, 22–36), still do not wish to exclude the possibility that the compiler of Þiðreks saga could have gotten his version solely from König Rother. The second half of the text shares many common plot elements and motifs with the medieval legend of King Solomon as found in the minstrel epic Salman und Morolf (for example, de Vries 1922/74, liii; Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:298; de Boor 1949/79, 1:242; Siegmund 1959, 121; Erb 1964, 12: 769; Curschmann 1968, 19–25; and Kofler 1996, 131, 197n91). Salman und Morolf was probably composed in the twelfth century, around 1160,16 and there is some manuscript evidence to indicate that the tale originated, like König Rother, in the area of the Lower and Middle Rhine (Bornholdt 2005, 145–46). Unlike the other minstrel epics, it was written not in rhymed couplets, but in strophic form and consists of 873 stanzas of five lines, made up of two couplets separated by an unrhymed verse (the Morolf-Strophe). The Solomon plot was likely inspired by the excessive love of women that is usually attributed to him in folklore. This stereotype is based partly upon biblical information, for example, 1 Kings 3:1, where Solomon marries Pharaoh’s daughter, and 11:1–8, where Solomon’s heathen wives lead him to tolerate their gods, and partly upon folktales about his legendary wisdom and his mastery of the occult.17 From a reference to the feigned death of Solomon’s wife in Chrétien de Troyes’s Cliges (lines 5858–69), composed ca. 1176, it is clear that a tale similar to Salman und Morolf, which also contains this scene, was in circulation in France during the late twelfth century; unknown, of course, is whether that tale was still in the oral stage of dissemination or had already been fixed in written form. With this caveat, a brief sketch of the intricate plot of Salman und Morolf can suffice for comparison,18 although the manuscripts for which, as noted above, postdate König Rother by more than two centuries. The Christian King Salman (Solomon) is married to Salme, daughter of an infidel king, whom he had abducted from her father

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(Siefken’s type D: abduction without consent) and baptized. Following the advice of his counselors (S.-C. §A.2), the infidel King Fore of Wendelsee undertakes a military expedition to Jerusalem to woo Salme (variant of §B.2). He is taken prisoner and placed under Salme’s control, but with the aid of a magic ring he is able to cajole her into freeing him (variant of §B.1.b). After six months, Salme feigns death with the help of a magic herb given her by a minstrel, so that he may bring her to Fore (variant of §B.2.b). Salman’s brother, Morolf, pursues her, first disguised as an elderly Jew, then as a pilgrim. After seven years he is able to find her. They play chess. He is recognized and taken prisoner (variant of §B.1.c), but manages to escape. He returns with Salman, leading a military force (variant of §C.1.a) he conceals in a wood. Salman disguises himself as a pilgrim, but is recognized by Salme, who betrays him. He is taken prisoner. He plays the harp for Fore’s sister, Affer, and rejects her offer to free him (reversed doubling of §B.1.b), demanding to be hanged near the wood. He blows three times on his horn to summon Morolf and his army. His men defeat Fore (reversed variant of §B.2.c), who is hanged. Salme returns to Jerusalem with Salman (variant of §C.2.c), as does Affer, who agrees to convert to Christianity after Morolf promises her that she will marry Salman after the death of Salme. Salme bears Salman a son. Seven years later King Princian of Akers hears of Salme’s beauty (doubling of §A.2) and desires her as his wife. He journeys to Jerusalem (doubling of §B.2) with eleven companions, disguised as a pilgrim. He bewitches Salme with a magic ring and persuades her to elope with him (variant of §B.2.b). Morolf once again sets forth to find her, having this time been promised that he may execute her. Going it alone and employing a variety of disguises — cripple, pilgrim, butcher, peddler — he fails to find her. He sets out again, this time with an army, and learns she is hiding with Princian on an island in the sea. With the help of a mermaid and six wild dwarves, Morolf and a contingent of twelve soldiers defeat Princian. Morolf tosses Princian’s decapitated head into Salme’s lap. Morolf brings Salme back to Jerusalem (doubled variant of §C.2.c), where he kills her with his own hand by slitting her wrists in the bath. Salman subsequently marries Affer, and they rule for another thirty years. The common elements between Salman und Morolf and König Rother are obvious: the desired bride is already married (Constantin arranges for the abduction of his married daughter); the bride is abducted with the aid of a minstrel; her rightful husband (or his agent) disguises himself as a pilgrim; his troops are hidden in a wood; the kidnapped bride recognizes her husband; the husband demands that his execution be carried out by hanging; the place of execution is near the wood where his army is hidden; a horn blast summons his rescuers; a wooer (or rescuer) has eleven companions; a ring and non-human creatures (giants, dwarves) play a significant

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role.19 Despite these similarities, there are also obvious conceptual differences between these texts. Salman und Morolf presents a bridal quest with reversed premises and constitutes a perversion of the genre (Haug 1988, 185). The wooers are inherently negative figures: both are infidels seeking to steal a married woman from her lawful Christian husband.20 Salme herself is a faithless wife who conspires with them against him. Since it is impossible to reconstruct the oral form of Salman und Morolf, as it is that of König Rother, it is impossible to know if one of these texts borrowed from the other. Given the presumption that both these works were circulating in oral versions in the same area at the same time, it would seem questionable to assume that Salman influenced Rother, and not the other way round, especially when this assumption is usually based upon such vague criteria as the claim that the plot of the former proceeds “weitaus glatter und durchdachter” (more smoothly and better thought out; Kofler 1996, 131) than the latter.21 Their commonalities could just as easily be the result of common sources at some early stage of development, as is thought to be the case with Þiðreks saga, or of cross-pollination during some phase of their dissemination, either oral or written. The situation is made more complicated by that fact that many of their common elements belong to a canon of motifs (Curschmann 1964, 40) employed in the minstrel epics, as well as in international folklore.22 What appears to be evidence of influence between König Rother and Salman might well have resulted from both poets’ having drawn independently from this canon.23 This indeed seems a much likelier explanation than that of direct influence. The issue of how the bridal-quest plot material became associated with the name “Rother” has also been a matter of great speculation. Three main historical figures have been suggested as models for his character.24 The earliest of these is the Langobard king, Authari (r. 584–90), who spent much of his reign consolidating his power against rebellious dukes, staving off the invasions of the Frankish king, Childebert II, and expanding his territory at the expense of Byzantine possessions in northern Italy. His marriage (ca. 589) to the Bavarian princess, Theudelinde, had great consequence for the Langobards, for it was primarily she who first encouraged conversion from Arianism to Roman Catholicism. Paulus Diaconus gives the following account of Authari’s wooing expedition in his Historia gentis Langobardorum (ca. 787–96): But after these events king Flavius Authari sent ambassadors to Bavaria to ask for him in marriage the daughter of Garibald their king. The latter received them kindly and promised that he would give his daughter Theudelinda to Authari. And when the ambassadors on their return announced these things to Authari, he desired to see his betrothed for himself and bringing with him a few but active

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men out of the Langobards, and also taking along with him, as their chief, one who was most faithful to him, he set forth without delay for Bavaria. And when they had been introduced into the presence of king Garibald according to the custom of ambassadors, and he who had come with Authari as their chief had made the usual speech after salutation, Authari, since he was known to none of that nation, came nearer to king Garibald and said: “My master, king Authari has sent me especially on this account, that I should look upon your daughter, his betrothed, who is to be our mistress, so that I may be able to tell my lord more surely what is her appearance.” And when the king, hearing these things, had commanded his daughter to come, and Authari had gazed upon her with silent approval, since she was of a very beautiful figure and pleased him much in every way, he said to the king: “Since we see that the person of your daughter is such that we may properly wish her to become our queen, we would like if it please your mightiness, to take a cup of wine from her hand, as she will offer it to us hereafter.” And when the king had assented to this that it should be done, she took the cup of wine and gave it first to him who appeared to be the chief. Then when she offered it to Authari, whom she did not know was her affianced bridegroom, he, after drinking and returning the cup, touched her hand with his finger when no one noticed, and drew his right hand from his forehead along his nose and face. Covered with blushes, she told this to her nurse, and her nurse said to her: “Unless this man were the king himself and thy promised bridegroom, he would not dare by any means to touch thee. But meanwhile, lest this become known to thy father, let us be silent, for in truth the man is a worthy person who deserves to have a kingdom and be united with thee in wedlock. . . .” Having received an escort from the king, they [=the ambassadors] presently took their way to return to their own country, and they speedily departed from the territories of the Noricans. . . . Then Authari, when he had now come near the boundaries of Italy and had with him the Bavarians who up to this time were conducting him, raised himself as much as he could upon the horse he was managing, and with all his strength he drove into a tree that stood near by, a hatchet which he carried in his hand and left it fixed there, adding moreover these words: “Authari is wont to strike such a blow.” And when he had said these things, then the Bavarians who accompanied him understood that he was himself king Authari. Then after some time, when trouble had come to king Garibald on account of an invasion by the Franks, Theudelinda his daughter with her brother, Gundoald by name, fled to Italy and announced to Authari, her promised bridegroom, that she was coming. And he straightway went forth to meet her with a great train to celebrate the nuptials in the field of Sardis which is above Verona, and received her in marriage amid the rejoicing of all on the ides (15th) of May. . . .25

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In truth the commonalities between Authari’s wooing and that of King Rother are not many: a prince woos disguised as his own messenger; the wooer secretly reveals himself to the bride; a female servant advances the course of love. It also seems clear that this depiction of a bridal quest adheres rather to the structure of a simple wooing, common, as already noted, in medieval chronicles, but not in literature. Most important of all, this tale contains no abduction: Theudelinda flees to him accompanied by her brother, which implies familial consent. One might see here, however, just the hint of a perilous wooing: Authari’s throwing of the hatchet indicates at least the possibility of violence, as does the Frankish invasion, which could have been mangled in the oral tradition into a situation where she is being pursued by her father. While some critics, such as Jan de Vries (1922/74, xc–xci and 1921–22/77, 95) and Panzer (1925/74, 37), dismiss entirely the idea of any connection between Authari and Rother, Urbanek (1978, 138) and others suggest that these similarities cannot so easily be ignored. Even if there were, in fact, no direct connection between Authari’s wooing, either as recorded by Paulus Diaconus or in Langobardic folklore, and the Rother text, one can agree with Markus Stock (2002, 237n38), that both tales might be remotely related representatives of the same bridal-quest tradition.26 Based upon the similarity of their names, Rother has also been identified with another Langobard king, Rothari (r. 636–52), a theory advocated most notably by Gustav Ehrismann (1922–35, 21:297) and Panzer (1925/74, 36). They suggest that the story of King Authari became associated with Rothari, because the latter was the more famous of the two as the great codifier and promulgator of Langobard law, the Edictus Rothari (AD 643). Rothari is further noted for his campaigns against the Byzantines in northern Italy, especially his defeat of their forces in a battle at the Panaro River near Modena in 642, which left only the Ravennan marshes under Greek control. This conflict may have offered a reference point for Rother’s rivalry with the king of Constantinople. Among historical figures, however, it is the Norman king, Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154), who is generally viewed as the most likely candidate for directly inspiring the adventures of King Rother.27 Roger became count of Sicily in 1105, upon the death of his brother; in 1122 his cousin, William II of Apulia, ceded to him parts of Calabria. A year after William’s death in 1127, Roger was invested as duke of Apulia by Pope Honorius II. In 1130 Anti-pope Anacletus II declared him King of Sicily. Thus was Roger able to unite all the Norman conquests in southern Italy into one kingdom. It should here be noted that Bari, the location of King Rother’s chief residence, had been conquered by the Normans in 1071 and lay in Roger’s Duchy of Apulia. The Byzantines were the Normans’ traditional enemy to the east, and Roger II took advantage of the Second Crusade in order get revenge upon Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos for

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having allied himself with Roger’s great enemy, German Emperor Konrad III. Manuel had also imprisoned Roger’s emissaries in 1143/44, when they came to propose a marriage between his daughter and Roger’s son and future successor, William I (1131–66). In 1147 Roger’s navy took Corfu, sacked Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, and generally ravaged the coasts of the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Islands. While there is no doubt that Roger’s biography yields certain parallels to the narrative situation in König Rother, especially vis-à-vis the Byzantines, aside from the attempt to woo Manuel’s daughter for his son there seems to be no direct parallel to the central theme of the text, the bridal quest. Roger was married three times — to Elvira of Castile, 1117; Sybille of Burgundy, 1149; and Beatrix of Rethel, 1151 — and while these marriages were, of course, political, they would also have been, in a fictionalized account, simple wooings. Hermann Schneider (1943, 246), for example, terms the identification Roger-Rother an enticing idea, but acknowledges that it is simply unprovable, while de Vries (1922/74, xciii), Klaus Siegmund (1959, 11– 12), and Urbanek (1976, 17–18, 138), among others, have concluded that the historical facts of Roger’s life do not possess any significance for the Rother plot. Bearing in mind the difficulties of making a direct connection between Authari, Rothari, and Roger II, on the one hand, and King Rother, Frings (1945/77, 245–47) proposed a kind of theory-of-everything, which has found some resonance, for example with Curschmann (1968, 34), Karl Bertau (1972–73, 1:471), and, more recently, Klein (1985, 503–4) and Kiening (1998, 238). Frings sees King Rother as a conglomeration of the Langobards, Authari and Rothari, with Roger of Sicily. According to his theory, Authari’s bridal quest becomes associated with the more familiar name of the law-giver, Rothari, whose antiByzantine exploits then become associated with Roger, who would be known in German-speaking lands because of his tempestuous relationship with the German emperors. German emperors of the time have also been suggested as models for Rother, although these theories have generally met with less acceptance. Schröder (1955/77, 349) found in Rother the image, not a portrait but an emblem (Sinnbild), of Frederick I Barbarossa (1122–90) as the spiritual heir of Charlemagne. Rother is portrayed as the grandfather of Charlemagne, and it was to gain Barbarossa’s favor that Charlemagne was canonized in 1165 by Anti-pope Paschal III, although this was later annulled, along with all of Paschal’s ordinances, at the Third Lateran Council in 1179. The rather weak point of direct comparison is the fact that after divorcing his first wife, Adela von Vohburg, in 1153, because she was unable to produce an heir, Barbarossa dallied with the idea of marrying the daughter of Byzantine emperor Manuel I. Although Urbanek (1976, 43) regards the general

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identification of Rother-Barbarossa as a theory that is not disprovable, he does note just a hint (137) of comparison that may have struck readers: Barbarossa’s famed red hair and beard might have caused the audience to associate Rother — Rot-herr (red lord) — with the former as the typological emperor of the West (1978, 132–43). Gellinek (1981, 339–41) persuasively rejects the idea that Rother’s name is derived from Barbarossa’s cognomen, which is only documented after the thirteenth century — something of which Urbanek is also aware — suggesting instead a derivation from Old High German HRôt-hari, ‘he with the glorious army.’ A hypothesis that has met with nearly universal scholarly rejection is that of Siegmund (1959, 9–26, 38–46, 61–67),28 who claims to find parallels between King Rother and Henry VI (1165–97), the son of Barbarossa, who was crowned Roman king at the age of four and later held the titles of German king, 1190–97, Holy Roman emperor, 1191–97, and king of Sicily, 1194–97. Henry was married to Roger II’s posthumous daughter, Constanza of Sicily, through whom he laid successful claim to the Norman territories of southern Italy. (Henry is believed to have had the last legitimate male heir, Constanza’s nephew, the boy-king William III, blinded and castrated.) While Siegmund’s supposed parallels are too numerous to cite here in detail, they include such generalities as Henry’s near obsession, following the birth of his son, the future Frederick II, with turning the empire into a hereditary monarchy, this as a reflection of Rother’s desire to produce an heir. Further, Henry seriously considered mounting a military campaign to conquer Constantinople and had committed himself to participation in the Third Crusade, to which Sicily sent 60,000 troops in 1197, a plan foiled only by his death that same year. Suffice it to say that Siegmund’s parallels are sometimes nebulous, sometimes far-fetched, and they would require that one date the text to the very end of the century, which he does. Urbanek, despite his Rother-Barbarossa theory, rightly rejects these attempts to identify Rother with any particular historical ruler, for Rother is a type, not this or that real emperor, but rather the emperor as he ideally should be: intelligent, even cunning, selfcontrolled, magnanimous, generous, loyal to his vassals, mindful of their counsel, prudent, rich, and in every way royally superior, the apotheosis of the West Roman vision of empire.29 To some extent, and in some cases to a great extent, interpretations of König Rother have been a function of how an individual critic viewed its textual genesis and evolution, both in content and structure. Ehrismann (1922–35, 21:297–98), who, as noted above, believed the source of the plot to have been the Authari story, concluded that its first literary treatment, and the ancestor to the text now preserved in manuscript form, was a heroic lay in alliterative long-lines, performed by a poet sprung from the people (Volkssänger), the bard or scop. Here one still detects the lingering

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influence of the same nineteenth-century Romanticism that shaped the critical image of the wandering minstrel as epic poet. In a second stage of this theoretical development both the form and the content would have been altered: the alliterative long-lines giving way to modern end-rhyme, and the solemnity of the heroic lay undermined by the minstrels’ penchant for the comic. About this time the bridal quest would also have been augmented by the minstrels with a secondary theme from a genre unrelated to it: the vassal saga (Dienstmannsage), a tale of loyalty between a liege lord and his men. In a third and final stage the oral lay was textualized and fixed in its present form, embellished with folkloric motifs and augmented by a doubling of the plot, derived from the legend of Solomon. Ehrismann based his conclusions on the work of several philologists who had attempted to reconstruct earlier, oral versions of the work.30 One thinks here especially of Franz Pogatscher (1913, 37–78), who claimed to have uncovered the strophic Ur-Rother by stripping away supposed interpolations, which he understood as corruptions, made by performing minstrels and various later adapters of the text.31 The structural division of the text into two parts has also shaped scholarly views as to the theme(s) and the meaning of the work. For Curschmann (1964, 106–14) the first part of König Rother is a poem about temporal power and public honor, with love as a secondary theme; after Rother loses his bride the latter theme predominates.32 The fundamental idea of part 1, according to Dagmar Neuendorff (1982, 179–98), is the ideal of loyalty; of part 2, Christian charity: Rother develops from exemplary secular lord to Christian lord. Haug (1988/95, 11) sees part 1 as dominated by Rother as a warrior who gives free reign to his potential to exercise power; part 2, by Rother as a pilgrim who gives himself over to self-abnegation and death, only to be rescued at the last moment. According to Stock (2002, 247) the significance of part 2 lies in its trumping of part 1: by the end of the text Rother has achieved unambiguous success in permanently winning his bride and also, through an intensification of the obstacles that had to be overcome, validated his own excellence as well as that of his loyal vassals. For those who emphasize rather the unity of the two parts of the text, there are grander overarching themes. Schröder (1955/77, 331), for example, believes that the theme of securing the power of a king by siring an heir unites the narrative into a consistent whole.33 Gellinek (1968, 101), on the other hand, emphasizes not the heir, but his parents; for him, the work is a tale of marriage and the loyalty of spouses. Urbanek (1976, 231) sees the text as a metaphorical representation of the historical conflict between the Holy Roman Empire, with its representation of kingship governed by a theocratic imperialism and universalism as advocated by the Hohenstaufen emperors, and Byzantine and Islamic despotism. Haupt (1989, 70n2) views the dominant themes as sovereignty and honor.

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Whether the epic we now know is based upon an existing Rother poem in written form34 or whether the poet has combined themes and motifs from earlier literary sources with contemporary historical references to create a completely new poem35 must remain a question that cannot be answered with any certainty (Schneider 1943, 246), barring, of course, the discovery of new documentary evidence. Several references in the text to written sources (die buoche [the books], line 16; similarly, lines 107, 413, 3472, 4165, 4586) could indeed imply that the poet may have had at his disposal at least one previous written version of the tale in its doubled form, although such references, as claims to truth,36 are common topoi in the minstrel epic (Pörksen 1971, 68) — and elsewhere — and not necessarily to be taken literally. Kiening (1998, 219n32), however, rightly admonishes that scholars should not allow a fixation on the genesis of the text to blind them to the structural relationships that certainly do exist within the written text. The work we now possess is certainly not, and cannot be, identical to its earlier form(s) in the oral tradition, but it is what the written record has provided, and one must attempt to interpret it as such, that is, the achievement of a poet produced out of a new consciousness that is intimately bound up with the written word (Fromm 1960/77, 396).37 The anonymous poet who composed the written version of König Rother gives no direct clues to his identity in the text and, indeed, almost never refers to himself as narrator in any way. The consensus is, however, that he was almost certainly not a wandering minstrel, but rather a man educated in the Latin tradition (Gellinek 1968, 93–97), who hailed from the southern Rhineland, the area in which the Rhine-Franconian dialect was spoken.38 This conclusion is primarily based upon linguistic analyses of the Heidelberg manuscript, which indicate that its written source was composed in the area around Mainz, then the cultural center of the southern Rhineland.39 This linguistic evidence is corroborated by the findings of Bornholdt (2000, 19n4, 58, 145–47), whose examination of the early chronicles, the Chronica Fredegarii (completed ca. 642) and the Liber historiæ Francorum (727), both of which embellish and continue Gregory of Tours’s Historiæ Francorum (ca. 575–90), the Latin epic, Waltharius manu fortis, and the minstrel epics leads her to conclude that the bridal-quest narrative structure was part of a Rhenish tradition that extended north from Franconia to the Low German regions. With an eye toward explaining a linguistic phenomenon in the text, namely, that part 2 evidences a noticeable incidence of High German dialectic forms, Klein (1985, 509), has suggests that part 1 was composed by the poet for a Low German audience on the Rhine, and that part 2 was later added — by the same person — for Bavarians, whose dialect belongs to High German. The Rother poet would most likely be of the clerical class, but probably not a priest.40 He would perhaps have been someone who,

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after completion of his theological education, had taken on non-priestly duties — in administration, in the political or diplomatic service of a secular or clerical ruler — or he may simply have lived the life of a scholar (Hoffmann 1974, 38). Ingeborg Köppe-Benath (1966, 560), however, points out that the basic knowledge of theology evidenced in the text does not necessarily mean that he was a cleric, and Hans Steinger (1930/77, 177–78) objects, in general, to the use of narrative content to determine the social status of the composers of any of the texts in the genre, suggesting that the presence of religious passages would not necessarily exclude even a minstrel, since he might have hoped therewith to avoid clerical censure for his otherwise worldly narrative. The same, according to Steinger, is also true for the contemporary heroic epics: the supposed “glorification of martial virtues” found therein does not prove they were composed by members of the knightly class, but perhaps for it. De Vries (1922/74, liii) maintained that there were two authors involved here, both minstrels: the first, a Lower Franconian; the second, a Middle Franconian. He considers a later cleric to have had his hand in various interpolations of spiritual and moral themes (lxii-lxiv), and this would account for dialect variation. Woelker (1940/69, 212), agrees with de Vries’s two-author theory, but asserts that the author of the bridal quest was a higher sort of minstrel (gehobener Spielmann); the author of part 2, a cleric. Pogatscher (1913, 19, 29) asserted that a whole series of poets, by whom he means minstrels, some more gifted than others, had tried their hand at the text as interpolators who recited the tale and added sections of their own devising to the existing material.41 Based upon the text’s familiarity with events depicted in the Kaiserchronik (Chronicle of the Emperors), which was written by a Regensburg cleric around 1150, and linguistic parallels to that text, as well as to the German version of the Rolandslied, which is also believed to have been composed in Regensburg, it has long been assumed that König Rother in this present form was also composed there (Scherer 1875, 305).42 Attempts to identify or at least to describe the circumstances of the poet’s life have met with little success beyond basic theories; with no further proof available, scholarly interest has focused on the environment in which the work was composed. Although the poet makes no mention of a patron, the latter was likely a member of the Bavarian nobility (see, for example, Bumke 2005, 661); the poet’s audience would have been a Bavarian public made up of members of the upper and even the highest feudal nobility (Kokott 1978, 217).43 Panzer (1925/74, 55) and Schwietering (1931/57, 110), for example, believe that the poet had close connections to Welf VI (1115–91) and his circle. Welf, a younger son of Henry IX of Bavaria, was the maternal uncle of Frederick Barbarossa, who invested him with significant fiefs in Italy: the duchy of Spoleto, the margraviate of Tuscany, and the principalities of Sardinia and Corsica. This

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could establish a connection between Welf and the Italian empire of King Rother. Welf also had friendly relations with Roger II of Sicily, whom Panzer believed to be the historical model for Rother. Bertau (1972, 1:470), too, sees a link to the house of Welf (Guelph), what he terms a Welf axis (welfische Achse), in the territories listed in the text as belonging to Rother’s dominions (lines 4829–89). Urbanek (1976, 83, 91–92, 193, 218), on the other hand, rejects the association of the text with the court of the Welfs and proposes as the principal sponsor of the work another Bavarian prince, Konrad I of Hall-Peilstein (†1168), a rich and powerful count who was known and respected far beyond the boundaries of Bavaria (83). Urbanek further suggests Konrad’s nephew, Liu(t)pold II von Plaien (†ca. 1193), as a sort of secondary patron. Konrad and Liupold were descendants of the house of Tengling,44 another powerful Bavarian dynasty, although neither any longer designated himself as such. Tengling (Tengelingin) appears in the text as the territory belonging to Amelger and his son, Wolfrat. Urbanek considers the principal seat of the Peilstein counts, Castle Karlstein near Reichenhall, to have been the place where König Rother was composed (90). Meves (1976, 63–64, 79–88) originally prefers as patrons the Tengling counts of Burghausen-Schala, particularly Gebhard I. von Burghausen (†1163), but subsequently comes to agree with Urbanek’s choice of Konrad of Peilstein (Meves 1980, 137–38). Bumke (1979, 93– 94) is skeptical of the Tengling connection, criticizing Urbanek’s theory as nothing but a series of unprovable suppositions. De Boor (1949/79, 1:242), seeks the poet’s patron among either the counts of Tengling or the counts of Dachau, the latter principally because they held the duchy of Meran. Meran is important in the text because of Berchter of Meran, King Rother’s venerable counselor. Similarly, Siegmund (1959, 74–79, 136–37) proposes as the poet’s patron Ekbert, prince-bishop of Bamberg. Ekbert was a member of the house of Andechs,45 which held the duchy of Meran after the counts of Dachau. Ekbert was the son of Duke Berthold IV (VI) of Meran and an important figure at the court of Emperor Frederick II, Barbarossa’s grandson. This identification, however, would only be possible if the text were dated to the late 1190s, as Siegmund would like to have it. Born sometime after 1173, Ekbert became cathedral provost in Bamberg only in 1200 and bishop in 1203; he died in 1237. Siegmund (1959, 75–76, 136–37), consequently, suggests Bamberg as the place of König Rother’s composition, based solely upon the fact that he has deduced Bishop Ekbert of Bamberg as the poet’s patron. Gellinek (1968, 85–87) prefers as patron Henry Jasomirgott (1107–77), duke of Bavaria and margrave, later duke of Austria, whose court moved from Bamberg to Regensburg in 1143, which then served as his capital. A member of the house of Babenberg, who saw the duchy of Bavaria lost to his stepson, the

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Welf prince, Henry the Lion, he took an active anti-Welf position in the conflict between the Welfs and their archenemies, the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen. In 1148 Henry Jasomirgott married Theodora Komnena, a niece of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I, hence the putative connection to König Rother. That same list of the territories in Rother’s empire that suggested the Welf axis has also inspired a contrary theory. If one considers the lands Rother does not grant his vassals, his royal domain must theoretically consist of central and northern Italy, Swabia, and Franconia; these territories correspond to the lands directly ruled or otherwise held by the Hohenstaufen at the time of the composition of the text (Schröder 1955/77, 327; Urbanek 1976, 135). On the level of imperial policy the text also seems to reflect, more or less, as Meves (1976, 48) has suggested, the contemporary state of affairs under the Hohenstaufen emperors and their vision of themselves as the spiritual heirs to and restorers of the empire of Charlemagne,46 particularly in that it presents a view that advocates for Hohenstaufen claims to legitimation in their rivalry with the Eastern Empire (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 322). Joachim Bahr and Michael Curschmann (1955–84, 4:117), however, reject the idea that the text embodies Hohenstaufen or for that matter Welf political ambitions; rather, it reflects the situation at the imperial level without regard to party (also Stock 2002, 236). Gellinek (1968, 76–77) speaks with the voice of reason when he reminds that König Rother is a work of fiction and warns against viewing it merely as a text with a political, imperial agenda.

Notes 1

See, for example, Jan de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922, 21974), li; Julius Schwietering, Die deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters, Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft 8 (Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1931; repr., Darmstadt: H. Gentner, 51957), 107; Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 4, Handbuch des deutschen Unterrichts an höheren Schulen 6.1–2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922– 35, 21959), 21:292; Hermann Schneider, Heldendichtung, Geistlichendichtung, Ritterdichtung, vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, ed. Julius Petersen and Hermann Schneider, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1943), 246; Helmut de Boor, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Helmut de Boor and Richard Newald (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1949; 9th ed., ed. Herbert Kolb, 1979), 1:252–57; Walter Johannes Schröder, Spielmannsepik, Sammlung Metzler, Realienbücher für Germanisten, Abt. D: Literaturgeschichte 19 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1962, 21967), 22–35; Hans Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients in vorhöfischen deutschen Epen, Palästra 243 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 113; Curschmann, Spielmannsepik: Wege und

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Ergebnisse der Forschung von 1907–1965; Mit Ergänzungen und Nachträgen bis 1967, erweiterter Sonderdruck aus DVjs 40 (1966) (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1968), 29, with an overview of the discussion, 32–33; Ferdinand Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 18–21; Hartmut Kokott, Literatur und Herrschaftsbewußtsein: Wertstrukturen der vor- und frühhöfischen Literatur; Vorstudien zur Interpretation mittelhochdeutscher Texte (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, and Las Vegas: P. Lang, 1978), 107. 2

Hans Szklenar suggests 1165 as a likely terminus ante quem for the work, the year in which Charlemagne was proclaimed a saint; Szklenar, “König Rother,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al., 2nd ed., 10 vols. (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1978–2008), 4: col. 90–91. Had this already happened, it would have suited the poet’s purposes in the second part of the text to refer to it. Joachim Bumke suggests a date of composition between 1152 and 1180, based on the references to the Duchy of Meran (Merania), held in these years by the Bavarian counts of Dachau; Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter: Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland, 1150–1300 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1979), 92. Later, in his Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im hohen Mittelalter, dtv 4552 (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990; 42000), 76, he narrows down the dates to 1160–70. In his Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 55 and 68–79, Klaus Siegmund attempted to date the text to 1195–97, but this has been generally rejected. 3

Not all critics accept the bipartite division of König Rother. Günter Karhof suggests nine chapters with an introduction and conclusion; Karhof, Der Abschnitt als Vortragsform in Handschriften frühmittelhochdeutscher Dichtungen: Seine strukturbildende Funktion und Bedeutung für die Chronologie (PhD diss., Münster University, 1968), 173–75. Ehrismann argues for a tripartite division: lines 1–2942, first wooing tale; lines 2943–4995, second wooing tale; lines 4996– 5201, appendix (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur 21:292). Dinser argues for a different tripartite division: lines 1–1895, wooing journeys; lines 1896–3268, gain and loss of a wife; lines 3269–5201, retrieval and homecoming; Dinser, Kohärenz und Struktur: Textlinguistische und erzähltechnische Untersuchungen von “König Rother,” Böhlau forum litterarum 3 (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1975), 73–76. Similarly, Rolf Bräuer suggests the following: lines 1–3052, first wooing; lines 3053–3260, re-abduction (Rückentführung); and lines 3261–end, abduction of the abductee; Bräuer, Literatursoziologie und epische Struktur der deutschen “Spielmanns”- und Heldendichtung: Zur Frage der Verfasser, des Publikums und der typologischen Struktur des Nibelungenliedes, der Kudrun, des Ortnit-Wolfdietrich, des Buches von Bern, des Herzog Ernst, des König Rother . . . , Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur 48 (Berlin [DDR]: Akademie-Verlag, 1970), 78. Christian Gellinek advocates a division of the text into five sections (Abschnitte) with three acts (Handlungsakten) — bridal quest (lines 198–2562), gain and loss of a wife (lines 2563–3630) and retrieval of the wife (lines 3631– 5070) — but two plot cycles (Stoffkreise), the division between which lies at line 2562; Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 22–38.

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4

See, for example, Walter Johannes Schröder, “König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” DVjs 29 (1955): 301–22, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 323–50, here 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 323–50, here 335–36; Ingo Reiffenstein, “Die Erzählervorausdeutungen in der frühmittelhochdeutschen Dichtung: zur Geschichte und Funktion einer poetischen Formel,” in Festschrift für Hans Eggers zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Herbert Backes, 551–76, Sonderheft, PBB 94 (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1972), 564–65; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 42 and 62– 68; and Rita Zimmermann, Herrschaft und Ehe: Die Logik der Brautwerbung im “König Rother,” Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 1422 (Frankfurt am Main and New York: P. Lang, 1993), 177. Ingeborg Benath lists and compares the major parallel narrative elements in parts 1 and 2 of the text; Benath, “Vergleichende Studien zu den Spielmannsepen König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf 2,” PBBH 85 (1963): 374–416, here 377–81. 5

The first division is posited, for example, by Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, 21:292, and Günter Kramer, “Zum König Rother: Das Verhältnis des Schreibers der Heidelberger Hs. (H) zu seiner Vorlage,” PBBH 82 (1960): 6; the second, by Markus Stock, Kombinationssinn: Narrative Strukturexperimente im “Straßburger Alexander,” im “Herzog Ernst B” und im “König Rother,” MTU 123 (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 2002), 247; the last, by Jan de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922, 21974), liii, and Benath, “Vergleichende Studien 2,” 376, 403. For Benath, lines 4757–end represent an appendix to part 2, which she describes as “Rother in his kingdom.” 6

Stock, specifies two types of bipartite structure: the Variationstypus, in which plot elements are repeated and varied; and the Kombinationstypus, in which two clearly disparate parts are joined together. He assigns König Rother to the former (Kombinationssinn, 11–12). 7

On the increased importance of Christian values in part 2, see also Reiffenstein, “Die Erzählervorausdeutungen,” 565, Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 64–65; Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 112; Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 343–44; and Ingeborg Köppe-Benath, “Christliches in den Spielmannsepen König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” PBBH 89 (1967): 200–254, here 224. 8

Meves, in his Studien zu König Rother, gives a well-documented summary of the arguments and cautiously sides with Reiffenstein (47–53). 9

The unity of the text is also defended, among others, by Panzer, in his Italische Normannen in deutscher Heldensage, Deutsche Forschungen 1 (Frankfurt am Main: M. Diesterweg, 1925; repr., Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1974), 52 and 71; Günter Kramer, König Rother: Geschichte einer Brautwerbung aus alter Zeit (Berlin [DDR]: Verlag der Nation, 1961), 10; Benath, “Vergleichende Studien 2,” 407; Köppe-Benath, “Vergleichende Studien zu den ‘Spielmannsepen’ Konig Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald: Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 15 (1966): 559; Günter Karhof, Der Abschnitt als Vortragsform,

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155–57 and 170–71; Curschmann, Spielmannsepik, 29; Dinser, Kohärenz und Struktur, 127; Kokott, Literatur und Herrschaftsbewußtsein, 107; Barbara Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung: Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik eines literarischen Motivs in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik, Studia humaniora 14 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), 70n2; Zimmermann, Herrschaft und Ehe, 3; and Christian Kiening, “Arbeit am Muster: Literarisierungsstrategien im König Rother,” in Wolfram-Studien XV: Neue Wege der Mittelalter-Philologie; Landshuter Kolloquium 1996, ed. Joachim Heinzle, L. Peter Johnson, and Gisela Vollmann-Profe (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1998), 219. 10

It should be emphasized again that Schmid-Cadalbert’s scheme is being cited here, not in a normative sense, but as a means of facilitating the reader’s orientation within the narrative structure and providing the basis of a structural comparison to other texts. 11

Mestre Thomas, The Romance of Horn, by Thomas, ed. Mildred K. Pope, Anglo-Norman Texts 9/10, 12/13, 2 vols. (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1955–64); King Horn: An Edition Based on Cambridge University Library MS. Gg. 4.27(2), ed. Rosamund S. Allen, Garland Medieval Texts 7 (New York and London: Garland, 1984). 12

So also Uwe Pörksen, Der Erzähler im mittelhochdeutschen Epos: Formen seines Hervortretens bei Lamprecht, Konrad, Hartmann, in Wolframs Willehalm u. in d. Spielmannsepen, PSuQ, 58 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1971), 25. 13

See Þiðriks saga af Bern, ed. Henrik Bertelsen, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur 34, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, 1905–11), 2:71– 83, §329–30, and the English translation by Edward R. Haymes, The Saga of Thidrek of Bern, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 56 (New York: Garland, 1988), 25–30, ch. 29–38. The tale of Ósantrix’s courtship actually appears twice in Þiðreks saga (Bertelsen, 1:49–56; 2:71–83); however, to recount the textual history of that work is not germane to this study. For a discussion of that matter see Haymes, xxi–xxiv. On the six bridal quests in Þiðreks saga, see Claudia Bornholdt, Engaging Moments: The Origins of Medieval Bridal-Quest Narrative, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 46 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005), 91–119. 14

Þiðreks saga af Bern, trans. Edward R. Haymes, xix. This is not the place to address the issue of whether Þiðreks saga was compiled from German oral sources in Norway itself or is a translation in Norway of previously existing German texts. For a recent summary of the arguments see Bornholdt, Engaging Moments, 87–91. 15

See also Richard Hünnerkopf ’s classic study, “Die Rothersage in der Thidrekssaga,” PBB 45 (1921): 291–97; repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 85–91, here 88; Walter Johannes Schröder, “König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 323–50, here 340–41, n. 25; Schröder, Spielmannsepik, Sammlung Metzler, 24–26; Fromm, “Die Erzählkunst des Rother-Epikers,” Euphorion 54 (1960): 347–79, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 351–96, here 371–76; Helmut Voigt, “Zur Rechtssymbolik der Schuhprobe in Þiðriks saga (Viltina þáttr),” PBB 87 (1965): 117; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 17 and 138; Christian Gellinek, König Rother, 49;

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Hoffmann, Mittelhochdeutsche Heldendichtung, Grundlagen der Germanistik 14 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1974), 37; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 100; and Ferdinand Urbanek, “Rot-her und Imperator Rubeus: (Barbarossa) — Typus und Realität im Epos vom König Rother,” in Stauferzeit: Geschichte, Literatur, Kunst, ed. Rüdiger Krohn, Bernd Thum, and Peter Wapnewski, Karlsruher Kulturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 1 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1978), 136. For a summary of the discussion see Bornholdt, Engaging Moments, 100–106. 16

The text is preserved in three manuscripts from the fifteenth century (Frankfurt, Ms. germ. qu. 13; Paris, Ms. 8021; Stuttgart, Cod. H.B. XIII 2), three fragments (Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. R 52um, 4; Marburg, 147 Hr. 8 Fragm.; the third is in private hands), and two early printings (Strassburg, 1499 and 1510); an additional manuscript (cod.b. 81) was destroyed in the fire at Strassburg’s Stadtbibliothek in 1870. For a discussion of the date of composition, see Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald und die deutsche spielmännische Epik: Mit einem Exkurs zur Kultgeschichte und Dichtungstradition, MTU 6 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1964), 97–100. Böckenholt suggests, as have others, a later date, the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: [privately published], 1971), 104. 17

See the classic study by Samuel Singer, “Salomosagen in Deutschland,” ZfdA 35 (1891): 177–87; repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 72–84. 18

See Michael Curschmann, “Salman und Morolf,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al., 8: col. 515–23. The plot as presented in the minstrel epic is also similar to that of several Russian folksongs and prose narratives; see Salman und Morolf: Ein mittelhochdeutsches Spielmannsgedicht, ed. Friedrich Vogt, vol. 1 of Die deutschen Dichtungen von Salomon und Markolf (Halle/Saale: Niemeyer, 1880, 21954), xli–xlvii. 19

See de Vries, Rother, c–cvii; Karl zur Nieden, Über die Verfasser der mhd. Heldenepen (Bonn: L. Leopold, 1930), 22; Theodor Frings and Max Braun, Brautwerbung, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 96.2 (1944/48) (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1947), 24–30; Maurice O’C. Walshe, Medieval German Literature: A Survey (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), 67; Ewald Erb, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur: Von den Anfängen bis 1160, vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Gysi and Hans Günther Thalheim, 1 vol. in 2, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Volk & Wissen, 1963–64, 41982), 769; and Gellinek, König Rother, 47–49. 20

Sabine Griese erroneously lists König Rother among those epics in which a Christian wooer pursues an infidel bride; Griese, Salomon und Markolf: ein literarischer Komplex im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, Hermaea, n.s., 81 (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1999), 110n86. 21

Griese is somewhat equivocal on this point. She notes that obvious parallel motifs make the influence from one to another likely; in addition König Rother is assigned an earlier composition date that of Salman, and Rother manuscripts are

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older. She does not, however, explicitly state the conclusion that Rother influenced Salman (Salomon und Markolf, 77). Griese’s position on this matter is somewhat overstated by Bornholdt, Engaging Moments, 149. 22

Ehrismann suggested that the plot material for all the minstrel epics derived from the general reservoir of stories, fairytales, farces, anecdotes, and Biblical tales and legends (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, 21:287). 23

Gellinek argued that the structural and motivic doublings in part 2 of König Rother resulted from the the combination of two similar oriental sources — bridal quest and the legend of Solomon — that were no longer recognized as similar (König Rother, 48 and 102–3), an assertion rejected by Curschmann, because such sources remain unknown, and Gellinek’s theory, therefore, unverifiable (Spielmannsepik, 53). 24

Schröder, Spielmannsepik, Sammlung Metzler, 26–28, and Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 45–54, give a summary of the historical data and scholarly arguments. 25

Paulus Diaconus, Pauli Historia Langobardorum, ed. Ludwig Konrad Bethmann and Georg Waitz, MGH 48 (Hanover: Hahn, 1878; repr., Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1978), bk. 3, §30, 133–35; trans. William Dudley Foulke, History of the Langobards, by Paul, the Deacon, Translations and Reprints, n.s., 3 (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Department of History; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907; repr., Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1967), 137–40. De Vries (Rother, 89–90) also reprints the Latin text. 26

Curschmann has suggested that the narrative core of König Rother might date as far back as the period of the Great Migration in the fifth and sixth centuries (Spielmannsepik, 34). 27

See Friedrich Panzer, Italische Normannen, 38 et passim; also Schwietering, Deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters, 107–8; de Boor, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur 1:243; and Erb, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur 12:769–70. 28

See Gellinek, König Rother, 6n9, for a lengthy bibliography of critical reviews and comments, and Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald, 111n1. 29

Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 134: “Nicht dieser oder jener reale Kaiser, sondern der Kaiser, wie er der Idee nach sein sollte: klug, beherrscht, großzügig, treu zu seinen Dienstmannen, gutem Rat zugängig, besonnen, reich und in allem königlich überlegen (Schröder) — Apotheose weströmischen Kaisertums.” See also Schröder, “König Rother,” 329. 30

For a summary of their efforts, see Antje Mißfeldt, Die Abschnittsgliederung und ihre Funktion in mittelhochdeutscher Epik: Erzähltechnische Untersuchungen zum “König Rother,” Vorauer und Straßburger “Alexander,” “Herzog Ernst” (B) und zu Wolframs “Willehalm” unter Einbeziehung altfranzösischer Laissentechnik, GAG 236 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1978), 29–32. 31

More recently, and without the Romantic baggage of her predecessors, Gudula Dinser has examined the use of initials and signals of linguistic coherence in the manuscripts, positing a “performance structure” that consists of narrative units of ca. 400 lines; Dinser, Kohärenz und Struktur: Textlinguistische und erzähltechnische Untersuchungen von “König Rother,” Böhlau forum litterarum 3 (Cologne

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and Vienna: Böhlau, 1975), 59–62. Her research obviously implies that the manuscripts still reveal organizational structures of an oral past. 32

Vollmann-Profe, on the other hand, suggests that love is not thematized in the text, nor is it a problem: only in the shoe episode does one experience something of the tension of the love relationship (Wiederbeginn volkssprachiger Schriftlichkeit, 228). 33

So also Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau, 15; Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 101; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 14; Kramer, König Rother, 7; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 42 and 62–68; and Stock, Kombinationssinn, 253. 34

So, for example, Hünnerkopf, “Die Rothersage in der Thidrekssaga,” 88; Theodor Frings and Joachim Kuhnt in their edition of König Rother, Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 3 (Bonn and Leipzig: K. Schroeder, 1922), 199; de Vries, Rother, liii; and de Boor, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur 1:254. 35

For example, Panzer, Italische Normannen, 70, and Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 116. 36

On such references to sources as a way of asserting the truth of the narration, see, for example, Carl Lofmark, The Authority of the Source in Middle High German Narrative Poetry, Bithell Series of Dissertations 5 (London: Institute of Germanic Studies, U of London, 1981), esp. 10–34 and 48–66; Edward R. Haymes, “‘ez wart ein buoch funden’: Oral and Written in Middle High German Heroic Epic,” in Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry, ed. John Miles Foley (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1987), 235–43, esp. 241–42; and Klaus Grubmüller, “Das buoch und die Wahrheit: Anmerkungen zu den Quellenberufungen im Rolandslied und in der Epik des 12. Jahrhunderts,” in “bickelwort” und “wildiu mære”: Festschrift für Eberhard Nellmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Dorothee Lindemann, Berndt Volkmann, and Klaus-Peter Wegera, GAG 618 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1995): 37–50. 37

On the crisis that results from the loss of the unity of structure and meaning when a work moves from the oral tradition to the fixed written form, in which the meaning can be constructed by the reader from a text that no longer permits the variations that previously defined its immutable structure (=meaning), see Walter Haug, “Struktur, Gewalt und Begierde: Zum Verhältnis von Erzählmuster und Sinnkonstitution in mündlicher und schriftlicher Überlieferung,” in Idee, Gestalt, Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See, ed. Gerd Wolfgang Weber, 143–57 (Odense: Odense UP, 1988); repr. in Haug, Brechungen auf dem Weg zur Individualität: Kleine Schriften zur Literatur des Mittelalters (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1995), 3–16, here 8–11. For Haug, part 1 of the textualized König Rother consists of the orally transmitted plot structure; in part 2, this structure is repeated with variation, so as to allow the reader to establish its meaning. Kiening argues against this model (“Arbeit am Muster,” 220), since attempts to determine what the orally transmitted form actually was are too problematic. Lorenz Deutsch agrees, noting that Haug’s thesis is too much based upon a prioritization of the written text, without proof that the oral version was not doubled; Deutsch, “Die Einführung der Schrift als Literarisierungsschwelle: Kritik eines mediävistischen Forschungsfaszinosums am Beispiel des

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König Rother,” Poetica: Zeitschrift für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 35 (2003): 84–85. Stock, who is critical of Haug’s unprovable premise that the oral phase had no doubling (241), offers a compromise position; while acknowledging Kiening’s objections, he views the bipartite structure of the written work to be a generator of meaning (Sinngenerator), upon the basis of which other operations that yield meaning take place (Kombinationssinn, 238–43). 38

See, for example, Willy Krogmann, “König Rother,” in Wolfgang Stammler and Karl Langosch, Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters (Verfasserlexikon), 5 vols. (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1933–55), 2: col. 847–48, and Schröder, Spielmannsepik, Sammlung Metzler, 23. 39

According to Günter Kramer, Ms. H, which evidences dialect forms from several Rhine regions, originated in the area around Cologne, since Cologne mss. of the period tend to contain dialect forms from a larger region encompassing both the Low-Franconian dialect to the north and the area around Mainz to the south (“Zum König Rother,” 4–5 and 72–73). See also Kramer, “Zum König Rother: (Über dulden und lobesam, lustsam),” 186–203, and “Zum König Rother: 2,” PBBH 84 (1962): 120–72. For a summary of the older linguistic arguments, see Bornholdt, Engaging Moments, 100–102. 40

So, for example, Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 76; Gellinek, König Rother, 93–94; Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients, 148; Karl Bertau, Deutsche Literatur im europäischen Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1972–73), 1:471; Hoffmann, Mittelhochdeutsche Heldendichtung, 38; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 62; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 98–99; and Joachim Bumke, Höfische Kultur: Literatur und Gesellschaft im hohen Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986; repr. in 1 vol, 112005), 683. 41

For summaries of the scholarly positions regarding the variously proposed interpolators, see Schröder, “Zur Textgestaltung des König Rother,” PBB 79 (1957): 223–33, and Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 86–115. 42

See summaries of the arguments in Curschmann, Spielmannsepik, 31; counterarguments in Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 190–97. 43

This conclusion is based upon the idea that the text presumes a sophisticated understanding of historical circumstances and imperial politics (Curschmann, Spielmannsepik, 68–69). De Vries (Rother, lvi-lx) and Ehrismann (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, 21:300), among others, suggest that the many laudatory references to the Bavarian nobility were later interpolations and not part of the original, orally transmitted, plot material. 44

For a genealogy of the Tenglings, see Wilhelm Wegener, ed., Genealogische Tafeln zur mitteleuropäischen Geschichte (Göttingen: H. Reise, 1962–69), 100– 111. Wilhelm Störmer goes so far as to suggest that König Rother was understood by the Tenglings themselves as a way of propagating the “history” of their own family in the context of the history of the empire; Störmer, “‘Spielmannsdichtung’ und Geschichte: Die Beispiele ‘Herzog Ernst’ und ‘König Rother,’” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 43 (1980): 564. Similarly, Uwe Meves views König Rother as an instrument of self-interpretation with the purpose of self-validation and self-affirmation for the Tenglings in an age of social and constitutional

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change; Meves, “Zur Rolle der Sieghardinger für die Adelsliteratur im Südosten des Reiches (10.-13. Jh.): Auf der Grundlage personen- und besitzgeschichtlicher Überlegungen,” in Adelsherrschaft und Literatur, ed. Horst Wenzel, Beiträge zur älteren deutschen Literaturgeschichte 6 (Bern, Frankfurt am Main, and Las Vegas: P. Lang, 1980), 138. Klaus Graf rejects outright the idea that König Rother was meant to document Tengling family history, since he finds absolutely no proof of this in the text; Graf, “Literatur als adelige Hausüberlieferung?” in Literarische Interessenbildung im Mittelalter, ed. Joachim Heinzle, Germanistische Symposien, Berichtsbände 14 (Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 1993), 129. 45 46

Wegener, Genealogische Tafeln, 162.

So also Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 102–3; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 135; and Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung, 80.

3: Rother

T

HE TEXT OF König Rother opens with a requisite element of SchmidCadalbert’s bridal-quest narrative structure, a description of the personal characteristics and the political sphere of influence of the royal wooer, as well as the naming of his residence (S.-C. §A.1). Rother is introduced as a mighty and respected king who resides in the city of Bari on the Adriatic Sea. The locating of Rother’s residence in the port city of Bari, in Apulia, supports the view that in the historical development of the plot material there is an important connection to the Langobard kings Authari and Rothari and to Roger II of Sicily (see chapter 2). Bari was seized from the Byzantines by the Langobards in 670 and remained under their control, with brief interruptions — including its incorporation as an Islamic emirate, 847–71 — until 875, when it rejoined the Byzantine Empire. In 1071 the Normans, led by Robert Guiscard, defeated the Byzantines at Bari and drove them out of southern Italy for good. Robert’s grandson, William II, abdicated from the dukedom of Apulia in 1122 in favor of his cousin, Roger II, a nephew of Robert Guiscard, and the city finally submitted to him in 1131. Bari also served as the main harbor of departure for Crusaders making their way east to the Holy Land,1 a further connection to the events in the text that take place in Constantinople, where Rother engages in battle against the infidel king, Ymelot.

Bi deme westeren mere saz ein kuninc der heiz Rother. in der stat zu Bare da lebete er zu ware mit vil grozen erin. ime dientin andere heren: zwene unde sibinzih kuninge, biderve unde ørmige, die waren ime al undertan. er was der aller heriste man, der da zu Rome ie intfinc die cronen. (lines 1–12)2 [On the coast of the Western Sea lived a king by the name of Rother. He lived, indeed, in very great repute in the city of Bari. He was served by other rulers, seventy-two kings, worthy and most capable, who were subject to him. He was the most illustrious man who ever received the crown there in Rome.]3

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The opening lines of the text do not give any specific information as to the extent of Rother’s realm much beyond the eastern shores of southern Italy around Bari, but the fact that he was crowned as king in Rome, which one later learns is also the seat of his ruling council (lines 650–51, 744–46), hints at something greater; namely, that his kingdom extends beyond Apulia to encompass central Italy. The true extent of his power and its significance is only gradually revealed in the course of the work. The title of his wise counselor, Berchter, count of Meran (line 473), indicates that Rother exercises at least some sort of feudal hegemony along the eastern coast of northern Italy. Although it is difficult to determine the exact geographic boundaries of the historical duchy of Merania at the time of the composition of König Rother, many scholars have assumed it referred to the Dalmatian coast in modern Croatia (for example, de Boor 1949/79, 1:242; Erb 1963–64, 12:769n1). Erwin Herrmann, however, has convincingly argued that Merania is most likely modern Marano Lagunare, which lies between the Tagliamento and Corno rivers, on the Gulf of Venice northwest of Trieste.4 In the eighth century this area, which had been taken from the Byzantines by the Langobards, became part of the Frankish kingdom under Charlemagne, who took the title King of the Langobards in 774. Following the completion of his bridal quest, Rother must quell a rebellion led by a group of counts who prefer Duke Hademar of Diessen (Diezen, line 2953) as their king. To this end they have risen up against King Amelger of Tengelingin, the regent appointed by Rother to rule in his absence. These two names reveal that Rother’s empire extends into southern Germany and underscore, as well, the text’s Bavarian connections. The market town Diessen am Ammersee lies in Upper (that is, southern) Bavaria, in the modern district of Landsberg. At the time of the composition of König Rother the counts of Andechs-Diessen5 ruled over significant territory between the Lech and the Isar, and along the Loisach and the Inn, as well as in Upper Franconia. The counts of Diessen are also linked to Merania. In 1152/53 Frederick Barbarossa had granted Meran to the Wittelsbach prince, Konrad II of Scheyern-Dachau (†1159); at his death Meran passed to his son, Konrad III (†1182). Barbarossa later, ca. 1178–82, granted Meran to Berthold of Andechs-Diessen, whose mother was Hedwig of Dachau, a cousin of the above-mentioned Konrad II. Meran passed to Berthold’s son, Otto I (VI), in 1204, then to his grandson, Otto II (VII), in 1234, before the line extinguished in the male line with Otto in 1248 (Wegener 1969, 158). Thereafter, Merania fell to the Patriarch of Aquileia, Berthold VII of Andechs (†1251), another member of the Diessen clan, and thence into the hands of the church. Similarly, the medieval village of Tengling is now part of Taching am See, in the district of Traunstein, at the northern tip of the Waginger See. Tengling was the seat of another powerful Bavarian dynasty, although by

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the time König Rother was composed the members of this clan went by other titles that distinguished the various branches of the family: Peilstein, Plaien, and Burghausen.6 According to Urbanek (1976, 96), the territory of the counts of Diessen bordered on the east that of the counts of Peilstein, and he suggests that the fictional rebellion in König Rother reflects factional rivalries within the Bavarian nobility (95–108; also Meves 1983, 75–76). He further believes that the use of this venerable Bavarian name, no longer used by its contemporary members, was purposeful: that the poet is thus placing the story of Rother in a remote and legendary past (40). Kiening (1998, 238), however, takes a more nuanced position: the poet is attempting to recall a past that embodied for his contemporaries historical alterity, as well as modernity, and the continuity between past and present. Rother’s pursuit of his rebel liegemen leads him much further north than southern Bavaria and into Ripuaria (Riflande, line 3104), the area on the Lower Rhine that formed the heart of the Carolingian empire. By the end of the narrative it is revealed that Rother’s domain encompasses Western Europe and beyond, including lands that never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. This is not to be regarded as a historical blunder on the part of the poet, but meant to symbolize Rother’s excellence. This is made explicit through symbolic representation7 in the number of his high-born vassals (Knappe 1974, 78), the seventy-two kings, a formalistic number of Biblical origin that is also found in folklore (Z 71.14),8 indicating that Rother exercises a universal authority that includes the entire world (Erb 1963/64, 12:770).9 King Rother’s great temporal power is only matched by his public virtue. Røther was ein here: sine dinc stunden mit erin unde mit grozen zuhtin an sinen hove — iz ne haben die bǒche gelogen —, daz ime da an gote nichtes ne gebrach, wene daz er ane vrowen was. (lines 13–18) [Rother was a lord: his affairs were conducted with honor and with great seemliness at his court, unless the books (sources) have lied about this, so that he lacked nothing which was good there, except that he was without a wife.]

This introduction to the character of King Rother is brief, and its short list of superlatives offers as yet no examples to demonstrate their validity; Rother’s conduct is simply defined as exemplary, both in his conduct of public affairs and in the way that conduct is viewed by those he governs. With his two references to Rother’s honor (ere) the narrator sums up in one word all the virtues required of a medieval king. Honor is an important theme

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in the text — the word occurs seven times in the first 125 lines — but as a concept it is not to be confused with the modern meaning of the word. It is not an internal sense of one’s own worthiness; rather, it is indicative of one’s prestige and reputation as manifested in wealth, power, and social position within the hierarchy (Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:306).10 The public honor asserted by the narrator in his introduction of the main character is further defined in the course of the plot, as Rother’s kingship is compared to that of Constantin of Constantinople (see chapter 4). Suffice it to say that Rother is meant to be understood as emblem of the ideal king (Kokott 1979–85, 1:34–35), the archetypal German emperor (Heer 1952, 115), and, more broadly, a representation of the idea of empire as it was understood in the West (Erb 1963–64, 12:770). Schröder (1955/77, 328–39) characterizes him as a king whose main virtues are loyalty (triuwe) and generosity (milte). As such, he is meant to be identified with both Charlemagne — according to the text the grandson of Rother — and Frederick Barbarossa, the Hohenstaufen emperor who did so much to honor Charlemagne, including his efforts to arrange the latter’s canonization, and to portray himself as Charlemagne’s spiritual heir. In medieval Germany Charlemagne was regarded as the exemplary emperor, the model ruler who incorporated the most important elements of the medieval concept of empire: a single, universal, Roman Catholic, divinely ordained sovereignty, structured according to the principles of feudal law (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 336). The imperial ideal of Barbarossa and his Hohenstaufen successors in the twelfth century was characterized by a similar combination of nationalism, Christianity, and imperialism (Sandrock 1931, 1). Juxtaposed as it is against the assertion of Rother’s unparalleled temporal might and excellence, the statement that he has no wife indicates that his public virtue is nevertheless flawed. Only with the acquisition of a wife can his power and prestige be complete, for sovereignty is only complete when it endures (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 324). Providing a legitimate heir to the throne is paramount among the duties of a king,11 and Rother has been derelict in not ensuring the continuity of good kingship through dynastic succession. The issue of Rother’s bachelorhood is of particular interest to his young vassals, but their concern is not altruistic: Rother’s domestic happiness has but little to do with it. Rother’s heir will one day be their liege lord, and only when the continuity of the royal house is guaranteed can their own inheritance, their own future position in the kingdom, be secure (Kokott 1979–85, 34; Stock 2002, 255). The stabilization of sovereignty through succession is perhaps the most important theme in the text (for example, Stock 2002, 253), and the bridal quest is the means by which this stabilization can be achieved (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 332). When they address the king with their concerns in the first of two council scenes (S.-C. §A.2),

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the young vassals initiate that bridal quest. That this initiative does not come from Rother himself is insignificant to the bridal-quest structure, in which the decision to seek a bride can be taken either by the wooer himself or by another — his parents, his counselors, or even God (Bornholdt 2005, 13): do rededen die iungen graven die in deme hove waren, wie se ane vrowen ir erbe solden buwen. do duchte sie daz recht, . . . daz er [=Rother] ein wip neme de ime zu vrowen gezeme. unde virsciede er an erben, so waneden se irsterben, weme sie dan die cronen solden gebin zo Rǒme. (lines 19–32) [Then the young counts who were at court discussed among themselves how they should secure their own inheritances without a liege lady. Thus, they thought it right and proper . . . that he take to wife a woman appropriate to his station. For if Rother died without an heir, they believed they would come to grief in deciding to whom they should then give the crown in Rome.]

Müller has convincingly argued that designating these counts as young does not necessarily indicate their age, but rather refers to those who are willing to take action to resolve what obviously to them is a serious problem they may have to confront. In this they stand in contrast to the older vassals, who are more experienced and whose wise counsel, not action, is that which is prized; for them, the future of the kingdom, made uncertain by the lack of an heir, will, sooner rather than later, no longer be of personal concern (1993, 131–32). While the young counts’ practicality in the matter of marriage may seem somewhat selfish to our modern sensibility, one must not forget that the current Western idea that one marries for love stands, in some ways, in stark contrast to current thinking in the twelfth century, just as it does for certain non-Western cultures in the modern world. The official Christian position on marriage was codified for canon law by Gratian of Bologna, whose Decretum, the Concordia discordantium canonum (A Harmony of Discordant Canons, ca. 1140), was used as a basic textbook in canon-law faculties until modern times. Gratian concludes that Christians should marry for the positive purpose of procreation, although they could also legitimately marry to avoid the negative temptations of fornication and adultery, as suggested by 1 Corinthians 7:9 (Gratian C. 27 q. 2; Brundage 1987, 232). Paucapalea, one of the twelfth-century Decretalists who wrote

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commentaries on Gratian, additionally considers the reconciling of personal enemies and the restoration of peace as honorable motives (Weigand 1981, 40, 44). From the very outset it is clear that Rother’s proposed marriage will conform to Gratian’s principles; it is to be a marriage of state (Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:309),12 in which rank and position play the ultimate role, with any ideas of “love” relegated to chance and good fortune. A marriage based upon any other principle could have disastrous social consequences, not just for a king, and not just for the present, for as Moller (1959, 155) noted in his study on the sociological aspects of courtly love, “it was imperative for a nobleman, or a knight, or even a young aspirant to the knighthood to avoid a misalliance, lest he jeopardize his status or his chances for promotion and the status and inheritance of his children.” Rother cannot tolerate this blot on his honor13 and thus on his social status and ability to rule effectively (Zimmermann 1993, 23). He takes the concerns of his vassals very seriously, for as a good king he must see to their welfare. This is a principle Rother has inherited from his own father — and which he will pass on to his son — for one of the few things we later learn about the father is that he always behaved loyally toward his men (lines 3360–64). Even at this early stage of the bridal-quest narrative a second, and extremely important, political theme is introduced: the mutual loyalty between a lord and his vassals. This has led to some speculation that the text represents a bridal-quest epic that has been merged with another genre that in its genesis is unrelated to it, namely, the vassal saga (Dienstmannsage), a tale of loyalty between a liege lord and his men (for example, Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:290). Kokott (1978, 110) goes so far as to speak of the glorification of loyalty in König Rother as that virtue that again and again is stressed in the narration: Rother is a ruler who optimally fulfills his responsibilities toward his vassals, particularly loyalty through acts of generosity (line 148), and much narration is devoted to the corresponding behavior on the part of Rother’s men.14 This loyalty is by nature reciprocal, in that a relationship between lord and vassal is entered upon as an act of free will and based upon mutual advantage (Zimmermann 1993, 48–49). For both his own honor and his vassals’ futures, Rother must find a wife. The young counts suggest only one qualification for the woman who is to be offered that position, a qualification that is indeed the prime indicator of her very fitness for it: her hierarchical equality to Rother. In Rother’s response to them it is clear that for him, too, her rank is the paramount issue in this matter of state. As is to be expected, love (minne) is noticeably not mentioned as a requirement by either Rother or his vassals, but the idea of love might not be totally absent from their thoughts. Zimmerman (1993, 38) contends that it is implied, in that equality of birth and minne stand in a direct relationship to each other, for minne arises from and is dependent upon the recognized suitability of the future

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spouse. Equality of status, however, presents a problem: Rother knows of no suitable bride in his country who would fulfill their stated requirement. He is the king and thus has in his homeland no equal: none of his own vassals could father a daughter worthy of a marital alliance with their liege lord. Furthermore, a marital alliance with the family of one vassal could inspire envy and discord among the others, thus endangering the bonds of loyalty. Accordingly, Rother proposes an additional prerequisite for his potential spouse: she must not only be well born, she must be foreign. As has been noted, a more or less radical exogamy of the bride (Kiening 1998, 212; Schirmunski 1961, 41) is a requisite feature of the perilous bridal quest; here that feature has been perfectly grounded in the text and motivated by Rother’s own political situation. Furthermore, Rother is well aware that winning a wife who is truly of equal status will not be an easy task, for it will challenge the status of her father, which must by definition be equal to his own. In this he signals to them — and to the reader — that this will be a perilous bridal quest, as though purposefully indicating the genre and structure, and foreshadowing the conflicts to come: “ich vorchte vil sere, daz hic køninges dǒhter gehige unde hiz tan uvele gethige, dat her ez gewrechen ane minen lif. gerne het ich ein wolgeboren wif, die van alleme adele gezeme eime koninge, dar zo vrowen richen herzogen. hic ne weiz sie neirgen in dime lande, die mir so wol gevalle, daz ir sie lobit alle.” (lines 34–44) [“I fear very much that if I marry a king’s daughter, it will have evil consequences, in that he will take vengeance upon me for it. I would gladly have a high-born wife, who in all things noble would be suitable for a king and, in addition, as the liege lady of mighty dukes. But I know of no one anywhere in this land who would please me so much, that you would all praise her.”]

Once this suggestion of a marriage has been made by the young counts and accepted as a matter for consideration by the king, he takes the next step and seeks the advice of his wise and more experienced vassals, die wisen altherren (the wise old-men, line 59), a doubling of the structural element of the council scene (S.-C. §A.2).15 Rother’s decision to consult his counselors is at the same time yet another confirmation of the narrator’s assertion that Rother is an exemplary king: before he

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undertakes any decision with political implications, he consults his vassals, and by doing so he uses the capabilities of others to further his own goals (Kramer 1961, 161).16 The importance of wise counselors to the success of a just king was stressed already in the influential mirror for princes — a text delineating the character and conduct of an ideal ruler — by the Pseudo-Cyprian, De duodecim abusivis sæculi (Concerning Twelve Abuses of the World), written in Ireland sometime in the early eighth century, as well as by those mirrors in the ninth century by Jonas of Orleans, De institutione regia (On the Institution of the King, ca. 831), written for Charlemagne’s grandson, Pippin I of Aquitaine; by Sedulius Scottus (fl. 848), De rectoribus Christianis (On Christian Rulers); and by Hincmar of Reims, De ordine palatii (On the Good Order of the Government, 882), written for Carloman II, Charlemagne’s great-great-grandson (Sandrock 1931, 29).17 That Rother seeks the counsel of his vassals specifically in the matter of his marriage is, moreover, a clear acknowledgment that he is cognizant of the importance of the issue to them and of their right to participate in reaching a solution that satisfies his requirements, as well as their own.18 An examination of the historical record indicates that such discussions are traditionally divided into three major parts: presentation of the matter to be discussed; voting of the counselors; and decision of the king, whereby the vote of the counselors is not necessarily binding on the king (Althoff 1997a, 161).19 In the first of two meetings of his council, a colloquium familiare, at which the king himself is not present, Count Luppolt20 is the first to speak. Luppolt is the son of Duke Berchter of Meran,21 Rother’s wisest counselor. He is also someone whom Rother knows well, both as a kinsman who was reared at his court and a vassal, someone, therefore, with a double interest in the stability of the dynasty. He is introduced as the most loyal man who ever served any Roman king (der aller getruiste man / den ie sich hein romise kuninc gewan, lines 55–56). Indeed, loyalty (triuwe), that chief virtue of the vassal and knight, is Luppolt’s main character trait; this is emphasized throughout the text (lines 55, 99, 121, 163, 2713, 2973, 3297, 3538, 3615, 3697, 4206, 4460, 4884), as has often been noted (for example, Urbanek 1976, 52). Triuwe is first and foremost a legal concept meaning to keep an agreement, including the bond between lord and vassal; for the knight, in particular, it signified the fulfilling of one’s moral obligations (Bumke 2005, 418). As an exemplar of loyalty Luppolt serves as further confirmation of Rother’s own exemplarity. It is primarily, but certainly not exclusively, through the character of Luppolt that the theme of loyalty is explored, although even Rother’s most important vassals, the princes and counts, do not hesitate for a moment in undertaking an obviously perilous bridal quest on his behalf. Luppolt combines several of the requisite roles in the perilous quest, as defined by Schmid-Cadalbert (1985, 84–86 and 125): he is the Namer

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(Nenner), who proposes the bride; the Knower (Kundiger), who tells of the circumstances of the bride and the difficulties of the quest; and the Courtship Messenger (Werbungsbote), who delivers the wooer’s proposal to the bride’s father. Luppolt offers a solution to the king’s problem by proposing as a bridal candidate the daughter — nameless in the text22 — of King Constantin in Constantinople. “ich weiz, wizze Crist, oster over se einis riken kuninges tǒchter vil her, da zo Constantinopole in der meren burge. ir vater heizit Constantin, schone ist die tochter sin. siu luchtit uz deme gedigene so daz gesterne tøt vun deme himele. siu luchtit vor anderen wiben so daz golt von der siden. siu ist in midin also smal, sie gezeme eime herren wol unde mochte von ir adele gezeme eime koninge. (lines 64–79) [“I know, by Christ, to the east across the sea, of the most noble daughter of a mighty king there at Constantinople, in the famed city. Her father’s name is Constantin; his daughter is beautiful. She shines among the courtiers as does the morning star against the sky; she outshines the other ladies as does gold against satin. Her waist is so narrow that she would suit any ruler well and through her noble lineage would suit a king.”]

Although he has never seen her, Luppolt begins his proposal of a bridal candidate by addressing the prerequisite agreed upon by both Rother and the young counts, her noble lineage, as well as the condition stipulated by Rother, that she must not be of Roman blood. His suggestion of Constantin’s daughter is indeed a bold one, for Constantin sits upon the oldest throne in Europe and is the political heir of the Caesars; his daughter is, therefore, of great status. While the text does not state it directly, she may be of the highest possible status, a princess porphyrogenita (πορφυρογέννητη, born in the purple)23, a distinction not enjoyed even by all daughters of a Byzantine emperor. A porphyrogenita must be sired by a reigning emperor and conceived and delivered by a crowned augusta24; but, whether Constantin’s daughter was conceived before or after his accession, which would reveal her exact status, is not mentioned. Because the porphyrogenita was imbued with the semi-mystical qualities of the emperor and could therefore pass the imperial dignity to her husband,

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it was not customary for her to marry a foreigner, as Liudprand of Cremona discovered with he sought the hand of a porphyrogenita for the son of Otto I in 968.25 To the virtues of the Byzantine princess’s noble lineage and her exogamy Luppolt adds another, more personal, dimension, a description of her physical qualities compared to that of other women at that foreign court, albeit vague except for the mention of her fine figure. Here Luppolt, whose close relationship with Rother has been emphasized by the narrator, speaks to the issue in terms of fulfilling Rother’s expectations not only as king, but also as a man. Although the political considerations of her father’s status and power, and her own noble birth are obviously important to him, it is clear from his extravagant metaphors that the princess’s fabled beauty plays a significant role as well. In this Luppolt is thinking much less along the accepted view of marriage in contemporary canon law than were even the young counts. The above-mentioned Paucapalea declares that the partner’s beauty, that which inflames one to love, belongs to the less honorable motives for marriage. Weigand (1981, 44–45) notes, however, that the author of the anonymous tract Sacramentum coniugii non ab homine, another Decretalist like Paucapalea, differentiates between men and women in this regard: for a potential husband one should consider his strength of character (virtus), lineage (genus), attractiveness (pulchritudo), and wisdom (sapientia); for a potential wife, first of all her attractiveness, then lineage, wealth (divitie), and moral character (mores). That this hitherto neglected requirement of physical beauty in his potential bride makes a significant impression on Rother is made evident when he later speaks of her to Luppolt. At that point Rother mentions no other quality than that she is “so wundrin schone” (so wondrously beautiful, line 111), although he does acknowledge, in the following line, that such a marriage would increase his prestige. In light of this, it would seem that Rita Zimmermann (1993, 33) undervalues the princess’s physical charms, when she suggests that the description of those qualities that make her an attractive candidate for marriage is so general because they are not very important relative to her prestige and possessions, both of which depend upon the status of her father; her physical beauty is merely another reflection of his prestige.26 On the contrary, the princess must be beautiful, for the very nature of the bridal-quest epic is based upon the principle that the best man and the most beautiful woman belong together (Kiening 1998, 212). The meaning and purpose of the genre is to honor this mythic ground rule (M. Schulz 2002, 3). This beautiful princess is not, however, without her disadvantages; in particular, everyone who has sought her hand has sacrificed his life in the attempt. This is just what Rother had feared, when the suggestion of seeking a wife was first put to him. Luppolt informs him of the state

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of affairs in Constantinople, but only after he has extolled her prestige and beauty: “daz wizze aber got der riche: umbe de stat iz moweliche, wande ir ne bat nie nechein man, er muoste den lif virloren han.” (lines 80–83) [“But Almighty God knows, that concerning her the situation is fraught with difficulty, for no man has ever sought her hand, but that it has cost him his life.”]

Following the deliberations of the counsel, their decision is put to the king, and Rother accepts Luppolt’s advice to woo her, although he, like Luppolt, has never seen her. This introduces into the plot the fairy-tale motif of love from afar (T 11.1.1), a theme that serves, in this context, the requirement of an exogamous bride in the traditional quest structure, and which later, in the courtly romances and love poetry (Minnesang), becomes a fundamental aspect of courtly love. Here, however, love from afar is not to be confused with romantic passion: it signifies nothing more — at this stage of the quest — than the desire to possess the beloved in a marriage suitable to one’s rank, as based upon dynastic and economic considerations. Because Rother is predisposed to love her in this dynastic sense, the impediments to winning her as his bride mean nothing to him (Wenzel 1983, 187–89). The narrator later doubles this motif, when the princess reciprocally conceives her own love from afar for Rother, and for similar reasons. In the minstrel epic the “discussion about a suitable future queen . . . often ends when a very wise or pious man appears and makes his suggestion” (Bornholdt 2005, 13). During what apparently is a second meeting of Rother’s council, at which Luppolt is not at first present, Margrave Herman suggests that Luppolt is the logical choice to serve as Rother’s messenger, since it was he who proposed her; moreover, he is sincerely devoted (van allen herzen holt, line 93) to Rother and will carry out his mission loyally (truwelichis, line 99). The genesis of the figure of Herman has provoked not a little scholarly interest, in that he seems an anomaly: after this counsel scene, in which he plays such an important role, he is never again mentioned or even referred to in the text. His role as chief counselor is subsequently fulfilled by Berchter, who has seemingly played no role in the discussion, nor is his presence even noted. Schröder (1958, 70–71) detects in Herman a relic of the oral saga tradition, positing that the suggestion of a bride in Constantinople was, at some earlier stage of the work, originally made by an unnamed character in the context of a general assembly of Rother’s vassals, then seconded by Herman, who suggests Luppolt for the task. That it is here Luppolt who

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himself suggests a bridal candidate Schröder attributes to the adjusting of the circumstances of the saga to fit “modern,” Carolingian practice, where the king makes his decisions not in a committee of the whole but in the circle of his closest advisors. Urbanek (1974, 53–54; 1976, 154– 55) builds upon Schröder’s hypothesis to suggest that Herman disappears from the narrative and is replaced by Berchter because the structure of the epic framework permits only one counselor. Klein (1985, 498) agrees and suggests that Berchter was substituted for Herman in König Rother because this name was already associated with the role of trusted advisor, Berhtunc of Meran, in the saga of Wolfdietrich. The uncertainty of the latter’s date of composition and subsequent dispersion, however, makes this a highly speculative proposition. Noting that Berchter is described in König Rother as the father of twelve sons, Rolf Bräuer (1970, 200–202), on the other hand, concludes that in the vassal saga that he believes is here merged with a bridal-quest epic it was Berchter who played the roles of Namer and Knower; the courtship messengers undertaking the quest would originally have been eleven of Berchter’s sons.27 Zimmerman (1993, 44n131), however, believes that it was necessary for someone like Herman to propose Luppolt for the mission: Luppolt could not propose himself, and Berchter could not propose his own son, since both actions would be violate the knightly injunction against self-promotion.28 Following Luppolt’s acceptance of this mission and his proposal that Rother appoint eleven mighty counts (riche gravin, line 128) to accompany him, each of whom will bring with him an additional twelve knights, Rother holds a great court, in order to announce his decision to seek a bride and to secure general approval for the choice of Luppolt as envoy to the court at Constantinople. This follows normal court procedure, in that conclusions reached in the discussion among the counselors themselves in a colloquium familiare are presented to a larger body, a colloquium publicum,29 for consideration and approval (S.-C. §A.3). In attendance are his most important vassals, the seventy-two crowned heads, all of whom volunteer to take part in the quest. Among those chosen to accompany Luppolt are six of his own brothers, yet another reminder that the pursuit of a royal bride is both a family affair and a concern of the ruling hierarchy. The twelve messengers30 are all outfitted in the finest clothes and given fine white horses to ride; the excellence of their appearance is meant to impress, to represent the status of King Rother. Luppolt also possesses an invisible intellectual weapon that he can employ in his pursuit of Rother’s goal: his cunning. For like his king, he is “ein vile listiger man” (a most cunning man, line 161). The cunning man is one who is resourceful and understands how to wait for a propitious moment in order to take advantage of favorable circumstance that will aid him in his goal (Woelker 1940/69, 144–45), which he achieves through a clever ruse or deception (list) that allows him to conceal his true intentions behind a misleading

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act or statement. As has been noted, guile plays a prominent role in the ethic of the minstrel epic and has often been used to distinguish this genre from the courtly epic (Curschmann 1968, 64–65). In König Rother guile is usually associated with the character of Rother himself. When he or those who represent his cause employ ruses, the ruse loses its negative connotation of cunning treachery. Ruses are meant to be understood as clever measures in pursuit of Rother’s inherently positive goal and bespeak his political savvy and intellectual agility (Kokott 1978, 112). The ability to deceive successfully in pursuit of one’s goals, along with displays of generosity that engender loyalty, is primary proof of a ruler’s superiority (Stock 2002, 258). Before Luppolt’s embassy embarks for Constantinople, Rother displays that very same intellectual agility, and his prudence, by preparing for the worst; he has, after all, suggested from the beginning that this quest presents potential danger. In what proves to be a foreshadowing of difficult times ahead, he calls for his harp and plays three melodies upon it for them, which are to function as a signal, should the messengers get into trouble. When they hear these songs, they will know that Rother is near. The journey of the wooer’s messengers across a sea, before the wooer himself undertakes the task, is a structural element (S.-C. §B.1) that one usually finds in the bridal quests of the minstrel epic. In the course of a complete quest narrative, the sea must be crossed either by the wooer or by his enemies or by both. Here Bari (Rome) and Constantinople represent the opposing worlds of wooer and bride’s father, such polarization being an inherent feature in the bipolar nature of the bridal-quest situation (Haug 1973, 137).31 Establishing Rome and Constantinople, however, as the two poles has special resonance in the context of the political and religious conflicts of the day, of which at least some members of the audience would have been aware, if assumptions about the text’s patron(s) and intended public are correct. The two capitals were opposing poles within a single Christian world, divided by competing claims to status and competing claims to Christian authenticity, the Roman and Orthodox rites. The issue as to which of these Christian rulers had the right to be called “emperor” was a matter of intense debate in the second half of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, as will be discussed later. The Rother poet may well, as Meves (1983, 52–53) suggests, have seen in the structure of the bridal quest a possibility of addressing and thematizing the great political rivalry between the German Hohenstaufen and Byzantine Komnenos dynasties. Later in the text this divided Christian world will be confronted by its true polar opposite, a unified infidel world ruled by the king of Desert Babylon.

Notes 1

See also Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 45–46.

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2

Textual references are to König Rother: Mittelhochdeutscher Text und neuhochdeutsche Übersetzung, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz, Beatrix Koll, and Ruth Weichselbaumer, trans. Peter K. Stein, Universal-Bibliothek 18047 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000). Earlier criticism usually cites the edition by Theodor Frings and Joachim Kuhnt, König Rother; 2nd ed., ed. Walter Fläming (Halle/Saale: VEB Max Niemeyer, 1961); 3rd ed., ed. Ingeborg Köppe-Benath, 1968. The Bennewitz-Stein edition offers a concordance of line numbers to earlier editions. 3

The English translations are my own. I consulted the translation into English tetrameter by Robert Lichtenstein and also the German translation by Peter K. Stein; King Rother, trans. Lichtenstein, U of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures 36 (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1962); and König Rother, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz et al., trans. Peter K. Stein. 4

See a summary of the various attempts to localize Merania in Erwin Herrmann, “Die Grafen Andechs und der ducatus Meraniae,” Archiv für Geschichte von Oberfranken 55 (1975): 8–16. Karl Bertau identifies Meran with the Duchy of Carniola (German: Krain) in Slovenia; Bertau, Deutsche Literatur im europäischen Mittelalter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1972–73), 1:470. 5

Ferdinand Urbanek identifies the character of Hadamar with Otakar III, Count of Steiermark (1129–64); Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 98–105. For a genealogy of the counts of Andechs-Diessen see Wilhelm Wegener, Genealogische Tafeln zur mitteleuropäischen Geschichte (Göttingen: H. Reise, 1962–69), 158–60; for a brief history of the family, see Alois Schütz, “Das Geschlecht der Andechs-Meranier im europäischen Hochmittelalter,” in Herzöge und Heilige: Das Geschlecht der Andechs-Meranier im europäischen Hochmittelalter, ed. Josef Kirmeier and Evamaria Brockhoff, Veröffentlichungen zur bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 24 (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1993), 37–111. 6

A genealogy of the Tenglings can be found in Wegener, Genealogische Tafeln, 100– 103. See also Friedrich Panzer, Italische Normannen in deutscher Heldensage, Deutsche Forschungen 1 (Frankfurt am Main: M. Diesterweg, 1925; repr, Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1974), 64–69; Uwe Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1986), 63–64, 79–88; and Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 35–44 and 217–20. Urbanek hypothesizes (63–65), that the character of Wolfrat derives his name from the Tengling descendant Konrad I of Hall-Peilstein. 7

For a discussion of the representation of royal power, see Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1962), chapter 1, §2, “Zum Typus repräsentativer Öffentlichkeit”; the introduction to Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel, eds., Höfische Repräsentation: Das Zeremoniell und die Zeichen (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1990), 1–16; and Gerd Althoff, “Demonstration und Inszenierung: Spielregeln der Kommunikation in mittelalterlicher Öffentlichkeit,” in Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt: Primus, 1997), 229–57. 8

All references to fairy-tale motifs follow the numbering system in Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folk-Tales,

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6 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1932–36; rev. and enl. ed., 1955–58, 1989), as collated by Helmut Birkhan, Karin Lichtblau, Christa Tuczay, Ulrike Hirhager, and Rainer Sigl, Motif-Index of German Secular Narratives from the Beginning to 1400, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 6 vols. in 7 (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 2005–6), 3:248–54. 9

According to medieval tradition, the number signifying rule over the whole world (Weltherrschaftzahl), seventy-two, derives from the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), which led to the division of the peoples of the earth into seventy-two language groups, a number derived from the list of Noah’s descendants in Genesis 10. The Rother poet applies this same number to Ymelot, who rules over seventy-two infidel kings (lines 2565, 2597, 2651, 3770), and has literally expressed a desire to rule the world. The infidel King Minold in Orendel (line 3347 et passim) also rules over seventy-two kings. For other occurrences of seventy-two see Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 151n30, and Michael Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald und die deutsche spielmännische Epik: Mit einem Exkurs zur Kultgeschichte und Dichtungstradition, MTU 6 (Munich: C. H. Beck), 31–33. 10

For a detailed discussion of the concept of honor, see, for example, Hartmut Kokott, Literatur und Herrschaftsbewußtsein: Wertstrukturen der vor- und frühhöfischen Literatur; Vorstudien zur Interpretation mittelhochdeutscher Texte, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 232 (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, and Las Vegas: P. Lang, 1978), 48–65, and Barbara Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung: Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik eines literarischen Motivs in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik, Studia humaniora 14 (Düsseldorf : Droste, 1989), 74–76. 11

Percy Ernest Schramm, “Ordines-Studien II: Die Krönung bei den Westfranken und Angelsachsen von 878 bis um 1000,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 54 (1934): 218, notes the presence of specific petitions for royal fertility in some coronation rituals for hereditary monarchies, like the English Ordo of St. Dunstan (AD 960–73). Similarly, Ernst H. Kantorowicz finds that a prayer for the king’s progeny is often included among the so-called laudes regiæ, liturgical acclamations of the king: for example, the laudes hymnidicæ, chanted by the clergy at a monarch’s triumphal entrance into a city, for Charles the Bald and the laudes imperiales written at the time of Louis the Pious; Kantorowicz, Laudes regiæ: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship, U of California Publications in History 33 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1958), 74 and 105. 12

So also Julius Schwietering, Die deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters, Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft 8 (Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1931; repr., Darmstadt: H. Gentner, 51957), 108; Walter Johannes Schröder, “König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” DVjs 29 (1955): 301–22, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 323–50, here 332; Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 129; Ewald Erb, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur: Von den Anfängen bis 1160, vol. 1 of Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Gysi and Hans Günther Thalheim, 1 vol. in 2, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Volk & Wissen, 1963–64; 41982), 12:767; Christian Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 75; Gudula Dinser, Kohärenz

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und Struktur: Textlinguistische und erzähltechnische Untersuchungen von “König Rother,” Böhlau forum litterarum 3 (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1975), 6; Kokott, Literatur und Herrschaftsbewußtsein, 107; and Maria Dobozy, Full Circle: Kingship in the German Epic: Alexanderlied, Rolandslied, “Spielmannsepen,” GAG 399 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1985), 61. 13 For Dagmar Neuendorff his actions here are those of a model liege lord; Neuen-

dorff, Studie zur Entwicklung der Herrscherdarstellung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis: Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen 29 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1982), 157. 14

Meves also stresses the mutuality of triuwe between Rother and his vassals (Studien zu König Rother, 137), as do Schröder (“König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” 328), Neuendorff (Studie zur Entwicklung, 162), and Dobozy (Full Circle, 112). 15

On the importance of taking counsel in König Rother, see Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 26–30, and Jan-Dirk Müller, “Ratgeber und Wissende in heroischer Epik,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993): 129–33, 136–37. On the conference element in pre-courtly epics, see Dobozy, Full Circle, 91–122. 16

See the classic studies on the role of the royal council by Fritz Kern, Gottesgnadentum und Widerstandsrecht im früheren Mittelalter: Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Monarchie, 2nd ed., ed. Rudolf Buchner (Münster: Böhlau-Verlag, 1954; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 31962, 71980), esp. 129–31 and 269–88; in English, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans. S. B. Chimes, Harper Torchbooks, TB 1527 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 73–75; and Jürgen Hannig, Consensus fidelium: Frühfeudale Interpretationen des Verhältnisses von Königtum und Adel am Beispiel des Frankenreiches, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 27 (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1982). 17

On the theoretical underpinnings of seeking counsel in medieval mirrors for princes, see the bibliography in Gerd Althoff, “Colloquium familiare — colloquium secretum — colloquium publicum: Beratung im politischen Leben des früheren Mittelalters,” in his Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt: Primus, 1997), 163n17. 18

Georges Duby gives an excellent historical example of the role the king’s advisers played in the dynastic politics of medieval Europe and the reasons for their intense concern. He paraphrases a panegyric on King Louis VII of France composed by a monk from Saint-Germain-des-Prés (ca. 1171). Following the failure of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Constance of Castile to give him a son, “le roi d’abord se décida, ‘conseillé et incité par les archevêques, évêques et autres barons du royaume’; le mariage du patron en effet n’est pas sa seule affaire, c’est l’affaire de toute sa maison, ici de cette immense maison qui par les liens de vassalité s’étendait sur tout le Nord de la France.” Duby, Le chevalier, la femme et le prêtre: Le mariage dans la France féodale; La force des idées (Paris: Hachette littérature générale, 1981; 21992), 203. In English, The Knight the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 192: “The king decided to remarry ‘counseled and urged by the archbishops, bishops, and other barons of the kingdom,’ for his marriage was not just his own affair but that of his whole family, in this case of the entire network of vassalic bonds stretching over the whole of northern France.”

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19

On the traditional tripartite division of council deliberations see also Wolfgang Schulte, “Epischer Dialog: Untersuchungen zur Gesprächstechnik in frühmittelhochdeutscher Epik (Alexanderlied, Kaiserchronik, Rolandslied, König Rother)” (PhD diss., Bonn University, 1970), 50–103. 20

Urbanek theorizes that the character of Luppolt is to some degree based upon the historical figure of Liu(t)pold II von Plaien (†ca. 1193), a Tengling descendant through his mother, Uta (Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 44–59). She was sister to the above-mentioned Konrad I of Peilstein, whom Urbanek believed to have been the poet’s patron. 21

For older literature on Berchter and Meran, see Jan de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922; repr., 1974), lxn1. Siegmund identifies Berchter with the historical figure Count Berthold VI of Andechs-Diessen (Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 49– 52). Urbanek, however, views Berchter as an allusion to Gebhard I of Burghausen (†1163), who, as mentioned above, was a descendant of the Bavarian Tenglings (Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 114–26). 22

Interestingly enough, although we are told the names of neither the princess nor Constantin’s queen, the narrator provides us with the name of the wife of his enemy, Simelin (line 2569), but nothing else about her. This leads Dinser to suggest that the Rother poet means one to understand the nameless characters as types, arguing that because the naming of characters is not used as a means of their individualization, they are to be understood not as unique individuals but as types defined by the roles they play, either for better or for worse, in the hierarchy (Kohärenz und Struktur, 94). Siegmund identifies this Greek princess with Irene Angelina, daughter of Byzantine Emperor Isaak II Angelos (r.1185–95 and 1203–4), for whom Henry VI arranged a marriage to his brother, Philipp of Swabia (Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 23–26). 23

The origin of “purple” in the designation was given two explanations even in the early Middle Ages: it referred either to the parents’ having assumed the royal purple or to the child’s having been born in the Porphyry Chamber in the Great Palace at Constantinople reserved for this purpose. In Byzantium the wearing of garments of Tyrian purple, a rare purple-red dye derived from the sea snail Murex brandaris, was restricted to members of the imperial family: hence royal purple. Liudprand of Cremona seems aware of both explanations. “[Constantinum] Porphyrogenitum autem non in purpura, sed in domo que Porphyra dicitur, natum apello” (I call him [Constantine] Porphyrogenitus, not because he was born in the purple, but because he was born in the palace called Porphyra). Liudprand of Cremona, “Antapodosis,” in PL, ed. J(acques)-P(aul) Migne, 221 vols. in 212 (Paris: Migne, 1844–91), 86: col. 793, bk. 1, §6; trans. F. A. Wright, “Antapodosis: Tit-for-Tat,” in The Works of Liudprand of Cremona (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), 35. See also Otto Treitinger, Die oströmische Kaiser- und Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell (Jena: W. Biedermann, 1938; repr., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 31969), 61–62 and 108–10. 24

On the various titles for the empress — basilissa, augusta, despoina, and later autokratissa — and what those titles imply, see Stojan Maslev, “Die staatsrechtliche Stellung der byzantinischen Kaiserinnen,” Byzantinoslavica 27 (1966): 308–11,

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and Dionyssia Missiou, “Über die institutionelle Rolle der byzantinischen Kaiserin,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 32 (1982): 489–98. According to Missiou, the title basilissa was conferred upon the empress at the time of her marriage, but she became an augusta after bearing a child or children (489); this practice lasted until the beginning of the thirteenth century. 25

When Liudprand proposed, as part of a diplomatic mission to Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, that the future Otto II should marry a porphyrogenita, Nikephoros’s counselors replied, “Inaudita res est, ut porphyrogeniti porphyrogenita, hoc est in purpura nati filia in purpura nata, gentibus misceatur” (It is unheard of that a daughter born in the purple of an emperor born in the purple should contract a foreign marriage). Liudprand of Cremona, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” in J.-P. Migne, PL, 86: col. 916, §15; trans. Wright, “The Embassy to Constantinople,” in The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, 244. Just how valuable a negotiating tool a porphyrogenita was can be seen from the price they would demand for her: “Ravennam scilicet et Romam cum his omnibus continuatis, quæ ab his sunt usque ad nos” (Ravenna, namely, and Rome with all the adjoining territories from thence to our possessions). 26

Similarly Curschmann and Böckenholt also claim that the princess’s beauty does not inspire Rother to love service (Minnedienst), but rather provides the opportunity to enhance his worldly honor. Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald, 101; Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: privately published, 1971), 16. 27

Bräuer regards the fact that Duke Berchter is mistakenly called “count” (grave, line 473) when he is suggesting a rescue mission to save count Luppolt, instead of his normal title, “duke” (herzog), as proof of this shifting of roles. See also Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 109–17. Eventually Rother himself will lead twelve “dukes” on the rescue mission. On the number twelve in the text, see Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 153n46. 28

For admonitions to humility as the primary knightly virtue, see Joachim Bumke, Höfische Kultur: Literatur und Gesellschaft im hohen Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986; repr. in 1 vol., 112005), 417. 29

On the custom of building a private consensus before the public expression of a council’s decision, see Althoff, “Colloquium familiare,” 167–73. 30

Surely Christian Kiening is overinterpreting when he seeks here a merging between imperial history and Christian tradition; Kiening, “Arbeit am Muster: Literarisierungsstrategien im König Rother,” in Wolfram-Studien XV: Neue Wege der Mittelalter-Philologie; Landshuter Kolloquium 1996, ed. Joachim Heinzle, L. Peter Johnson, and Gisela Vollmann-Profe (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1998), 236–37. He connects Luppolt’s embassy to the Apostolic mission (Acts 6:2–3), basing his argument on the fact that the giant Asprian later pleads for the saving of Constantinople because seven of the twelve Apostles (der swelef boden sivene, line 4400) and St. Helena are buried there. 31

Orendel seeks his bride in Jerusalem, as do Salme’s two wooers in Salman und Morolf.

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assigned to the bride’s father in the perilous bridal quest results in the portrayal of Constantinople as a negative narrative space, the polar opposite of Rother’s kingdom. König Rother, however, differs significantly from other bridal quests in the minstrel epics — Oswald, Salman und Morolf, Ortnit — in that Constantin is a Christian; this limits to some degree the ways the poet can portray the negative otherness of the East. In constructing his narrative poles, the poet plays on contemporary stereotypes and prejudices, namely, the conflict between the pretensions to superiority of the Byzantine Empire and the claims of equality by the upstart (from their perspective) dynasties of the Holy Roman Empire to the west. One would do well to remember that this political tension was not merely a matter of theory, particularly for the southern Italians. As was noted earlier in the discussion regarding the genesis of König Rother, the Langobard and Frankish kings had been trying to expel the Byzantines from the Italian peninsula for several centuries by force of arms, something which only the Normans, led by Robert Guiscard of Sicily, had finally been able to do in 1071, a scant 100 years before the text was fixed in its written form. For those living in the medieval West, the Byzantines, who regarded all other peoples as barbarians, had the reputation of unshakeable pride and unbearable arrogance (Szklenar 1966, 141), and were characterized as deceitful, cunning and mendacious (fallacia, astutia, mendax), among other things, in the catalogues of nations popular in monastery schools (Gellinek 1968, 90 and n276). As a sample of the Western view, Störmer (1980, 569) calls to mind the negative impression Constantinople had made upon Bishop Liudprand of Cremona (ca. 920–72), who was sent to the court of Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–69) by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I the Great (king of the Romans, 936–73; emperor, 962–73) in 968, to arrange a Byzantine marriage for Otto’s son, the future Otto II. In his De legatione Constantinopolitana (The Embassy to Constantinople) Liudprand describes Constantinople as a “city that was once so rich and prosperous, and is now such a starveling, a city full of lies, tricks, perjury and greed, rapacious, avaricious, vain-glorious.”1 Liudprand’s opinion of Emperor Nikephoros was not much better. In addition to a doubtless exaggerated description of the emperor’s ugliness and poor hygiene, he characterizes him as “bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury and falsehood a Ulysses.”2 He contrasts Nikephoros with Otto: the former is HE NEGATIVE ROLE

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“lying, crafty, merciless, foxy, proud, falsely humble, miserly and greedy”; the latter, “truthful, guileless, merciful when right, severe when necessary, always truly humble, never miserly.”3 Someone who also contributed much to intensify the contemporary negative view of the Byzantines, particularly among the French, as treacherous, disloyal and generally untrustworthy, was the chronicler Odo of Deuil (ca. 1110–62), later abbot of Saint-Denis, who accompanied Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade as his chaplain. In De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem (The Journey of Louis VII to the East, 1148) he gives a similarly negative and equally biased description of the Byzantine capital: Constantinople, the glory of the Greeks, rich in renown and richer still in possessions . . . is squalid and fetid and in many places harmed by permanent darkness, for the wealthy overshadow the streets with buildings and leave these dirty, dark places to the poor and to travelers; there murders and robberies and other crimes which love the darkness are committed. Moreover, since people live lawlessly in this city, which has as many lords as rich men and almost as many thieves as poor men, a criminal knows neither fear nor shame, because crime is not punished by law and never entirely comes to light. In every respect she exceeds moderation; for, just as she surpasses other cities in wealth, so, too, does she surpass them in vice. . . . Constantinople is arrogant in her wealth, treacherous in her practices, corrupt in her faith; just as she fears everyone on account of her wealth, she is dreaded by everyone because of her treachery and faithlessness.4

It is important to note, however, that in König Rother the negative portrayal of Byzantium is centered upon the character of King Constantin, not on Constantinople itself, which has — perhaps involuntarily, as a result of the constraints of the plot — its positive qualities, in that it is a place that potentially welcomes refugees and exiles from abroad (Rocher 1987, 31). The poet is again presented with a problem, if he is to use current anti-Byzantine stereotypes to characterize the father of Rother’s prospective bride. He cannot paint too evil a portrait of him in the manner, for instance, of Liudprand of Cremona, lest that reflect negatively on the bride herself and upon Rother’s wisdom in choosing to woo the daughter of such a man, who might, so to speak, infect the gene pool of his heirs with her father’s royal failings. His bride’s father must be of obvious status, in order that she might fulfill the requirements set by Rother’s young counts, yet not so elevated that Rother would appear unsuitable in status when compared to him and, thus, an unworthy wooer. The poet’s solution is to elevate Rother’s temporal power above that of Constantin, but allow Constantin to be blinded by that fabled Byzantine arrogance into

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believing the contrary. Constantin is portrayed as a rich and mighty king and is described as such, riche, throughout the text (lines 66, 831, 2301, 3757, 4293, 4323, 4463, 4503), an ornamental adjective he also shares with Rother. Constantin, however, numbers among his vassals only sixteen dukes and thirty counts (lines 1580–81), as compared with Rother’s obviously superior seventy-two kings and numberless counts. This unequal power relationship between the two men reflects the contemporary political tension between Byzantium and the West, in which the former’s claim to primacy would naturally seem a hollow one, contradicted as it is by geopolitical reality (Neuendorff 1984, 48–49): with the taking of Bari by the Normans, the Byzantines had lost their last foothold in Italy.5 Although a flawed ruler himself, however, Constantin’s lineage is of the very highest in terms of the medieval worldview: as ruler of Constantinople he is a descendant of Constantine I the Great (ca. 274–337), founder of the new capital at Byzantium in 330. — The text is maddeningly confusing about the exact relationship between Constantin and his namesake, Constantine I.6 — Constantin’s imperial credentials are further strengthened by the divine favor shown his family (Kokott 1978, 109), for it was his mother, St. Helena (ca. 249–329) — or perhaps the reference is to the mother of Constantine I — whom God permitted to find the True Cross (lines 4402–4), as well, of course, as the Holy Nails and the Crown of Thorns. That the poet wishes Rother to be viewed as at least equal, if not superior, to Constantin in status manifests itself on two levels: the political and the ethical. In the text Constantin is given the title king, not emperor, just as Rother is nearly always termed king (kuninc); the one exception, “emperor” (keyser, line 3106) may be an oversight, since it occurs in the stock phrase that the emperor must protect widows and orphans, which is often found in contemporary texts regarding kingship (Gellinek 1968, 76; Meves 1976, 49 and n4). It is also said of Rother’s son, Pippin, that he will one day be “emperor” (line 5064). It was, of course, Pippin’s son, Charlemagne, who first styled himself imperator Romanum gubernans imperium (emperor governing the Roman empire), in addition to his other current, but now lesser titles, rex Francorum atque Langobardorum (king of the Franks and also the Langobards). It was traditional usage to style oneself ruler of a people, not of a place, but the title imperator Romanorum (emperor of the Romans) would have brought Charlemagne into a direct challenge of the prestige of the Byzantine emperors, whose historical claim to that title was beyond question. Although the equivalent Greek term, basileus (βασιλεύς), the traditional title of the Byzantine emperors, actually does mean just “king” — and was translated in Western documents as rex — it was also used by the Byzantines to designate lesser kings than the ruler of Constantinople; it was clear to them, however, that basileus meant their emperor. After Emperor Michael I Rhangabe recognized

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Charlemagne’s claim to the title imperator Romanus (Roman emperor) and basileus in 812, the Byzantine emperors systematically styled themselves as basileus Rhōmaiōn (βασιλεύς ‘Ρωμαίων, emperor of the Romans) to assert their superiority over the Western emperors.7 Titles, indeed, are important, as Liudprand made clear in his report to Otto I: He [=Nikephoros] called you not emperor, which is Basileus in his tongue, but insultingly Rex, which is king in ours. I told him that the thing meant was the same though the word was different, and he then said that I had come not to make peace but to stir up strife. . . .8

It seems to have been Emperor Otto III (983–1002), the grandson of that same Otto I, who first consistently called himself simply imperator Romanorum (emperor of the Romans); he would have been well aware of the political implications of this, since his mother was the Byzantine princess Theophanu, niece of Emperor John I Tzimisces, Nikephoros’s successor. The title rex Romanorum, replacing the heretofore standard form, rex Romanus, and designating the bearer as a potential successor to the imperial dignity, came into more common use during the rule of the late Ottonian and the Salian emperors in the 11th century, particularly during the reigns of Henry II, between his coronation as king of the Romans in Mainz ca. 1002, then as emperor in Rome in 1014, and that of Henry IV, between his coronation as king in Aachen ca. 1056 and as emperor in Rome in 1084 (Beumann 1977–99, 7:777–78). Siegmund (1959, 20) claims that in general a king who rules over other kings can bear the title of emperor; in his view these titles, king and emperor, are interchangeable concepts in König Rother. If this were true, however, in at least one of the numerous passages mentioning Constantin he would likely have been designated “emperor,” as Szklenar (1966, 127 and n29) has noted; moreover, the infidel king, Ymelot, who rules over seventy-two lesser kings and is, at least in this measure of temporal power, Rother’s equal, would be entitled to the designation “emperor” as well, which he also is not accorded in the text (Gellinek 1968, 76n222). Dobozy (1985, 54–58) has determined that “king” is used in pre-courtly epics both for the king of a particular people and for the ruler of a loose confederation of lands. It would seem, then, that only one conclusion can be drawn: Rother and Constantin — and even Ymelot — are styled as kings to emphasize their equality of status, and the single attribution of the title “emperor” to Rother is likely an error influenced by later circumstances foreshadowed in the text: Rother and Pippin are to be the grandfather and father respectively of Charlemagne, the first Frankish imperator Romanus.9 Several contemporary historical figures have been proposed as models for King Constantin. Panzer (1925/74, 48 et passim) suggested either Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) or, particularly,

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his grandson, Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–80). Alexios was the nemesis of the Norman Robert Guiscard, against whom he fought a series of battles, and (in)famous for his clever diplomacy — or calculated treachery — in dealing with the Western armies of the First Crusade. Manuel was the great enemy of Roger II of Sicily and as well known as his grandfather for his similarly questionable “diplomacy” during the Second Crusade. Manuel was widely loathed in the West in his own time, thanks in part to Odo of Deuil, who refers to him in De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem, among other things, as mimus, profanus, serpens, aspis, sacrilegus, and dolosus proditor, that is, a buffoon, an impious man, a serpent, an adder, an irreligious man and deceitful traitor (Odo 1948, 26, 76–77, 82, 112). Since Panzer believed that Roger had been the model for King Rother, Manuel was the more logical counterpart. Both Siegmund (1959, 81–82) and Urbanek (1974, 131–32, 166) indirectly support Panzer’s latter hypothesis by suggesting that the positive role played in the text by Constantin’s queen might be an allusion to Berta von Sulzbach, who married Manuel in 1146. She was sister-in-law to the German emperor Konrad III, who had officially adopted her to enhance her position in the imperial hierarchy, and was, through her mother, a member of the Bavarian house of Andechs-Diessen. As the Empress Irene (Eirene), Bertha was quite active in Byzantine domestic politics and, according to the contemporary historian John Kinnamos, routinely attended sessions of the senate.10 Like Constantin’s wife she gave Manuel no male heir, bearing instead two daughters before her relatively early death in 1160. Because Siegmund believed Emperor Henry VI to be the model for Rother and dates the text to the end of the century, he proposed Emperor Isaak II Angelos (r. 1185–95 and 1203–4), whose dynasty replaced that of the Komnenoi, as the inspiration for Constantin (1959, 23–26). This proposal, however, is based upon almost nothing but the vaguest of generalities. Isaak had betrayed Henry’s father, Barbarossa, by temporarily allying himself with Saladin during the Third Crusade and was compelled solely by means of the Crusaders’ superior military power to honor his pledges of safe conduct through Byzantine territory. Another point of comparison for Siegmund is the fact that Henry arranged a marriage for his brother Philipp, rex Romanorum and duke of Swabia, with Isaak’s daughter, Irene Angelina, in 1197. While the search for historical models for Constantin has its own allure, it is essentially a subjective and, in the end, fruitless undertaking: generalizations are not proof. Even Panzer admits that up to the time of Rother’s composition nine Constantines, in addition to the eponymous founder of Constantinople, had ruled the Eastern Empire. In essence the name Constantine for Byzantine emperors had become a historical cliché, a designation for the stereotypical Byzantine emperor, as people in the West imagined him to be (Szklenar 1966, 135), based on their rather

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superficial knowledge of Byzantine culture and, indeed, all the cultures of the East. As summarized by Siegmund, the treachery, weakness, and vain arrogance of Constantin is contrasted with Rother’s might, generosity, and political sagacity; the cowardly ruler of Byzantium, with the bold ruler of Rome; Constantin’s wavering vassals, with Rother’s heroic Romans. This is the old opposition of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, which can be traced throughout the history of the medieval German empire, exacerbated as it was by the Great Schism of 1054 between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic rites.11 Broadly speaking, Rother is portrayed as the model of the just king, rex iustus, who rules by the laws of custom and tradition, as did his father before him (lines 3332; 3360–64); Constantin is the wicked king, rex iniquus,12 and, in the words of Berchter of Meran, the servant of the Devil (des valandes man, line 3374). While these are for the Middle Ages almost technical terms, and König Rother is a work of narrative fiction, a brief look at some of the most influential formulations of what defines a just king may be helpful, in that such theoretical and religious texts framed the meaning of these terms over many centuries, even for those unable to read the Latin originals. Within a century of the founding of Byzantium, St. Augustine of Hippo, faced with the calamity of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410, which some of his pagan contemporaries attributed to divine punishment following Emperor Valentian II’s abolition of the worship of the traditional Roman gods in 391, offered in De civitate Dei (ca. 413–26) a description of what made for the true happiness of certain of the Christian emperors: But we call them happy if they rule justly; if, amid the voices of those who praise them to the skies, and the abject submission of those who grovel when they greet them, they are not exalted with pride, but remember that they are men; if they make their power a servant to the divine Majesty, to spread the worship of God far and wide; if they fear and love and worship God; if they feel a deeper love for that kingdom where they do not have to fear partners; if they are slower to punish, and prompt to pardon; if they inflict punishments as required by considerations of ruling and protecting the state, not in order to satisfy their hatred of private enemies; if they grant pardons, not that wrong-doing may go unpunished, but in the hope of reform; if, as they are often compelled to make harsh decrees, they balance this with merciful kindness and generous deeds; if they practice all the more self-restraint as they gain the means for self-indulgence; if they esteem it more important to rule over their base desires than to rule over any nations, and if they do all this not because of a passion for empty glory, but because they yearn for eternal happiness; if for their sins they do not neglect to offer to

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their God the sacrifice of humility and mercy and prayer. Christian emperors of this sort we declare happy — happy now in hope, and destined to be happy hereafter in its realization, when that which we hope for has arrived.13

Perhaps an even more important text for the evaluation of medieval kingship is the Pseudo-Cyprian’s treatise on social and political morality, De duodecim abusivis sæculi. While obviously grounded in Augustinian thinking concerning the imperator felix (happy emperor), the treatise shows the influence of St. Jerome’s commentary on the Book of Matthew (AD 390) and Isidore of Seville’s (†636) Etymologiæ and Sententiæ. In discussing kingship, Pseudo-Cyprian maintains that the prosperity of a kingdom is dependent on the king’s own morality, and he gives practical examples of how a prince must comport himself. As a general statement he suggests that it behooves a dominus (lord) to possess the ability to inspire fear (of his justice) and love, and to establish order.14 Pseudo-Cyprian also offers a description of the just king, one that proved extremely important for the Middle Ages; nearly 300 manuscripts or extracts, some with false attribution to St. Patrick and St. Augustine, still survive (Anton 1982, 603–4). Elements of the Pseudo-Cyprian’s description were later popularized in Gratian of Bologna’s Decretum and influenced many continental mirrors of princes that follow it.15 Among the maxims that should guide the good king one finds the following exhortations: to oppress no one with his might; to pass judgment without consideration of rank; to be the defender of strangers, widows, and orphans; to prohibit theft; to punish adultery; to not raise up the iniquitous to high positions; to not finance the shameless and entertainers (that is striones, minstrels!); to destroy the impious; to defend the church; to give alms to the poor; to place the just over the affairs of the kingdom; to have experienced, wise, and sober counselors; to ignore the superstitions of magicians, soothsayers, and oracles; to repress fits of anger; to defend the fatherland strongly and justly against adversaries; to trust in God in all things; and to bear patiently all opposing views.16 Although König Rother is by no means a treatise on kingship, Christian or otherwise, masking as a bridal quest, a significant number of the issues addressed in these catalogues of royal virtue do find their counterpart in the narration, perhaps more so than in the other minstrel epics. Indeed, Curschmann (1968, 114) views the first part of the text, where Rother’s general exemplarity is the theme, as a kind of mirror for princes in its own right, in which Rother’s excellence, especially in terms of the mutual loyalty of lord and vassal, can serve as a model for behavior. Schwietering (1931/57, 109–10) has suggested that Rother’s embodiment of the emerging courtly ideal of knight and ruler is substantially deepened when at the end of the narrative the political virtue of feudal loyalty is

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replaced with the spiritual virtue of Christian piety. Whatever historical, literary,17 or theological considerations influenced its formation, when the character of King Rother is measured against the catalogues of these Christian thinkers it soon becomes obvious that he does indeed exhibit the traits of the rex iustus. Köppe-Benath (1967, 250) has compiled a list of his Christian virtues, although she readily acknowledges that they are, in the end, not exclusively Christian: Rother is mighty, brave, and fearless in battle; he is just; his comportment is exemplary; he is loyal to his vassals, and they to him; he follows the advice of his counselors; he is generous; he seats himself among the poor; he is gracious and merciful; he is forgiving; he is helpful; he is grateful to God, praising and putting his trust in Him. Although both Augustine’s and Pseudo-Cyprian’s catalogues of proper conduct take up many practical matters of kingship that have found no place in the context of this work, there are enough corresponding points to allow one to conclude that Rother is meant to be understood as a paragon of kingly virtue. While the narration begins with the simple statement that Rother is indeed a paragon, that assertion is later demonstrated as accurate through the portrayal of King Constantin as his foil. This allows for the juxtaposition of opposites who enjoy identical status within their respective hierarchies, but in whose antithetical personalities and antithetical behavior the theme of proper kingship is elucidated. Constantin’s role is to illustrate the misconduct and the negative attitudes of a sovereign (Dinser 1975, 8, 16); in this he conforms to the image of the tyrant in the Augustinian sense, a king whose evil misrule is characterized by vainglory and avarice (Sandrock 1931, 3, 29).18 Constantin’s failure to live up to the standards of the rex iustus and the contrasting of these two rivals for possession of the bride serves to elevate the one and debase the other: Rother manifests only good, Constantin only bad qualities of personal character (Schröder 1955/77, 229–30). Rodney Fisher (1974, 48) finds that Constantin embodies negative traits normally reserved for infidels in the Western literature of the period, although Rocher (1987, 28) describes him as not wicked, like the infidel king Ymelot, but simply odious and ridiculous, a king whose mediocrity, avarice, stupidity, cruelty, and cowardice lend verve to the narration. While this may indeed be an accurate observation, one can also view him as an embodiment of all that the West found objectionable — or incomprehensible — in the Byzantine East. The narrator’s success in constructing antithetical visions of kingship can be demonstrated by a survey of modern critical evaluations of Rother and Constantin, in which one can almost hear echoes of those stereotypes of old promulgated by such Western chroniclers as Liudprand of Cremona and Odo of Deuil. Whereas Rother is the idealized ruler with the characteristics of cleverness, generosity and wealth, Constantin is persistently fearful, stupid, boastful, miserly, and impulsive (Urbanek 1976,

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14–15). He is miserly and cowardly (Woelker 1940/69, 164); a cowardly and capricious tyrant (Schwietering 1931/57, 109); overbearing and cowardly, weak and impetuous, the image of a prince as he should not be (Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:309–10); malicious and fickle (Bräuer 1970, 203); and an out-and-out despot (Szklenar 1966, 135). Though Constantin, like Rother, is riche, wealthy and mighty, his wealth serves only his private purposes, since it is not validated by the consequent virtue of generosity. The feudal bond between Rother and his vassals lies in reciprocal loyalty based on the ethical correspondence between service and guerdon, while among the Greeks it is based on the material relationship between supply and demand, whereby the price must even be negotiated beforehand, since Constantin is renowned for his lack of generosity.19 His arbitrariness stands in contrast to his power and wealth, but wealth without the rule of law, as Curschmann (1964, 105) has remarked, is an absurdity. As king, Rother displays a mastery of statesmanship and diplomacy; Constantin, political stupidity and an impulsive lack of self-control (Erb 1963–64, 12:771). Where Rother acts in a just cause, Constantin tyrannizes those who are weaker and opportunistically takes advantage of the strong where he can; where the former is generous to a fault and receives the poor with open arms, the latter turns them away; where the former maintains his composure in the face of disaster, the latter falls in a faint (Kiening 1998, 228). Neuendorff, however, is less negative in her evaluation of Constantin’s moral character than others. While she agrees that he is robbed of much of his dignity as a monarch and made to appear foolish, he is not essentially an evil character; rather, the negative portrayal of his character is simply a function of the Rother-Constantin constellation demanded by the plot and subsumed under a narrative strategy by which the lord of Byzantium is portrayed and meant to be understood as a failed liege lord (Neuendorff 1982, 191). One need not cite mirrors for princes, nor compare Constantin with his Western rival, in order to evaluate his character and effectuality as monarch. Constantin also has his foils among the Greeks, for within the confines of Constantinople the measure of man is woman. While the princess, Rother’s intended bride, naturally holds the most significance for the plot — it is, after all, a bridal quest — the queen is also of tremendous importance, for it is against her exemplary conduct that the ineffectuality of her husband is also made manifest. It is she who voices in direct speech the criticism of his failings, becoming, in effect, the narrator’s mouthpiece, and because the narrator does not comment directly on Constantin’s behavior, her criticism takes on the contour of the missing narrative commentary. One tends to accept it as true, even when it might seem questionable (Schmitz 2002, 180–84). When she, instead of a senior (male) counselor, offers her many unsolicited reminders to her husband with regard to proper courtly behavior and rebukes him for his lapses in

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judgment, it doubly diminishes Constantin: through the truth of what she says and through the fact that she says it without being asked (Neuendorff (1982, 191). Although Zimmermann (1993, 58–59) tempers this assessment of the situation somewhat by claiming that the queen, whose status is equal to and derived from that of Constantin, is more entitled than any mere vassal to advise him, the fact that a king must receive instruction in kingship from a (mere) woman, no matter how important her position, represents a significant indictment of his character. Even considering Zimmermann’s objections, when the queen herself, or indeed a senior vassal, must remind the Greek king as to how he should behave, it is an inherent criticism of his fitness to rule. It is well to remember, however, that although the presence of the bride’s mother is not obligatory in the bridal quest, when she does appear, she acts as mediator between the wooer and her husband; she regards the wooer’s suit as legitimate and attempts to persuade her husband to agree to it (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 86). The structure itself, then, accounts for the fact that the queen is portrayed more favorably than her husband from the moment their characters are introduced.20 One might otherwise, upon first considering the matter, come to the conclusion that the poet is using the queen solely to undermine Constantin’s kingship by attacking his manhood, as does Meves (1976, 51), creating a world-turned-upsidedown, in which the dominating woman is meant to be understood as a negative figure. Roman and Salic law make it perfectly clear that the proper exercise of power is a right belonging exclusively to men. With very few exceptions women in the Holy Roman Empire wielded no direct political authority at the highest level.21 “Byantium,” on the other hand, as Judith Herrin has observed, “is famous for its empresses,”22 and one is tempted to consider whether the portrayal of Constantin’s queen as a significant political force at the court of Constantinople reflects at some level this historical reality. The Byzantine empress was not merely the wife of the emperor, whose main duty was to produce a legitimate heir; rather, she played an integral role in prescribed court ceremonies and rituals: At the highest level of the court, the empress was involved in an entire calendar of rites performed throughout the year as well as particular ceremonies adapted for special occasions. The Byzantine court required a female figurehead and entourage to balance the male hierarchy attending on the emperor, to receive the wives of visiting dignitaries, and to provide a female counterpart to specifically male ceremonies. The empress also directed and looked after the women’s quarters in the palace, attending to the education of imperial children and to the household activities of what was a very large and important establishment. Her presence at court was fundamental to Byzantine protocol. . . .” [Herrin 1995, 72]

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Legally and in practice, the Byzantine empress, like her Western counterparts,23 was excluded from affairs of state; however, in a society that otherwise placed severe restrictions on the participation of women in the legal system,24 she was permitted to exercise direct political authority in the emperor’s name when that authority was specifically granted as a privilege by him (Maslev 1966, 311, 316). This could be occasioned, for example, by his absence on military campaigns or by the minority of his heir. As regents, widowed empresses fulfilled all the functions of the emperor: “they presided over the court, appointed officials, issued decrees, settled lawsuits, received ambassadors and heads of state, fulfilled the emperor’s ceremonial role and made decisions on matters of financial and foreign policy.”25 Any political influence the empress may have otherwise exercised depended upon the strength of her personality and her ability to influence her husband or son (Todt 1988, 125). Empresses who attempted to exercise power beyond these contraints were branded “overbearing and autocratic.”26 There is, unfortunately, little objective evidence in the text to indicate that the poet possessed significant knowledge of Byzantine political culture that goes beyond what he might have inherited from the sources of his plot or gleaned from the reports of returning Crusaders. In any case, whether or not her portrayal was influenced by the Byzantine empresses of history is irrelevant to the interpretation of Constantin’s fictional queen, for political theorists of East and West would have been in agreement: when the emperor’s wife usurps his political authority, the world is out of balance. The relationship between Constantin and the queen is based upon a reversal of stereotypical gender roles, and as such, as Ehrismann (1922– 35, 21:310) and others have noted, is often exploited in the text for its humor. Szklenar (1966, 147) takes a more serious view and suggests that the queen possesses the characteristics of someone who lusts after power, citing as evidence her brusque manner in dealing with Constantin. This interpretation, however, ignores her positive relationship with the wooer: in criticizing her husband’s actions and rebuking him for his folly, she is not revealing herself as a Machtweib (power-mad woman) on the order, for example, of a Lady Macbeth. Her sympathies lie with the exemplary Rother and his quest for her daughter’s hand.27 This is sufficient to guarantee her bona fides. She demonstrates her ethical superiority and exercises royal authority, not because she seeks power, but for the good of the realm, attempting to cover up for Constantin’s flawed kingship in public as best she can — privately, of course, is another matter. That her role is meant to be understood as positive is made abundantly clear in the narrator’s repeated use of the phrase, du gote kuningin, the good queen (lines 250, 272, 905, 2903, 4531), to describe her. The ethical contrast between the royal spouses is thematized from the moment of their first meeting with Rother’s messengers. Luppolt’s

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delegation arrives in Constantinople dressed to impress in magnificent clothing, a visual sign of their importance as well as a ritual representation of Rother’s high rank and nobility. His own prestige must logically far exceed that of these, his emissaries (Kokott 1978, 115, 279n50; Zimmermann 1993, 57–58), and Luppolt expects to be accorded the respect King Rother’s vassals deserve. News of their arrival precedes them, as the ladies of Constantin’s court, including one Herlint, who is later revealed to be the confidante of Rother’s desired bride, marvel at their sartorial magnificence. The “good” queen herself greets them “with courteous mien” (gezugenliche, line 275), having suggested to King Constantin that he go out to receive these strangers to their court as a gesture of respect. It is she, not the king, who accurately assesses the situation here, suspecting perhaps that these excellent warriors have come on a bridal quest for their daughter, and she who suggests the proper way to behave toward them. That Constantin is willing to follow her prompting and greet the strangers with a certain degree of respect is an early indication that he, too, recognizes her superior understanding of politics and decorum: “nu stant uf, herre Constantin, unde intfawir dise geste! we gerne ich daz wiste, wannen sie kumen weren! ir gewant is seltsene: swer si hat uz gesant, her in unser lant, der ist ein statehafter man, of hich mer rechte versinnen can. mich dunket got, herre, daz wir dese boden heren. sie ne sint der antworte nicht gewone, die du thos manigen boten vore. . . . iz nequamen ne lute so wunnencliche in diz Constantinis riche.” (lines 251–69) [“Now arise, lord Constantin, and receive these strangers. How I would like to know whence they come! Their manner of dress is strange to me: whoever has sent them here into our land is a man of considerable means, as far as I am able to judge. It seems to me, my lord, that we should treat them with honor. They are not accustomed to receive the answer that you have given previously to many a messenger. . . . Never have such marvelous people arrived in this, the realm of Constantin.”]

The lack of any reference to the extremely elaborate and rigid rituals of the Byzantine court, fixed as they were in the Book of Ceremonies (De cerimoniis aulæ Byzantinæ), of which a tenth-century version attributed to

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Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and revised under Nikephoros II Phokas survives,28 indicates that the poet is either unfamiliar with them or has purposely omitted their description from his fictional Constantinople. The “reverential ceremonial” that governed the emperor’s public life was designed to increase “the air of authority that surrounded the imperial presence” and to make him seem “utterly inaccessible” (El-Cheikh 2003, 161). Liudprand of Cremona gives a vivid and detailed description of what it was like to be received by a Byzantine emperor, when Berengar, margrave of Ivrea, sent him on a diplomatic mission to the court of Constantine VII in 949: Before the emperor’s seat stood a tree, made of bronze gilded over, whose branches were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered different cries, each according to its varying species. The throne itself was so marvellously fashioned that at one moment it seemed a low structure, and at another it rose high into the air. It was of immense size and was guarded by lions, made either of bronze or of wood covered over with gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with open mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two eunuchs I was brought into the emperor’s presence. At my approach the lions began to roar and the birds to cry out, each according to its kind; but I was neither terrified nor surprised, for I had previously made enquiry about all these things from people who were well acquainted with them. So after I had three times made obeisance to the emperor with my face upon the ground, I lifted my head, and behold! the man whom just before I had seen sitting on a moderately elevated seat had now changed his raiment and was sitting on the level of the ceiling. How it was done I could not imagine, unless perhaps he was lifted up by some such sort of device as we use for raising the timbers of a wine press. On that occasion he did not address me personally, since even if he had wished to do so the wide distance between us would have rendered conversation unseemly, but by the intermediary of a secretary he enquired about Berengar’s doings and asked after his health. I made a fitting reply and then, at a nod from the interpreter, left his presence and retired to my lodging.29

The queen’s command that Constantin rise to welcome his visitors stands in stark contrast to what would actually have taken place in historical Constantinople. Luppolt is thus spared the ritual act of prostrating himself three times before Constantin with forehead to the floor (proskynesis), which would also have indirectly demeaned Rother and acknowledged his unworthiness as a bridal suitor.30 On the contrary: Constantin’s rising to greet him suggests ritual equality.

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In identifying themselves to Constantin and the queen as Rother’s emissaries, Luppolt begins with a statement of the latter’s handsomeness. This is not surprising, given his emphasis on the princess’s beauty when he suggested her to Rother as a possible bridal candidate. He then cites Rother’s attributes that would qualify him as a wooer of proper status: he is a mighty and wealthy (riche, statehaft) king and great feudal lord, served eagerly by both knights and ladies, who hold him in high esteem at his joyous court. The prestige Rother enjoys among his subjects is ipso facto proof of his high status31 and thus of his suitability as a sufficiently high-born suitor for the hand of their daughter.32 Zimmermann (1993, 59) argues that Luppolt’s beginning with Rother’s physical description has a deeper purpose, suggesting that his beauty is a visible sign of his high lineage that should serve, as a genuine expression of his nobility, to confirm his background and status. In this she echoes Kokott (1978, 116), who sees a parallel between the costuming of the messengers and Rother’s attractiveness: just as the former is a sign of Rother’s high status, so also his physical appearance is an expression of his personal excellence; his inner qualities are reflected in their external manifestation, whether expressed in clothing, demeanor, or his extraordinary beauty. This will apply, naturally, to the object of Rother’s quest, the Byzantine princess, as well. “der ist der aller schoniste man, der ie von wibe gequam unde veret mit grozer menige. ime dienint snelle helede. scal unde vedirspil des ist in minis herren hove vil. ros unde iuncvrowen unde ander ritaris gezowe, des vlizit sich min herre. . . . wande her weiz aller tugende kracht.” (lines 294–305) [“He is the handsomest man ever born of woman and lives among a great retinue of courtiers. Bold warriors serve him. There is much noisy merriment and falconry at my lord’s court. My lord is avidly concerned with steeds and maidens and other knightly things. . . . for he possesses all princely virtues in great measure.”]

After Constantin gives the messengers permission to speak (line 307), they reveal the purpose of their embassy; but when they actually deliver the marriage proposal of their excellent king, Constantin regrets that he allowed them to do so. He is saddened (trorich) and angered (zurnich) by their words, for no man has ever asked for his daughter without losing his head (wande miner tochter nebat nie niehein man, / er ne moste sin

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hovet virlorin han,” lines 336–37). The refusal of a father to give up his daughter is a well-known theme in folklore (T 50.1) and a structural element of the bridal quest, in which it can also be coupled with an incest motif (de Vries, 1922/74, 98–99; Geissler 1955, 103–6); however, as Schmid-Cadalbert notes, this is true in the minstrel epic only when the father of the bride is an infidel (1985, 63, 122–23). This circumstance allows the wooer to function as her Christian deliverer from her father, who as a pagan is by definition evil, as well as from the threat of a sinful, incestuous relationship. Just such an association of paganism and incest is certainly present, for example, in Oswald (lines 321–22) and also in the heroic lay Ornit AW (strophe 21, 4). This does not apply in König Rother, since Constantin is a Christian, albeit an Orthodox one, although Woelker (1940/69, 264n489), who also denies that Constantin’s motive for not giving up his daughter is incestuous, ponders whether the incest motif might still lie somewhere in the background. Kiening (1998, 214n9) goes so far as to suggest that even when the incest motif is clearly indicated by the narrator, what appears to be a psychological motivation on the surface structure is actually a means by which to concretize and make plausible a structural principle. The structure demands that the bride’s father reject the wooer, and his incestuous desire for her offers a convenient means of explaining his behavior, while at the same time casting him in an appropriately negative light. Monika Schulz (2005, 31) rightly points out that the theme of incest is quite impossible in the context of König Rother, since it would necessarily preclude the reconciliation of Rother and Constantin at the end of the text. Even when the incest motif is couched in more euphemistic terminology, such as Ehrismann’s suggestion that Constantin rejects all suitors out of an idolatrous love for his daughter, a trait that Ehrismann finds sympathetic (Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:310), there is every reason to believe that Constantin’s motivation is more political than libidinous. Schröder, with a reference to Siegfried’s demand that he share power with the brothers of his intended bride in the Nibelungenlied, suggests that Constantin’s motivation in denying his daughter to Rother might be just as political as Rother’s desire to win her: Constantin does not wish to acknowledge anyone as equal in status to himself, particularly a potential son-in-law, with whom he might have to share his power. In that sense his desire not to surrender his daughter to a wooer is not personal. Just as Rother’s desire to win her is not presented as an emotion but is based first and foremost upon her status, so also what seems to be Constantin’s fatherly protectiveness is actually an expression of his political will to power (Schröder 1955/77, 332–33 and n13). While Zimmermann (1993, 41–43) agrees with Schröder’s political interpretation, she objects to his implied negative characterization of Constantin, since the latter has every right, according to feudal logic, to determine whether or not he considers Rother to be

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of sufficient rank and worthy of his daughter. He considers this suit an affront to his status, because in his mind it undervalues the true social potency of his noble lineage. Examining the text from the perspective of feudal obligations, then, Zimmermann views the conflict as not that between Byzantium and Rome or between wicked Constantin, the rex iniquus, and good Rother, the rex iustus, but rather a contest between their respective assessments of their own worthiness, their ere (public honor), and she breaks a lance in defense of Constantin’s ambivalence toward Rother’s quest. She sees it as incumbent upon Rother, as wooer, to prove his worthiness to a skeptical father who considers him — and, it seems, every wooer — his social inferior, and not without justification.33 Zimmermann suggests that the ambivalence of the bridal-quest situation unfolds within the typical and objective narrative relationships established for the feudal epic, in which the wooer’s equality in status must always be established in competition with the prestige of the desired bride, which his wooing, by its very nature, threatens and even damages. The quest is a rivalry in prestige, in which Rother must prove his suitability, because Constantin regards himself as Rother’s superior and considers him his inferior, until Rother proves otherwise (Zimmermann 1993, 56). One might also add, thinking in terms of history, not fiction, that the issue of a son-in-law would be of even graver concern to Constantin, who himself, like Rother, has no male heir: Rother might well eventually succeed him. Legitimizing new emperors through marriage was a “female function” (Hill 1997, 79) that was exercised by several Byzantine empresses and princesses.34 Given that a Roman king is the wooer, he would then be in a position to unite both halves of the Christian world under Roman domination. As Haug has noted apropos the bridal quest in Oswald, the winning of the bride can signify the victory over her world. The world as otherness, that which one confronts, is embodied in the bride, and the resolution of this opposition is accomplished as the fusion of the dynasties, as the union between the king and a foreign wife who embodies that otherness.35 Constantin, not surprisingly, does not see fit to consult his daughter or his infinitely wiser wife about Rother’s proposal, but rejects it for her. Not content, however, simply to reject their suit, he confines the twelve messengers in a dark, dank dungeon (lines 342–85), thus violating the ancient law of hospitality. The incarceration of the wooer’s messengers is a feature of the bridal-quest structure (S.-C. §B.1.b), as well as a motif in international folklore (R 3),36 although in some wooing tales outside the minstrel epics the messengers return home to report on their unsuccessful mission or remain as guests at the court of the bride’s father (Bornholdt 2005, 14). Because the structure demands that one sympathize with the wooer, not the bride’s father, the latter’s treatment of these courtship messengers is meant to seem outrageous and tyrannical. There is, however, a

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case to be made that Constantin’s action is justified. If he is truly not convinced of Rother’s suitability to woo his daughter, he has every right to avenge this perceived attack on his status and demonstrate his superiority by punishing Rother’s messengers. The more interesting question is: why does he not execute them, as he has systematically done in the past to those who have made the identical audacious proposal? Zimmermann (1993, 64) suggests that Constantin really cannot legally execute them, since he gave them permission to deliver their message, something that he regrets once he has learned what that message was. If this were true, however, one would have to assume that previous wooers spoke without his permission, which is difficult to imagine, given the ceremonial constraints of the court in Constantinople. It seems rather more logical to assume that Constantin’s motivation for mercy, for such does not seem to be his wont, lies in his fear that Rother might indeed be as rîch and statehaft as the messengers indicate. Keeping the prisoners alive also leaves open the possibility of restoring them to him, should Rother indeed prove as formidable as they claim (Kiening 1998, 232). After all, he has some considerable visible proof of Rother’s status standing right before him in the person of the richly attired messengers and in the magnificent treasure (lines 394–416) they have brought with them, to be distributed among the Greeks as gifts upon the successful completion of their mission. The importance of the treasure as a symbol of Rother’s power is underscored when Constantin explicitly instructs his chamberlain to guard it with his life, so that if anyone, that is, Rother, should ever demand its return, it would be intact (ob man iz immer wider gegebe, / daz iz dar allez were, lines 428–29). This would seem to indicate that it is indeed not Constantin’s rash boon37 in granting them permission to speak that motivates his sparing the messengers’ lives but rather his caution. By doing so he is tacitly acknowledging that he does consider it a possibility that Rother might be a threat, and if Rother actually is the mighty king his messengers claim him to be, then Constantin had better tread lightly. That Constantin arbitrarily disregards his own custom, unjust as it may be, and omits his customary execution of wooers is symptomatic of his weakness as king and his tendency toward capriciousness, the mark of a tyrant; moreover, it may also be an early indication that he will eventually back down completely and acquiesce in Rother’s suit (Kiening 1998, 214).

Notes 1

Liudprand of Cremona, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” in PL 136, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. in 212 (Paris: Migne, 1844–91), col. 932, §58: “quondam opulentissima, et florentissima nunc famelica, perjura, mendace, dolosa, rapace, cupida, avara, cenodoxa.” In English, “The Embassy to Constantinople,”

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in The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. A. F. Wright (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), 271. For a sampling of other contemporary descriptions of Constantinople, see Hans Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients in vorhöfischen deutschen Epen, Palästra 243 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 118–24. 2

Liudprand, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” col. 911, §3: “lingua procacem, ingenio vulpem, perjurio seu mendacio Ulyxem”; “The Embassy to Constantinople,” trans. Wright, 237. 3

Liudprand, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” col. 925, §40: Græcorum rex . . . mendax, dolosus, immisericors, vulpinus, superbus, falso humilis, parcus, cupidus. . . . Francorum rex . . . verax, nil doli habens, satis ubi competit misericors, severus ubi oportet, semper vere humilis, numquam parcus”; “The Embassy to Constantinople,” trans. Wright, 259. 4

Odo de Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem, ed. and trans. Virginia Gingerick Berry, Records of Western Civilization 42 (New York: Columbia UP, 1948), 62–65, 86–87: “Constantinopolis, Graecorum gloria, fama dives et rebus ditior . . . sordida est et fetida multisque in locis perpetua nocte damnata; divites enim suis aedificiis vias tegunt sordesque et tenebras pauperibus et hospitibus derelinquunt; ibique caedes exercentur et latrocinia et quae tenebras diligunt alia scelera. Quoniam autem in hac urbe vivitur sine iure, quae tot quasi dominos habet quot divites et paene tot fures quot pauperes, ibi sceleratus quisque nec metum habet nec verecundiam, ubi scelus nec lege vindicatur nec luce venit in palam. In omnibus modum excedit; nam sicut divitiis urbes alias superat, sic etiam vitiis. . . . Constantinopolis superba divitiis, moribus subdola, fide corrupta; sicut propter suas divitias omnes timet, sic est dolis et infidelitate omnibus metuenda.” 5

In 1155, that is, roughly contemporaneously with the composition of König Rother, the citizens of Bari sought to throw off Norman rule and offer their allegiance to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I. As punishment for their treason William I “the Bad” of Sicily successfully besieged Bari the next year and razed it. John W. Barker, “Bari,” in Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz and John W. Barker, The Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages 9 (New York: Routledge, 2004), 95. 6

On the “synchronization” of disparate historical personages with the same name, as also occurs in the text with St. Gertrude, see Christian Gellinek, “Die Rolle der Heiligen im König Rother,” JEPG 64 (1965): 497. Ingeborg KöppeBenath doubts whether St. Helena can here be meant to mean this Constantin’s mother, suggesting the text refers exclusively to the mother of Constantine the Great; “Christliches in den ‘Spielmannsepen’ König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” PBBH 89 (1967): 213n1. 7

See Peter Classen, “Romanum gubernans Imperium: Zur Vorgeschichte der Kaisertitulatur Karls des Großen,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 9 (1952): 103–21. 8

Liudprand of Cremona, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” col. 911, §2: “Ipse enim vos non imperatorem, id est βασιλέα, sua lingua, sed ob indignationem ρ̀η̃γα, id est regem, nostra vocabat. Cui cum dicerem, quod significaretur idem esse, quamvis quod significat diversum, me, ait, non pacis sed contentionis causa venisse”; “The Embassy to Constantinople,” trans. Wright, 236. Bishop

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Otto I of Freising famously reports in his Gesta Friderici I imperatoris (Deeds of Emperor Frederick I [Barbarossa]) how Emperor Konrad III, in a fit of pique, used the disputed titles as a means of insulting his future brother-in-law by marriage, Manuel Komnenos. The salutation of a letter from 1145 reads: “Conrad, by the grace of God truly emperor august of the Romans [vere Romanorum imperator augustus], to his dearest brother Manuel, born to the purple, Comnenus, illustrious and famous king of the Greeks [porphirogenito . . . iillustri et glorioso regi Grecorum], greeting and brotherly love.” Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. imperatoris, ed. Georg Waitz and Bernhard von Simson, MGH: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum 46, 3rd ed. (1912; Hannover and Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1997), bk. 1, §25. In English, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, trans. Charles Christopher Mierow, Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies 49 (1953; repr., New York: Columbia UP, 2004), 57. 9

The situation is somewhat different with respect to Pippin, as will be discussed in the penultimate chapter. 10

Blum, Wilhelm. “Bertha-Irene: Bayerische Gräfin und byzantinische Kaiserin,” in Bayern und die Antike: 150 Jahre Maximilians-Gymnasium in München, ed. Wolf-Armin von Reitzenstein (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1999), 68. It may also be significant for the monachization at the end of the text that Bertha as empress was known for her piety and especially her patronage of monasteries; she was buried alongside other members of the Komnenos dynasty in Constantinople’s Monastery of the Pantokrator. On Bertha see also Charles Diehl, Byzantine Empresses, trans. Harold Bell and Theresa de Kerpely (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 226–43; Klaus-Peter Todt, “Bertha-Eirene von Sulzbach: Eine Deutsche auf dem byzantinischen Kaiserthron,” Hellenika 25 (1988): 113–47; and Johannes Irmscher, “Bertha von Sulzbach, Gemahlin Manuels I,” Byzantinische Forschungen 22 (1996): 279–90. 11

Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 19–20: “Der Hinterlist, Schwäche und eitlen Überheblichkeit Konstantins stellt der Dichter die Macht, milte und politische Klugheit Rothers entgegen, dem feigen Herrscher von Byzanz den kühnen von Rom, so auch den Mannen Konstantins, den Griechen, die Helden Rothers, die romêre. Es ist der alte Gegensatz Ostrom-Westrom, der, durch die mittelalterliche Kirchenspaltung verstärkt, sich durch die gesamte Geschichte mittelalterlich-deutschen Kaisertums verfolgen läßt.” 12

Noting parallel bridal quests in the Shāhnāmeh (Epic of Kings, ca. AD 1010), the Persian national epic composed by Ferdowsi (Hakīm Abu’l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī), Christian Gellinek considers whether the conflict between Rother and Constantin might originally, in Byzantine or Arabic sources, have been a contest of authority between a rex major and a rex minor who challenges the former’s power and authority, a conflict that in König Rother becomes the conflict between Eastern and Western rulers (Gellinek, König Rother, 55–58).

13

“Sed felices eos dicimus, si iuste imperant, si inter linguas sublimiter honorantium et obsequia nimis humiliter salutantium non extolluntur, et se homines esse meminerunt; si suam potestatem ad Dei cultum maxime dilatandum maiestati eius famulam faciunt; si Deum timent diligunt colunt; si plus amant illud regnum,

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ubi non timent habere consortes; si tardius vindicant, facile ignoscunt; si eandem vindictam pro necessitate regendae tuendaeque rei publicae, non pro saturandis inimicitiarum odiis exerunt; si eandem veniam non ad inpunitatem iniquitatis, sed ad spem correctionis indulgent; si quod aspere coguntur plerumque decernere misericordiae lenitate et beneficiorum largitate copensant; si luxuria tanto eis est castigatior quanto posset esse liberior; si malunt cupiditatibus pravis quam quibuslibet gentibus imperare et si haec omnia faciunt non propter ardorem inanis gloriae, sed propter caritatem felicitatis aeternae; si pro suis peccatis humilitatis et miserationis et orationis sacrificium Deo suo vero immolare non neglegunt. Tales Christianos imperatores dicimus esse felices interim spe, postea re ipsa futuros, cum id quod expectamus advenerit.” Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans, trans. William M. Green et al, Loeb Classical Library, 7 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard UP; London: W. Heinemann, 1957–72), 2:262–63, bk. 5, §24. 14

“Tria ergo necessaria hos qui dominantur habere oportet, terrorem scilicet et ordinationem et amorem,” Pseudo-Cyprian, Pseudo-Cyprianus: De duodecim abusivis sæculi, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 3rd ser, vol. 4, nr. 31 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1909), 43, lines 14–15. Hans Hubert Anton suggests, however, that the dominus referred to in the Sixth Abuse refers to lords of the Irish church, bishops, archbishops, and particularly abbots, and not worldly princes; Anton, “Pseudo-Cyprian: De duodecim abusivis saeculi und sein Einfluß auf den Kontinent, insbesondere auf die karolingischen Fürstenspiegel,” in Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, ed. Heinz Löwe, Veröffentlichungen des Europa Zentrums Tübingen, Kulturwissenschaftliche Reihe, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982), 2:573, 596–97. Later theologians, such as Sedulius Scottus and Hincmar of Reims, having no knowledge of specifically Irish institutions, assumed princes were meant. 15

See Ernst Bernheim, Mittelalterliche Zeitanschauungen: In ihrem Einfluß auf Politik und Geschichtsschreibung (Tübingen: J. B. C. Mohr, 1918; repr. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1964), 101–9, and Anton, “Pseudo-Cyprian,” 597–615. Contrary to Lucie Sandrock’s view in Das Herrscherideal in der erzählenden Dichtung des deutschen Mittelalters (Emsdetten: H. & J. Lechte, 1931), 29, however, Anton does not believe that Sedulius was directly influenced by the Pseudo-Cyprian (611). 16

“Iustitia vero regis est, neminem iniuste per potentiam opprimere, sine acceptione personarum inter virum et proximum suum iudicare, advenis et pupillis et viduis defensorem esse, furta cohibere, adulteria punire, iniquos non exaltare, impudicos et striones non nutrire, impios de terra perdere, parricidas et periurantes vivere non sinere, ecclesias defendere, pauperes elemosynis alere, iustos super regni negotia constituere, senes et sapientes et sobrios consiliarios habere, magorum et hariolorum et pythonissarum superstitionibus non intendere, iracundiam differre, patriam fortiter et iuste contra adversarios defendere, per omnia in Deo confidere, prosperitatibus animum non levare, cuncta adversaria patienter ferre, fidem catholicam in Deum habere, filios suos non sinere impie agere, certis horis orationibus insistere, ante horas congruas non gustare cibum (vae enim terrae, cuius rex est puer, et cuius principes mane comedunt). Haec regni prosperitatem in praesenti faciunt et regem ad caelestia regna meliora perducunt.” Hellmann, De duodecim abusivis sæculi, 51, line 9, to 52, line 8.

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17

Charles G. Nelson, for example, likens Rother and Constantin to traditional comedic figures, with Rother as the eiron, the self-deprecating figure, and Constantin as the alazon, the imposter, and particularly the wrathful old man, iratus senex, who irrationally opposes the love of a young couple; Nelson, “König Rother and the Norms of Comedy,” German Quarterly 45 (1972): 71. 18

For a detailed discussion of the theme of contrasting kings, see Uwe Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 47–53. 19

Hans Szklenar compares the Romans and the Greeks in this regard: “Liegt bei Rother und seinen Mannen der Ton auf der ethischen Bindung durch gegenseitige Treue und auf der sinnvollen Entsprechung von Dienst und Lohn, so betont der Dichter bei den Griechen die materiellen Beziehungen auf der Grundlage einer Relation von Ware und Preis, wobei der Preis vorher ausbedungen werden muß, da der Geiz des Herrn nur zu bekannt ist”; Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients in vorhöfischen deutschen Epen, Palästra 243 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 133–34. 20

On the superiority of the queen, see, for example, Eva-Maria Woelker, Menschengestaltung in vorhöfischen Epen des 12. Jahrhunderts: Chanson de Roland / Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad / König Rother, Germanische Studien 221 (Berlin: Ebering, 1940; repr., Nedeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1969), 166–67; Klaus Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 81; Ferdinand Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PsuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 131; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 51; Neuendorff, Studie zur Entwicklung der Herrscherdarstellung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis: Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen 29 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1982), 193. 21

The most famous exception that proves the rule, of course, are the empresses Theophanu (†991), Byzantine-born widow of Otto II, and her mother-in-law, Adelheid of Burgundy (†999), widow of Otto I, who ruled the empire as regents during the minority of Otto III (985–94). 22

Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton UP, 2001), 3. For a catalogue of the most significant empresses see, for example, Liz James and Barbara Hill. “Women and Politics in the Byzantine Empire: Imperial Women,” in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, ed. Linda E. Mitchell (New York: Garland, 1999), 157–78. 23

The otherwise outdated study by Thilo Vogelsang, Die Frau als Herrscherin im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zur “consors regni” Formel, Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft 7 (Göttingen: “Musterschmidt” Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1954) is still valuable for the citation of historical documents on this issue. 24

On Byzantine women and access to the courts see, for example, Joëlle Beaucamp, “Incapacité féminine et rôle public à Byzance,” in Femmes et pouvoirs des femmes à Byzance et en Occident: VIe–XIe siècles, ed. Stéphane Lebecq, Centre de recherche sur l’histoire de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest 19 (Villeneuve d’Ascq, France: Centre de recherche sur l’histoire de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest, 1999),

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23–36. For brief surveys of the position of women in Byzantium see, for example, José Grosdidier de Matons, “La femme dans l’empire byzantin,” in Histoire mondiale de la femme, ed. Pierre Grimal, 3 vols. (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de France, 1965–74), 3:11–43, and Joëlle Beaucamp, “La situation juridique de la femme à Byzance,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 20 (1977): 145–76. 25

Lynda Garland, Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527– 1204 (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 3–4. On the political status of widowed empresses as regents see also Stojan Maslev, “Die staatsrechtliche Stellung der byzantinischen Kaiserinnen,” Byzantinoslavica 27 (1966): 319–34.

26

Barbara Hill, “Imperial Women and the Ideology of Womanhood in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium, ed. Liz James (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 94. Hill finds among the empresses a “recurrent pattern of invisibility as a wife followed by approved exercise of authority as a mother” (87) as regent for her son. 27

One could, if so inclined, posit a connection here between the structural role of the queen in the bridal quest and the empresses of Byzantine history. Hill, has suggested that the ability of empresses to exercise power as regent for a minor son is based upon what she terms the “ideology of the chaste mother” (“Imperial Women,” 87), and even an empress’s “disloyalty to a husband can be justified under the rubric of acting in a child’s interests, without exposing the mother to criticism” (85). 28

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Le livre des cérémonies, ed. and trans. Albert Vogt, Collection byzantine (Paris: Société d’édition “Les Belles lettres,” 1935–40, 32006). For an introduction to this work see Averil Cameron, “The Construction of Court Rituals: The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. David Cannadine and S. R. F. Price (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987), 109–17. 29

Liudprand of Cremona, “Antapodosis,” in J(acques)-P(aul) Migne, PL 136: col. 895, bk. 6, §5: “Imperatoris vero solium hujusmodi erat arte compositum, ut in momento humile, exelsius modo, quam mox videretur sublime; quod inmensæ magnitudinis, incertum utrum ærei an lignei, verum auro tecti leones quasi custodiebant, qui cauda terram percutientes, aperto ore, linguisque mobilibus rugitum emittebant. In hac igitur duorum ennuchorum humeris incumbens, ante imperatoris præsentiam sum deductus. Cumque in adventu meo rugitum leones emitterent, aves secundum species suas perstreperent, nullo sum terrore, nulla admiratione commotus, quoniam quidem ex his omnibus eos qui bene noverant fueram percontatus. Tercio itaque pronus imperatorem adorans, caput sustuli, et quem prius moderata mensura a terra elevatum sedere vidi, mox aliis indutum vestibus pœnes domus laquear sedere prospexi; quod qualiter fieret, cogitare non potui, nisi forte eo sit subvectus argalio, quo torcularium arbores subvehuntur, [sic] Per se autem nunc nihil locutus, quoniam et si vellet, intercapedo maxima indecorum faceret, da vita Berengarii et sospitate per logothetam est percontatus. Cui cum consequenter respondissem, interpræte sum innuente egressus, et in datum mihi hospitum mox receptus.” “Antapodosis,” in The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. Wright, 207–8. See also Michael Foss, People of the First Crusade (New York: Arcade, 1997), 89–90.

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30

When Rother, disguised as “Dietrich,” is later received by Constantin, he gets down on his knees before him (stont / vor ime an den knien, line 916–17.). This is also no proskynesis, but the ritual gesture of supplication. Proskynesis, often accompanied by kissing the hem of the monarch’s robe, was a custom the ancient Greeks negatively associated with the Persians. When Alexander, following his conquest of Persia, attempted to introduce proskynesis among the Greeks, there was great opposition led by his chronicler Callisthenes of Olynthus, great-nephew of Aristotle. See the account of this controversy by Arrian of Nicomedia in James S. Romm and Pamela Mensch, eds., Alexander the Great: selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005), 103–7. Early historians claim that proskynesis was introduced officially into Roman imperial ritual by Diocletian (r. 284–305). See Frank Kolb, Herrscherideologie in der Spätantike, Studienbücher Geschichte und Kultur der Alten Welt (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), 38–41, 173–75. A panegyric of AD 312 documents ritual proskynesis at the court of Constantine I (83). Nadia Maria El-Cheikh notes the problem proskynesis presented especially for Muslim visitors to the court, since Islam considered kissing the ground before another mortal to be blasphemous. Because of this the Byzantines apparently did not require proskynesis of Muslim ambassadors; however, the caliphs came to demand it for themselves from their own subjects of the highest rank. See El-Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs 36 (Cambridge: Center for Middle Eastern Studies by Harvard UP, 2003), 159–60. 31

Neuendorff suggests that it is not Rother’s status that is stressed here, but the knightly value system: the detailed description of courtly and knightly life actually refers to the ethical code upon which it is based (Studie zur Entwicklung, 164). 32

Here Luppolt does not follow the order of qualifications for a husband as suggested by Paucapalea: strength of character, lineage, attractiveness, and wisdom, following rather those of the bride: attractiveness, lineage, wealth, and moral character. 33

So also Christa Ortmann and Hedda Ragotzky, “Brautwerbungsschema, Reichsherrschaft und staufische Politik: Zur politischen Bezeichnungsfähigkeit literarischer Strukturmuster am Beispiel des König Rother,” ZfdPh 112 (1993): 328. Christian Kiening, however, denies that Constantin’s objections to Rother reside in a questioning of the latter’s status; Constantin simply does not want this marriage or, put another way, the structure of the perilous bridal quest does not permit him to want it, because his objection is a necessary precondition to set the plot in motion; Kiening, “Arbeit am Muster: Literarisierungsstrategien im König Rother,” in Wolfram-Studien XV: Neue Wege der Mittelalter-Philologie; Landshuter Kolloquium 1996, ed. Joachim Heinzle, L. Peter Johnson, and Gisela Vollmann-Profe (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1998), 214. 34

Stojan Maslev, “Die staatsrechtliche Stellung,” 334–35, lists the historical examples: Tiberios I (r. 578–82) married his daughter Konstantina to Maurikios (Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus, r. 582–602); Theophilos the Iconoclast (r. 829–42) married daughter Maria to Alexios Museles, whom he planned to designate as his heir, when it appeared likely he would father no sons; Konstantin VII (r. 1025–28) married daughter Zoë to Romanos (III) Argyros (r. 1028– 34); and Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–80), husband of Bertha von Sulzbach,

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engaged daughter Maria to Béla (Alexios) of Hungary, who would then succeed him, but broke off the engagement when his second wife produced a male heir. See also Barbara Hill, Liz James, and D. C. Smythe, “Zoe: The Rhythm Method of Imperial Renewal,” in New Constantines: the Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 13th–15th Centuries, ed. Paul Magdalino (Aldershot, UK: Variorum; Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1994): 215–30. 35

Walter Haug, “Struktur und Geschichte: Ein literaturtheoretisches Experiment an mittelalterlichen Texten,” GRM 23 (1973): 137–38: “Die Welt als das Andere, Gegenüberstehende, verkörpert sich in der Partnerin, die Lösung des Gegensatzes vollzieht sich als Verbindung der Geschlechter, als Vereinigung zwischen dem König und der fremden, die Gegenwelt repräsentierenden Frau.” 36

According to Gustav Ehrismann’s theory of the genesis of the text, their imprisonment belongs to the vassal saga that was grafted onto the original bridalquest narrative, such as one also finds in Wolfdietrich; Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 4, Handbuch des deutschen Unterrichts an höheren Schulen 6.1–2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922–35; 21959), 21:298. Wilhelm Störmer finds parallels between the figure of Luppolt and the abovementioned historical courtship messenger, Bishop Liudprand of Cremona; Störmer, “‘Spielmannsdichtung’ und Geschichte: Die Beispiele ‘Herzog Ernst’ und ‘König Rother,’” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 43 (1980): 569–74. Like Luppolt, Liudprand spent much of his time in Constantinople essentially under house arrest, and the proposed marriage was rejected. 37

On this example of the topos of the rash boon, a favor granted without knowing its details, see Stephan Fuchs-Jolie, “Rother, Roland und die Rituale: Repräsentation und Narration in der frühhöfischen Epik,” in Zentren herrschaftlicher Repräsentation im Hochmittelalter: Geschichte, Architektur und Zeremoniell, ed. Caspar Ehlers, Jörg Jarnut, and Matthias Wemhoff, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte: Deutsche Königspfalzen, Beiträge zu ihrer historischen und archäologischen Erforschung 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 185–88, and the classic study by Jean Frappier, “Le motif du ‘don contraignant’ dans la littérature du Moyen Âge,” in his Amour courtois et Table Ronde, Publications romanes et françaises 126 (Geneva: E. Droz, 1973), 225–64.

5: Rother’s Quest

T

HE MESSENGER’S WOOING EXPEDITION (S.-C. §B.1) having failed, the wooer must himself undertake the journey (S.-C. §C.2).1 In Bari King Rother wonders what has become of his messengers: a year has passed with no word. When his courtiers suggest that he must do something to learn their fate, he spends three days and nights sitting silently upon a stone (lines 447–50) in heartsick contemplation. This pose is a symbolic representation of sad reflection reminiscent, for example, of Charlemagne’s contemplation of the bodies of his dead vassals in the contemporary Rolandslied (lines 565–78) and later immortalized by Walther von der Vogelweide in his poem, “Ich saz ûf eime steine” (I sat upon a stone, 8,4–27). Rother comes to the realization that he himself must go to Constantinople to learn their fate. Indeed, he has no alternative, for if his status has in some way been successfully challenged by Constantin, he must either continue to press his wooing of Constantin’s daughter or admit that his status is not equal to the latter’s, thus rendering him unworthy of her (Zimmermann 1993, 64–65). Rother also has an obligation to his messengers, and he must demonstrate his loyalty to those who have put themselves at risk in his service (Neuendorff 1982, 165). This obligation is not merely a moral one; it represents the element that binds lords and vassals, from both directions, in the feudal relationship. In his concern for his missing vassals Rother is acknowledging his responsibility as liege lord to protect them and his willingness to consider using force, should it be necessary, to fulfill that responsibility. It is for this very reason that other men of noble rank have placed themselves in his service (Zimmermann 1993, 70). It is interesting to note that similar feudal obligations trouble the imprisoned messengers, as well as a concern for the future of their titles and possessions, a concern that had prompted the bridal quest in the first place. The failure of their mission puts everyone’s future in jeopardy, as Erwin laments to his older brother, Luppolt:

wer helfit nu den magen den wir gotis schuldic waren? oder weme sal unser erbe zo iungestin werde? (lines 370–73) [Who shall aid our kinsmen, whom it is our obligation to support? Or to whom shall our legacy be given in the end?]

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Ortmann and Ragotzky (1993, 328) are thus overstating the facts when they claim that the imprisoned messengers lament not their own fate, but rather solely the diminishment of Rother’s honor as a result of their failure. Their fate and Rother’s honor are inextricably bound together, in that both their own position in the hierarchy and that of their heirs depends upon a successful bridal quest that guarantees the stability of the kingdom. In a doubling of the consultation with counselors before the messenger’s quest (S.-C. §A.2), Rother first seeks the wisdom of his most experienced vassal, Berchter of Meran, that archetype of loyalty (Erb 1963–64, 12:771), from whom, one is told, he seeks counsel in every situation (line 459). Here the text clearly contradicts itself, for Berchter was not mentioned as present during the initial meeting of the consilium familiare, in which it was resolved that Rother should seek the hand of Constantin’s daughter. Berchter is himself particularly concerned about the missing messengers, for he is father to Luppolt, Erwin, and five others among them. Both fear that Constantin has carried out the usual punishment meted out to wooers and beheaded Rother’s embassy; if he has indeed done so, Rother will make him pay for this with his life (line 470). Where it was Luppolt who had earlier played the roles of Namer and Knower in the council, Berchter now assumes the part previously assigned to his son. Bräuer (1970, 176) theorizes that this takes place because the Berchter figure is a doubling, the result of a dissimilation of what was originally a single character into father and son, in order that the same counselor would not be represented as giving two separate pieces of advice: first the messengers’ quest, then the expedition to rescue the messengers. Woelker (1940/69, 262n454), on the other hand, suggests that Berchter’s increased importance for the second expedition is the result of the weaving together of the two plots in König Rother, bridal quest and vassal saga, echoing the thesis put forward by de Vries (1922/74, lxxii). One could, however, offer a simpler interpretation that does not require speculation about previous stages of textual development: the bridal quest was instigated at the request of the young counts, and Luppolt was their spokesman; the serious matter of the missing messengers, which goes to the heart of the international status of king and kingdom, is an issue for the older, wiser counselors, of which Berchter is the most respected. Berchter, thinking perhaps more like a father than as the king’s counselor (Schmitz 2002, 179), suggests a military campaign against Constantin and the Hungarians2 in order to annihilate them; but here Rother demonstrates his prudence. While acknowledging that a good warrior does wrong when he refuses to follow good advice (lines 501–4), he fears that military action might be an overreaction, for if his messengers are still alive, an invasion would most certainly doom them. What is not explicitly stated in the text, but could well be a second motivation

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for Rother’s concern, is the negative effect Berchter’s proposed war of annihilation would have upon his bridal quest, which is the goal of all his dealings with Constantinople. If Rother humiliates Constantin militarily and diminishes his status too greatly, then the latter’s daughter would no longer be a suitable bride: the quest would have to begin again from the start. Woelker (1940/69, 169) and Ehrismann (1922–35, 21:303), however, suggest that Rother’s interest in the fate of his messengers has temporarily displaced the bridal quest as a priority, although his subsequent actions in Constantinople, which pursue the double goal of rescuing the messengers and winning his bride, would seem to belie this view. Zimmermann (1993, 90–91) is no doubt correct when she states that the completion of his bridal quest and the rescuing of his imprisoned messengers cannot be separated: they both represent a validation of Rother’s status. Rother will therefore put Berchter’s plan before his counselors, in the hope that they can offer a better strategy (bezzere list, line 512) that would not mean all-out war. The counselors discuss the matter among themselves, and in contrast to the first council session, where agreement was quickly reached about the suitability of Constantin’s daughter, this time there is some dissension. The deliberations become briefly violent, when Berchter knocks unconscious the old duke who dares to suggest that they simply do nothing.3 The one dissident voice having been removed, the remaining counselors quickly come to an agreement; one might suppose that they were loath to face Berchter’s wrath themselves. Like Rother, his counselors, too, fear the consequences of open aggression: if Constantin is attacked, he will have no choice but to kill the prisoners, if they are indeed not already dead. In addition, many of their own men would certainly fall in battle. They offer the king an alternative plan to Berchter’s military solution; namely, that Rother himself should journey to Constantinople disguised as an exile, in order to learn the fate of the messengers. They are, however, concerned that Rother will not accept their advice (lines 582–83), and emphasize two things: it is in his best interest to do so, and if he does not, he will not succeed. Zimmermann (1993, 83–85) suggests that the counselors’ concern lies in their fear that he might not be willing to pretend to be of a lower status, which would give the appearance of diminishing his ere. At the same time, the vassals who accompany him would have to denigrate their own status, as well, pretending to be not the vassals of a great king but, demoted in rank and deprived of privilege, liege men of an exiled vassal. That this is, in fact, a significant element in their thinking can be demonstrated by Berchter’s later questioning of the strategy: “du bist richir dan Constantin: warumme soldistu an siner spise sin? iz ne were uns nicht mugelich!” (lines 1251–53)

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[“You are mightier than Constantin: why should you eat at his table? It would not be difficult for us (to refuse)!”]

On the other hand Nelson (1972, 74–75) sees in Rother’s willingness to masquerade as his social inferior a demonstration of his “inherent superiority,” and Curschmann (1964, 103) similarly sees no feudal significance in Rother’s disguise; in terms of his true honor it is irrelevant whether he appears to be a king or a vassal. For Haupt (1989, 83) the disguise is meant to add a certain humor to the situation, although this does not detract from the inherent seriousness of their undertaking. It is interesting to note in this context that although Rother always praises Berchter for his good advice, he does not necessarily follow it, as can be seen in his rejection of Berchter’s war of annihilation and his ignoring of the old warrior’s distaste for a feigned submission to Constantin. Rother accepts their plan and will disguise himself as his own liege man — under the pseudonym “Dietrich” — a vassal who has supposedly been exiled by Rother and who seeks political asylum in Constantinople.4 In a doubling of the first colloquium publicum, during which the messengers’ quest was publicly approved by his council (S.-C. §A.3), Rother now declares a great court, this time to be held in Rome, where he sends to the four corners of his realm to recruit brave warriors who wish to benefit from his largesse. After placing Amelger of Tengelingen in charge of state affairs as regent until his return — Berchter had first been offered the position, but refused because he claimed he was insufficient to the task (lines 735–39) — he sets off for Constantinople from the port of Bari. He is accompanied by Berchter and twelve dukes, each leading 200 men, as well as a contingent of giants hailing from an unknown land (eime unkundigin lande, line 631) and led by their king, Asprian. Among the most important giants are Witold with the Pole, from the Land of Giants (uz der riesin lande, line 767), who is so fierce that he must be bound like a lion (line 760) at all times, and Grimme. The giants, who appear in the text as archaic relics, living fossils of a bygone heroic age (Kiening 1998, 231),5 represent the figure of the Extraordinary Helper, a fairytale element (F 531.6.9) in Schmid-Cadalbert’s model of the perilous quest. Because the Helper possesses extraordinary abilities, he can also be difficult to control (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 85). Urbanek (1976, 127–29) draws a parallel between the three named giants and the triumvirate of Rother’s human warriors, Berchter, Luppolt, and Wolfrat. While this entourage may seem large, not to mention extraordinary for a man who claims he is an exile, the sheer size of it is meant to attest to the power of the king who was strong enough to ban him (Szklenar 1966, 115n7); the wagonloads of treasure he brings with him will contribute to the illusion. Once underway Rother explains his purpose and strategy to the men, and that same strategy can serve both his goals, to learn the fate of his messengers and to continue the wooing of his intended bride:

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“wir sulin in ein unkundegiz lant. iz ni ist nichein kindis spil, daz ich u nu sagin wil: wir mozen mit gotin listin unser lib gevirstin. ich bit uch alle geliche armen unde riche, heizit mich Thiderich. so ne wez nichein vremede man, wie min gewerf si getan.” (lines 813–22) [“We are entering into an unknown land. What I am about to tell you is not at all a children’s game: we must use clever ruses to preserve our lives. I ask all of you together, rich and poor, to call me Dietrich. That way no stranger can possibly discern the nature of my undertaking.”]

The key to Rother’s plan, as explicitly stated here, is to use guile or subterfuge, list, instead of open aggression to accomplish his goals. This will allow Rother access to information at Constantinople, without subjecting him to the immediate suspicion on the part of Constantin that he has come to woo his daughter or to avenge the wrong done his messengers. Subterfuge is a feature common to the perilous bridal quest and includes disguises, aliases, and false pretense, among other things (Bornholdt 2005, 13). Resorting to deception is characteristic of Rother’s approach to potentially violent situations, and his areas of competence are knowledge, guile, and mastery of courtly decorum: his power lies in the ability to mislead (Fuchs-Jolie 2005, 205). It would be a mistake, however, according to Zimmermann (1993, 86–87), to view Rother’s successful ruses as a triumph of his intellectual ability, for they are not a result of wise reflection or an indicator of superior intelligence, but rather a hallmark of his noble status and lineage. Similarly, Stock (2002, 266) maintains that subterfuge, generosity, and loyalty are the primary proof of the superiority of a ruler.6 Woelker (1940/69, 159), however, maintains that Rother’s assuming an alias reveals what is essentially the dual nature of his character: his actions in Constantinople are no longer the expression of his idealistic kingship, but the devious means to an end. Gert Hübner describes deception and loyalty as a manifestation of the relationship between cognition, meaning a character’s internal mental and emotional processes, and action. The loyalty shared by Rother and his men is characterized by actions that are consistent with their thoughts and emotions. Ruses, on the other hand, demonstrate a disconnect between cognition and action, a strategy to be used against opponents, by which actions purposefully belie cognition (Hübner 2005, 248–55). Rother employs deception only in dealing with his enemies and other foreigners, but never

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turns it against his own vassals, so that feudal loyalty and deception never come into direct conflict with each other (Schwietering 1931/57, 108). Schröder sees Rother’s successful use of ruses as an indication of his cleverness in matters of diplomacy when dealing with his enemies: capability and deception as the basis of royal power reflect a concept of government that seeks to secure its existence not through the conquest of other lands, but through agreements and treaties.7 According to his view Rother relies on subterfuge or, if you will, diplomacy, because he is meant to be perceived as a king, not a warrior-hero. For this reason he shows no trace of personal bravery in the text, no indication of physical strength or facility in wielding a sword, nor does he demonstrate any knowledge of military strategy (Schröder 1955/77, 329). That war and military heroism do not play a major role in his characterization (Siegmund 1959, 17; Kokott 1978, 113) may well be due to the fact that this narrative is not a heroic epic or tale of abduction by force (Brautraub), but a bridal quest, in which martial prowess traditionally plays an insignificant role, unless violence is necessary to secure the bride by killing her father (S.-C. §C.1.b). Through the avoidance of direct military confrontation, except when absolutely necessary, the Rother poet maintains a courtly tone in the text, as though combat might cause his main characters to revert to uncourtly behavior (Siegmund 1959, 169n214). When violence does become necessary, it is directed, not against the bride’s father, but against his rebellious vassals and the infidels. The ability to exercise force is an underlying principle of the feudal order; one need only think of the Pseudo-Cyprian’s dictum that the good king must be able to inspire fear. Although Rother’s military skills are not stressed in the text, it is to be assumed that his vassals regard his prowess as superior to their own; indeed, this must be so, in order that they can justify their submission to his authority (Zimmermann 1993, 19n28). Were Rother truly lacking in personal courage or military expertise, he could not hope to keep the ambitions of his seventy-two vassal-kings in check nor to defend his borders against his enemies. Concern over such an eventuality was precisely the excuse Berchter gave when he refused to be regent in Rother’s absence: “. . . wande bevild ir mir das uwer lant, iz wirt beroubit unde virbrant, virhert die marke, virwosten sie vil starke.” (lines 736–39) [“for if you place your land in my care, it will be pillaged and burned; the border marches will be invaded, and they (=your enemies) will ravage them greatly.”]

Rother has no need to indulge in personal physical violence, as opposed to subterfuge, in Constantinople, since he counts among his

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followers the giants, who can project force in his service (Stock 2002, 258). They have been interpreted as symbolizing the assertiveness of Rother’s sovereignty in its absolute ideality, beyond good and evil, gigantic and limitless (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 229), to which they lend a quasi-mythical justification (Karhof 1968, 160).8 That they do intimidate through their potential for violence is made clear when “Dietrich” and his splendidly clad men arrive during the Easter celebrations at Constantinople. As the citizenry comes out to catch a glimpse of these strangers, the giants disport themselves in friendly combat on shore; the curious onlookers retreat in fear as fast as they can. When the news is reported to Constantin, it is the queen, not he, who demands further explanation: he merely hears the news in silence. An eyewitness begins his tale with news of the giants, particularly Witold in his chains, and their iron staves; only then does he tell of the many fine warriors, their accouterment, and their cargo of treasure. One of Constantin’s counselors voices his suspicion that the arrival of these strangers has something to do with the imprisoned messengers, and his words reveal that the presence of these strange creatures has had its desired effect. The giants’ imposing size and strength give the impression of invincibility and represent a latent threat, because they project violence and instill fear by their very aspect (Fischer 2003, 214). “herre, dir ist uvele geschen an den boten walgetan die du hast gevangin lan! unde sin diz ir herren, sie mogint unsich alle sere. . . . die da mit den stangen kumen sint so langen den ne mach nehein man widir stan.” (lines 880–89) [“My lord, mistakes were made in your dealings with the handsome messengers, whom you ordered taken prisoner! And if these men be their liege lords, they will do us all grievous harm. . . . No man among us can stand against those who have come bearing such very long staves.”]

When “Dietrich” and his men — and giants — finally make their way to the royal palace, they are received by the queen in the company of Constantin’s greatest vassals. She welcomes them, as she had done Rother’s messengers before them, with courteous mien (gezoginliche, line 899). The assembled nobles break out in a sweat at the sight of the giants, who are behaving as if they are demented; when two counts attempt to take Asprian’s iron-clad staff, they find that it is too heavy for them to lift, so it falls to the ground and remains where it lies.9 This is one of the many

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instances of a kind of slapstick humor involving the giants, which contributes a level of humor to the narration; this comic relief, however, remains a private joke between the narrator and the audience at the expense of the Greeks.10 Acting his part, “Dietrich” falls upon his knees in supplication11 before the king, who is sitting passively upon his throne, and spins his tale, telling the royal couple that he is an exile, forced to leave Rother’s kingdom, and requesting to be taken into Constantin’s service. Where Luppolt had praised Rother’s handsomeness and courtesy, “Dietrich” emphasizes his might, as he flatters Constantin by claiming he is the only king powerful enough to protect him from Rother. Through this “Dietrich” is, of course, indirectly enhancing Rother’s reputation (Schröder 1955/77, 333–34.). The trick of using the present “Dietrich” to praise the absent Rother allows Rother to exploit Constantin’s ignorance of the fact that they are one in the same person and to delude Constantin as to the true power relationship that exists between them (Kiening 1998, 227). Though “Dietrich” is deceiving Constantin by seeming to validate his arrogance by praising his might, he never explicitly lies to him; he merely implies through his careful choice of words that Constantin is the more powerful of the two kings. Nor does he ever claim not to be King Rother. It was he, Rother, who sent himself, “Dietrich,” into (feigned) exile: “des [=Rothers] gewalt ist so getan: ime nemach nieman wider stan. do her mir sin riche virbot, do mostich iz rumen durch de not. do ne truwidich in negeineme lande minin lif so wol behalden so hir zo deme hove din. mir ist gesaget, daz du so gewaldich sis. . . . ne wiltu mich an din dienist nicht nemen, so moz ich Rothere den lif gibin.” (lines 927–40) [“Rother’s might is such, that no man can stand against him. When he exiled me from his kingdom, I was forced by necessity to leave it. After that I could not hope to preserve my life in any land as well as I can here at your court. It has been told to me that you are very powerful. . . . If you will not take me into your service, I must forfeit my life to Rother.”]

Constantin, as well as his vassals, are rightly impressed by these strangers, particularly the giants, and his loyal advisers urge him to accept “Dietrich”’s offer to serve him, in the hope that the strangers do not attack them. Szklenar (1966, 134) and Meves (1976, 31) believe that this general atmosphere of fear among the Greeks confirms the inferiority of

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Constantin’s court. The king must resort to placating the strangers, while pretending that his motivation to do so is not his fear, but rather Christian caritas (Meves 1976, 51) in giving them refuge: “deme ellenden, swilichin mir got gesendet, deme wirt gedienit, wizze Crist, alse her wert ist.” (lines 973–76) [“Each exile whom God sends to me is treated, Christ knows, according to his worthiness.”]

When Constantin expresses his pleasure that “Dietrich” and his men have not come on another bridal quest for King Rother, he issues the veiled threat that, had they done so, they would experience the same punishment as Rother’s previous messengers. Upon hearing this, the giant Asprian breaks into a rage that threatens to end in violence (lines 1000–1014), and Constantin avoids a confrontation between the giant and his vassals by inventing an excuse for his rash words: “mich machent getrunkin mine man” (My men have gotten me drunk,’ line 1020). This is an obvious lie and cannot be confused with a successful ruse; to be a successful ruse, such as those associated with Rother, his guile would have had to be convincing. The queen, for one, is not deceived, and his vassals, who indeed had not gotten him drunk, must surely know he is backing down out of fear, something which would obviously denigrate his kingship in their eyes. Neuendorff (1982, 193) interprets Constantin’s behavior as an indication that he is an inadequate liege lord, while Szklenar (1966, 137) views it as a sign of his a great capacity for accommodation to a change in circumstances; his egocentrism strengthens him in the face of any danger, allowing him always to find a way out or at least an excuse for his behavior, even when his excuse flies in the face of the truth. For Woelker (1940/69, 187) all of Constantin’s speeches to “Dietrich” alternate in tone between flamboyant boasting and exaggerated zeal for duty, which are for her signs of his arrogance and cowardliness. Zimmermann (1993, 96n206), however, ever the defender of Constantin and his kingship, puts a positive spin on his lie, suggesting that by taking the blame for this potentially violent situation, he prevents a conflict between Asprian and his vassals that could only have had disastrous results for the latter. She contends that Constantin hopes to use the obvious potential for violence exhibited by the giants to increase his own status, since “Dietrich” and his men are eager to serve him (Zimmermann 1993, 92–93). Fuchs-Jolie (2005, 194) suggests that this entire scene, as a ritual representation of courtly behavior, offers an appropriate and successful means of avoiding conflict and the use of force, even though, in this case, it consists of an exchange of courteous lies.

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When the queen subsequently catches sight of Witold in chains, she chastises Constantin in no uncertain terms for having refused to give their daughter’s hand to Rother when he sought it, thereby attracting Rother’s enemies to their court. Although Rother does not yet realize it, he has in the queen his strongest advocate in Constantinople, for Constantin, unbeknownst to him, is being attacked on two fronts in the matter of his bridal quest. Each time the queen criticizes her husband for what she perceives to be his lack of judgment, she raises the issue of his response to Rother’s suit and his treatment of the courtship messengers, for in her assessment the potential problems now confronting them all stem from Constantin’s unwise decision. Given the positive role the bride’s mother plays in the structure of the perilous bridal quest, it would seem that Woelker (1940/69, 166–67) is underestimating the significance of the queen’s role in the text, when she declares that one is meant to see her, above all, as a mother who is concerned about marrying off her daughter. On the contrary, her concern is always to reinforce and extend the power and prestige of Constantin’s throne (Böckenholt 1971, 50). The queen’s method, however, is not gentle: her criticism of the king’s behavior, as is always the case when she speaks her mind in private, is characterized by contemptuous ridicule, biting irony, fierce reproaches, threats, and regret concerning his conduct (Woelker 1940/69, 189): . . . “sich nu, herre Constantin, hi voren sie den meister din in einer ketenen zwaren! owi, we tump wer do waren, daz wer unse tochter virsageten Rothere der dise virtreif uber mere: iz ne gewelt nicht grozer wisheit! . . . owi, herre gote, nu mochtistu dise van oder slan, ob wer minen rat hedden getan! ich wene aber, sowes sie dich beten, daz du iz vor vorchtin tetes, mer dan dur gote. Owi, hetten sie nu min gemote, so heizen sie in geben daz selve wif, . . . so wolde ich sien dine kundicheit!” (lines 1062–81) [“Just look now, lord Constantin, there they are leading someone who is your superior, in truth, by a chain! Alas, how foolish we were then, that we refused our daughter to Rother, who has now banished these men across the sea: that was not an example of great wisdom! . . . Alas, excellent lord, you would now be able to capture or kill these men, if we had followed my advice! I suspect, however, that you have done

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everything they have asked out of fear, more than of goodness. Alas, if they shared my disposition, they also would demand to be given that very same woman, . . . I would like to see your shrewdness then!”]

The queen here assumes part of the blame, wer, “we,” for Constantin’s unwise and foolish decision, but that is, perhaps, a charitable act on her part: the text makes it obvious that this decision was his alone and against her good advice. He also has nothing to say in response to her criticism, a sign of his perplexity when confronted with unexpected situations or unpleasant truths (Szklenar 1966, 138). The queen also understands that if Rother could subdue and drive such men as these from his kingdom, men who now pose such an obvious threat to the peace in Constantinople, he must be a powerful king indeed. Had Constantin listened to her in the first place, they could easily deal with “Dietrich” and his men and perhaps earn Rother’s favor by doing so. But since they have already affronted Rother, they must now curry favor with his other enemies in order to strengthen their position. The queen’s reaction to his self-protective lie about his drunkenness speaks volumes: “hude ne is din gebare / nicht kunincliche getan: / du zuckis dich trunckenheit an!” (Your conduct this day was unworthy of a king: you feigned drunkenness, lines 1089–91). When Asprian subsequently does get violent and throws Constantin’s lion12 against the wall for stealing food from his plate during the ensuing banquet, Constantin shows no reaction (her ne geregite doch nie de vote, he did not even move his feet, line 1154), but simply regards the situation in his usual silence. He should, of course, react: he is the king, and the lion, his pet, a traditional emblem of royal power (Fischer 2003, 218). That this emblem can be challenged and destroyed by a mere vassal of “Dietrich,” albeit here a giant vassal, while Constantin does nothing to stop or punish him, may be yet another indirect but symbolic representation of the ultimate superiority of the military might of Rother, who is by definition greater than “Dietrich,” much less “Dietrich”’s vassals (Dinser 1975, 20; Haupt 1989, 83). However, it is clearly a strange practice for Constantin to permit the lion to intimidate his liege men and guests by eating food from their plates. Perhaps this custom is meant to be understood as the sick joke of a tyrant who enjoys threatening his own subjects: the queen calls the lion his trained vederspil (hunting hawk, line 1176). Fuchs-Jolie (2005, 195) offers several possibilities for interpreting the lion that are not mutually exclusive: it is a symbol of royal power; the intentional provocation of a despot who otherwise purports to be civilized; or evidence of an attempted taming of a force of nature gone awry. Whatever the metaphorical significance of the lion, when the queen learns what has happened, she is delighted. She revels in the destruction of Constantin’s pet — or emblem of his kingship — by these exiles from Rother’s court, for to her it is proof that Rother must indeed be worthy

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of their daughter. If those to whom he is superior can wreak such havoc in Constantinople, he must be so. She once again rues the rejection of Rother’s suit and suggests that the imprisoned messengers be turned over to her, so that she can set them free as a sign to Rother of their willingness to reconcile with him. From her perspective this would solve both problems: Constantin’s unwise rejection of the marriage proposal and the presence of these fearsome exiles at their court. Since she is not yet aware of the fact that “Dietrich” is Rother, however, her understanding of the situation is incomplete. What she is actually proposing would provide a happy resolution to Rother’s double quest, the rescue of his bridal messengers and the winning of a bride. What she does know is who bears the responsibility for their present predicament: now it is not “we,” but du, ‘you,’ whose decision has yielded such evil consequences: Die kunincgine sach gerne den zorn, daz der lewe was virloren. sie lachete Constantine an. . . . “iz kumet noch an die ride min: ia ne hettes du die tochter din nicht vorloren an Rothere der diese vertreif over mere, owi, we gerne ich noch riete, daz men die boten liete ritin hin zo lande. . . . we mochte iz bat bestadet sin? nu gedenke, herre Constantin, daz sich dise nicht nemochten erweren: we woldestu den dich vor Rothere generen? gedenkit her an sine man, so moz din lant an owe gan! wane givestu mir noch die haftin die dar ligint an uncrachten, daz ich sie moze uz nimen? sie havent ein vil swar liven!” (lines 1172–97) [The queen was glad to see his anger over the lion that was lost. She laughed at Constantin. . . .”What I have said will come to pass: if you had only not denied your daughter to Rother, who has banished these men across the sea, alas, how gladly I would still advise you, that one should permit his messengers to ride to their homeland. . . . How could the matter more easily be resolved? Now consider, lord Constantin: since these men were unable to defend themselves, how would you save yourself from Rother? If he still thinks about his liege men, your land will surely be laid waste. Why do you not give me the prisoners who lie there powerless, so that I can free them? They lead a most wretched existence.”]

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Although she bases her suggestion for the release of Rother’s imprisoned messengers on humanitarian grounds (lines 1186–89) and even Christian charity (lines 1197–1206), the queen reveals her perspicacity in political affairs as a powerfully eloquent exponent of Realpolitik, in the face of the threat Rother could pose if he chose to do so (Böckenholt 1971, 49, 59). Constantin, however, rejects her good counsel; true to form, he continues to cling to a bad decision, stating that the prisoners will never be free so long as he lives, no matter what she advises. This seems an act of willful stubbornness on his part, since he has followed her wise advice on previous occasions as to the proper reception and treatment of Rother and Rother’s messengers. Even her arguments on humanitarian and religious grounds cannot move him, and she laments that she, poor woman that she is (mir armen wibe, line 1215), does not have someone like the fearsome Witold, who could help her force the king’s hand. According to Zimmermann (1993, 132), however, Constantin’s determination is justified: he cannot simply free the prisoners, since he would then be acknowledging that he is no longer in a position to assert his claim of superiority and that he fears Rother’s vengeance. While that may be true, when Constantin goes so far as to suggest to “Dietrich” that Asprian’s violence against the lion had frightened his wife (line 1283) — no mention of his own fears, of course — this willingness to hide behind the queen’s skirts would seem to be further evidence of Constantin’s weakness and his failure to meet the standards of good and just kingship. Berchter, who has been observing the royal couple during the banquet, informs “Dietrich” of the queen’s joy at the death of the lion, and both begin to suspect that Rother may have a powerful ally at court. “Dietrich” seeks to take advantage of this favorable circumstance by reinforcing her perception of Rother’s excellence and the threat he poses. As he seeks permission to withdraw to his own quarters, because his many followers cannot be accommodated in the king’s palace, he makes a special appeal to the queen to support his request. He almost casually mentions that the men he has with him are not even the best of his vassals; those have already been killed by Rother. Rother is, therefore, obviously so powerful that he can destroy fiercer men than these, who themselves are already feared by all in Constantinople. Having demonstrated his — and indirectly Rother’s — military might and ability to intimidate even the king himself, “Dietrich” now begins to undermine Constantin’s kingship in terms of that great virtue of good kings, milte, generosity. The plan to win the favor of various impoverished exiles who have sought refuge at Constantin’s court is suggested by Berchter: “. . . var zu den herrebergen, daz die ellenden mozen genezen des der din vater lieze,

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der hie vil maniger unbe gat unde habit vil grozen unrat von deme armote. got durch sine gote der irgezze sie ir leides! io mochtin sie heime wole wesen riche. sie leben iamerliche: daz irbarmit mich sere. nu hilf en dur dine here!” (lines 1238–50) [“Go to your quarters, so that the exiles might profit from that which you inherited from your father; so many of them are to be found here and are in great want because of their poverty. May God in His goodness compensate them for their suffering! Indeed, at home they may well have been wealthy. Now they live in misery: I pity them greatly. Help them now for the sake of your honor!”]

During his subsequent fourteen-day absence from Constantin’s court, “Dietrich” gives the appearance of living as if he suffers from the same poverty as that of the other refugees. God then moves the latter to come to his lodgings (lines 1295–96). That he himself does not seek them out might be interpreted as his reluctance to appear openly as a rival benefactor to the king, something that might well arouse the latter’s suspicion and thwart Rother’s ruse. When the exiles do arrive at his door, he opens his kitchen and cellar to them; in addition, they receive gifts of horses, silk clothing, and steel armor, worthy of their former rank. This earns “Dietrich” much praise at the court. It is doubtless Berchter’s invocation of God that has caused many interpreters to view “Dietrich”’s actions in strictly moral terms. Woelker (1940/69, 159) sees in his generosity an expression of Christian charity; Neuendorff (1982, 167), of solicitude, the Christian injunction to minister unto the suffering and to strangers. Kokott (1978, 111) also finds here an act of compassion, the expression of Christian mercy, but notes, as well, that it is also an act of political cunning, drawing a comparison between “Dietrich” and Constantin: Rother is generous beyond all bounds out of an innate sense of political calculus, whereas Constantin is correspondingly miserly out of sheer stupidity (Kokott 1978, 277n33). Zimmermann (1993, 100–101), on the other hand, emphasizes not the moral but the class aspect of “Dietrich”’s behavior toward the exiles, finding here a tangible act of assistance for men who share his own noble status but whose honor has been diminished by Constantin’s miserliness, which undermines the divinely structured order of feudal society based on service and guerdon. Although “Dietrich”’s actions may give the appearance of charity or compassion, they are based upon a deception. He has purposely misled

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the exiles, and Constantin, by pretending to be one of them, as if he, too, were dependent upon the generosity of others. This clearly contradicts the reality of the situation — the wagonloads of treasure he has brought with him have already been described by the narrator — and indicates that he is pursuing a deeper purpose here. While King Rother, as himself, is clearly a paragon of generosity, one must surely agree with Gellinek (1968, 45) when he regards “Dietrich”’s charity toward the exiles as part of his strategy of deception: at an opportune moment he augments the simple ruse, his claim to have been exiled by Rother, which was originally meant simply to protect his identity from Constantin, with one that provides him even more opportunity to achieve his goals. He can use his generosity and ever increasing display of wealth in an attempt to manipulate public opinion in his favor (Fuchs-Jolie 2007, 181). As a direct result of this, he is able to win an additional six thousand of these exiles to his service (line 1389), thus augmenting his original Roman military force by recruiting new followers in the very heart of Constantin’s kingdom. Most important among the authentic exiles at Constantin’s court is Count Arnolt, an independent warrior who as yet exists by definition outside the network of feudal loyalties in the text: he is a vassal neither of the Greeks, of the Romans, nor of the infidels (Urbanek 1974, 73; 1976, 171).13 From his independent perspective and after having received a gift of one thousand marks — enough, as Asprian says, to support an entourage of thirty knights for a year — Arnolt relates to Constantin and the court what “Dietrich” has done for him: “diz hat mir Dietherich gegevin, / got laze ene mit genaden lieven!” (Dietrich has given this to me; may God bless his life, lines 1461–62). In doing so, he is already serving “Dietrich”’s purpose without knowing it. Because the narrator has explicitly stated that Constantin had left Arnolt to go about the city in shame for want of sufficient clothing, the truth of which statement is confirmed by the comment of a merchant who gives Arnolt the proper attire so that he can approach “Dietrich” (lines 1400–1402; 1414–15), the comparison between “Dietrich” and Constantin is pointed enough for all to see. Arnolt’s words prompt a third speech by the queen, in which she attacks Constantin for his miserliness and again rues Constantin’s rejection of Rother’s marriage proposal. Since Rother has permitted “Dietrich” to accumulate such treasure and even to take it with him when he left Rother’s court, the queen draws the intended conclusion about Rother’s own vast wealth, power, and nobility of character: “weiz got, her mach wol edile sin! hir schinit Constantinis sin! eya, arme, wie ich nu virstozin bin, daz min thochtir deme virsagit wart, der diesen helit virtrieven hat!

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dirre tod so vrumichliche: ich weiz wol, Rother der ist riche unde mac wol gewalt han.” (lines 1464–71) [“God knows, he must certainly be a noble man! Here we see the result of Constantin’s thinking! Alas, poor me, how I have been thrust into misfortune, in that my daughter was denied to him who banished this hero! His actions alone are so admirable, that I know for certain that Rother is wealthy and must indeed possess great might.”]

The queen’s speech arouses the agreement of Constantin’s vassals, who are also convinced that his rejection of Rother’s marriage proposal has had evil consequences. The sheer extravagance of the knightly accoutrement of “Dietrich” and his men had already, upon their arrival in Constantinople, caused the Greeks to make a comparison to “Dietrich” that fell out unfavorably for their own liege lord. They accused Constantin of caring more about hoarding treasure than using it to reward his vassals for their service: “hute gesie wer daz beste gewant daz ie quam in diz lant. dise rekken sin alle riche! wer leven bosliche, daz wir dienin eime zagin, der ime vil seldene grozen schadin durch unsir siheinis willen tot, wande ene erbarmet zo harde daz got! (lines 1120–27) [“Today we are seeing the best attire that ever appeared in this land. These errant warriors are all wealthy men! We live a mean existence, because we serve a miserable man who never deprives himself of very much for any of our sakes, since he is so enamored of his possessions.”]

These are not yet the words of open rebellion, for Constantin’s vassals still respect the power he has over them as their king and liege lord; however, hearing that the queen shares their disgruntlement has emboldened them to speak their mind. Although they address their words to the queen, they convey a barely veiled threat to Constantin: they are contemplating a switching of loyalty, in order to benefit from “Dietrich”’s generosity, as have the exiled warriors: “vrowe, u ist der ride not! der tuvil tho en den dot die iz ie irwantin! wir weren uz deme lande mit deme kuninc Rothere. der hette unsich widir over mere

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gesant mit grozen eren. nu dunkit uns bezzere, nu des nicht nemach irgan, daz wer werden Dietherchis man. her gevet uns vromeliche und machit uns alle riche.” (lines 1473–84) [“My lady, you have every reason to speak those words! May the Devil take those who ever hindered that (=accepting Rother’s marriage proposal). We would have sailed from this land with King Rother, and he would have sent us back home across the sea with great tokens of his esteem. Now it seems better to us, since that may no longer take place, that we become Dietrich’s vassals. He will give us gifts in exemplary fashion and make us all rich.”]

Where Rother’s strategy of intimidation by a display of military might prepared the groundwork for success in his quest to free his messengers — he has already learned that they are still alive — he has used his extravagant display of wealth to destabilize Constantin’s kingship. His double strategy, terror and extravagance, power and generosity (Haug 1988/95, 3), has brought him success. The Pseudo-Cyprian would doubtless approve of Rother’s methods: first he teaches Constantin’s men to fear him, then to love him. Constantin, for his part, is now completely isolated, despite his titular claim to power. Not only has the queen consistently berated him for his foolish decision, but now his vassals are also threatening to abandon him (Dinser 1975, 20; Meves 1976, 33). Their defection takes place in stages: first, the lesser nobles decide to switch their allegiance, then the noble counts, and finally nearly all the vassals at Constantin’s court (lines 1494–1505). Only the most powerful dukes refuse “Dietrich”’s generosity, those who do not need it and for whom it would be a loss of status to accept his gifts.14 Zimmermann (1973, 108–9), however, maintains that Constantin’s vassals do not actually abandon his service, arguing that although they do say they wish to become “Dietrich”’s men (Dietherchis man, line 1489), Constantin’s power over them as king is not affected, for they continue to appear at his court and thereby confirm their continuing position within the hierarchy and under his rule. She also argues against the assertion that Constantin is miserly, noting his generosity to “Dietrich” and his exiles (lines 980–86; 1276–78), the extravagance of his feast (lines 1588–92), and the rewards given his soldiers following their subsequent campaign against Ymelot of Babylon (lines 3047–51). It is, however, clear from the context in which Constantin shows generosity toward “Dietrich” that this presents him with a relatively inexpensive opportunity to display his superiority over them: upon their initial appearance at his court it is unclear that the exiles possess anything more than the fine clothes on

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their backs. That this generosity represents an exception to his normal behavior is confirmed by his own words, when he specifically states that he is not in the habit of making strangers rich at his expense: “doch ne achtich zo nieheinen vrumen man, / der da ie durch richtom uz quam / her zo Kriechen in dit lant” (However, I consider no one a worthy man, who has come here to the land of Greece for the sake of gaining riches, lines 977–79). It is more a display of “Dietrich”’s military power than his plight that moves Constantin to show him such courtesy. Zimmermann also fails to mention that it is the queen who assumes the proper duty of a king and liege lord by rewarding Constantin’s vassals after Ymelot’s defeat, albeit at the king’s behest, and here again his intent is not generosity out of a moral obligation to reward them for their loyalty, but because he may need their help in case of another attack (lines 3050–51). When he subsequently also promises his minstrel as much as the latter needs of his treasure (lines 3085–90), in order to retrieve his daughter after she has eloped with Rother, this, too, is not an honorable act in a feudal relationship, but the use of his wealth for a private and, in the context of the narrative, negative purpose. Indeed, as Szklenar (1966, 137) has noted, Constantin is prompted to share his wealth with his vassals only when his own power is threatened. His rare displays of generosity are not a representational aspect of his kingship but serve exclusively personal goals.

Notes 1

Claudia Bornholdt notes that in cases where the first embassy fails, the wooer can either undertake the wooing himself in a second journey or assign it to another group of messengers; if messengers are sent, the mission fails a second time, and the wooer himself must then depart on a third wooing expedition; Bornholdt, Engaging Moments: The Origins of Medieval Bridal-Quest Narrative, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 46 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005), 14. 2

Berchter’s mentioning of the Hungarians here may have its roots in Byzantine history. Manuel I Komnenos, whose mother was Piroska of Hungary, was able to place the kingdom of Hungary under Byzantine hegemony, and, as noted above, planned to unite Hungary with Byzantium through the marriage of his daughter to Béla, heir to the Hungarian throne, who would then succeed to both realms. Ferdinand Urbanek notes that though the Hungarians owed tribute to the Holy Roman Empire, they were well known for their disloyalty; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 20. It was perhaps to send a cautionary message to them, according to Urbanek, that Barbarossa elevated Konrad II of Dachau to duke of Merania, since the duchy lay on the border with Hungary. One could go further and suggest a Langobard connection here, since Paul the Deacon records many incursions by the Huns (Avars) into the Duchy of Friuli from Pannonia. 3

That council sessions could, although rarely, erupt into violence is demonstrated by the historical examples in Gerd Althoff, “Colloquium familiare — colloquium

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secretum — colloquium publicum: Beratung im politischen Leben des früheren Mittelalters,” in Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde, ed. Althoff (Darmstadt: Primus., 1997), 167n25. 4

The choice of the pseudonym Dietrich for a warrior who has fled Italy to seek foreign asylum would no doubt have resonated with the recipients of the text, even though the connection here is not so obvious as Ósantrix’s choice of the pseudonym Þiðrekr, occuring as it does within the Old Norse saga devoted to Dietrich of Bern (see above, ch. 2). Loosely based on the Ostrogoth king Theoderic the Great, Dietrich was a popular figure in German literature and folklore, renowned for his bravery and his skill in battle. In the Nibelungenlied, and contrary to historical fact, Dietrich seeks asylum at the court of Attila (Etzel) the Hun. Subsequently a series of epics developed around the figure of Dietrich, which scholars traditionally divide into historical epics — Dietrichs Flucht, Die Rabenschlacht (The Battle of Ravenna), Alpharts Tod (Alphart’s Death), and Dietrich und Wenezlan — and legendary epics — Eckenlied, Sigenot, Goldemar, Virginal, Laurin, Der Rosengarten zu Worms (The Rosegarden at Worms), Biterolf und Dietleib. For brief plot summaries see Marion E. Gibbs and Sidney M. Johnson, Medieval German Literature: A Companion, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1774 (New York: Garland, 1997), 391–98. 5

See also Hans Fromm, “Riesen und Recken,” DVjs 60 (1986): 42–59; repr. in Fromm, Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1989), 305–24.

6

On deception among the Greeks in the text, see Hans Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients in vorhöfischen deutschen Epen, Palästra 243 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 131–33; on acts of deception in a historical context, see Thomas Zotz, “Odysseus im Mittelalter? Zum Stellenwert von List und Listigkeit in der Kultur des Adels,” in Die List, ed. Harro von Senger, Edition Suhrkamp 2039 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1999), 212–40, and Hartmut Semmler, Listmotive in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik: Zum Wandel ethischer Normen im Spiegel der Literatur (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1991). 7

Walter Johannes Schröder, “König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” DVjs 29 (1955): 301–22, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 323–50, here 335: “tugent und list als Grundlagen herrscherlicher Kraft entsprechen einem Staatsgedanken, der die Sicherung des politischen Bestandes nicht mehr durch Eroberung anderer Länder, sondern durch Verträge erreichen will.” See also Barbara Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung: Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik eines literarischen Motivs in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik, Studia humaniora 14 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), 96. 8

Markus Stock makes a comparison here to Herzog Ernst B and the Straßburger Alexander regarding the fabulous: whereas Ernst and Alexander encounter fabulous creatures on their journeys, through which they gain insight into themselves and their values, Rother’s giants are there to serve his interests and signify that he has no deficits of character that must be remedied; Stock, Kombinationssinn: Narrative Strukturexperimente im “Straßburger Alexander,” im “Herzog Ernst B” und im “König Rother,” MTU 123 (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 2002), 257–58.

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9

For Stephan Fuchs-Jolie Asprian’s sheer physicality is a constant reminder of the threat of violence that can destroy the ritual veneer of courtly behavior that masks the true purposes of both Dietrich/Rother and Constantin; Fuchs-Jolie, “Gewalt — Text — Ritual: Performativität und Literarizität im ‘König Rother,’” PBB 127 (2005): 193n30. 10

Eva-Maria Woelker suggests that Constantin’s pretense is always undermined through humor; Woelker, Menschengestaltung in vorhöfischen Epen des 12. Jahrhunderts: Chanson de Roland / Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad / König Rother, Germanische Studien 221 (Berlin: Ebering, 1940; repr., Nedeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1969), 164 et passim. This opinion is shared by Szklenar, Studien zur Bildung des Orients, 140, and Dagmar Neuendorff, Studie zur Entwicklung der Herrscherdarstellung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis: Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen 29 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1982), 246. 11

As noted above, this ancient gesture of supplication — one need only think of King Priam in the shelter of Achilles — is not to be confused with ritual proskynesis. 12

While the killing of a lion by a strong man is a motif in international folklore (F 628.1.1), Friedrich Panzer and Gustav Ehrismann would derive this episode from a historical incident at the court of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1101, when one of his tame lions was killed by Crusaders; Panzer, Italische Normannen in deutscher Heldensage, Deutsche Forschungen 1 (Frankfurt am Main: M. Diesterweg, 1925; repr. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1974), 54–55; Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 4, Handbuch des deutschen Unterrichts an höheren Schulen 6.1–2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922–35; 21959), 21:299. However, de Vries rejects any but the most general parallels to that event (Rother, xcv). Noting that Asprian confuses the lion with a bear cub (berwelf, line 1290), Willy Krogmann sees here the influence of Wolfdietrich A, which contains the vestige of a tale preserved in the Göttweiger Trojanerkrieg, in which a simpleton confuses a dog, a bear, and a lion; Krogmann, “Ein verkümmertes Motiv im König Rother,” ZfdPh 62 (1937): 244–48. FuchsJolie suggests that Asprian’s denoting of the lion as a bear cub indicates his perception of the lion as his natural competitor for food in the wilds of his northern European homeland (“Rother, Roland und die Rituale,” 172). 13

De Vries theorized that the introduction of Arnolt’s character at this early stage of the plot was the result of later attempts by putative interpolators to motivate the important role Arnolt later plays in delivering Rother from his executioners (Rother, lv–lvi), while Urbanek sees his later role as a further development of his character from this earlier connection to Rother, since Arnolt is, along with Erwin, the only minor character of part 1 of the text to reappear in part 2 (Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 173). Stock considers the presence of the Arnolt-character in both parts 1 and 2 to be further evidence of the unity of the text (Kombinationssinn, 260n126). 14

On the negative role played by dukes, as opposed to counts, in the text, see Dagmar Neuendorff, “Kaiser und Könige, Grafen und Herzöge im Epos von König Rother,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 85 (1984): 48–49, 52–55.

6: The Active Bride

O

NCE ROTHER HAS ESTABLISHED his false bona fides through subterfuge and won the praise and loyalty of so many of the exiles and vassals in Constantinople through a display of military might and extravagant generosity, he is in the perfect position of strength to achieve his double goal: the rescue of his messengers and the acquisition of his desired bride. At this point in the narration the bride, who has heretofore been only a nameless object, whose fate is discussed and decided by others, assumes an active role in her own courtship.1 She begins what amounts to a counterquest, that of the bride for the groom, in which she, too, follows the traditional quest structure, paralleling that of Rother’s own, but the details are adjusted to fit her own circumstances. In the bridal quest the bride is usually a passive figure — as she is in the later courtly romance — since its structure is based upon a view of the quest solely from the wooer’s perspective. Although the intended bride can occasionally assume the role as mediator between her father and her wooer, similar to that played by the bride’s mother — if she appears at all in the narrative — seldom is she extensively portrayed as someone who actively plans for and, through her actions, contributes to her own successful courtship (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 86). Whether this is an innovation in the written version of König Rother or was already part of its source is difficult to determine. In Þiðreks saga, which is likely derived from a common source, Princess Oda does not play a similarly active role in her courtship by Ósantrix. This does not, however, necessarily prove that such an innovation was not present at some earlier, oral phase of the plot development, since the compiler of the saga might have purposefully omitted it if he viewed it as violating what he regarded as the convention of the genre, namely, that the quest proceeds exclusively from the wooer (Voigt 1965, 118). All that has been learned about Constantin and life at Constantinople has equally served to describe the princess’s world and functions structurally as the counterpart to the introduction of Rother’s kingdom during the preliminary stage of the bridal quest (S.-C. §A.1). Although she has been much talked of by both Romans and Greeks in the course of the narration, next to nothing has been said heretofore that would more narrowly define her character, for she has functioned simply as a stereotype (Benath 1962–63, 382).2 The fear, of course, would be that she is just as haughty and weak as her father, and therefore not like her sagacious mother. Having seen, however, the assertiveness with which the queen

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criticizes Constantin, while still seeking to salvage his royal authority, it is no surprise to discover that the princess is of the same mold, the true daughter of the queen;3 like her mother she is all too aware of her father’s character flaws. While she is not in a position to criticize him the way her mother does, she undertakes, in her own way, to remove the damage done to his prestige that occurred when he rejected Rother’s suit and imprisoned his messengers. In the princess’s quest the ladies of the court play the corresponding roles of Namer and Knower, as did Luppolt for Rother, by arousing her curiosity about “Dietrich” and his vassals (S.-C. §A.2). That which they know — the external evidence of his power and might, his impressive appearance at the Easter banquet (lines 1098–1118) and his extravagant generosity (lines 1291–1386) — is, however, insufficient to her purpose. Just what that original purpose is, beyond sheer curiosity, is somewhat obscure. There is, of course, no reason to assume that she is not just as eager as Rother to find a suitable spouse who will enhance her prestige. That she might be considering “Dietrich” himself as a possible spousal candidate, as Siegmund (1959, 109) and Fromm (1960/77, 368), for example, have suggested, is not impossible, for she clearly takes an inordinate amount of interest in him, desiring to learn more about this man who leads such an exemplary life (her levete vromicliche, line 1529). But to accept this view would require that one assume she would be willing to settle for second-best, since “Dietrich” has made it plain to everyone that there exists a better man than he: King Rother. There is also as yet nothing specific in the text to validate the theory that she suspects that “Dietrich” has intentionally come to Constantinople as Rother’s clandestine courtship messenger from King Rother (Böckenholt 1971, 29–33). Woelker (1940/69, 161) and Karhof (1968, 165–68) believe that she suspects and hopes that “Dietrich” indeed is Rother, although, as Voigt (1965, 116) rightly observes, this would certainly diminish the powerful moment of anagnorisis to come, when “Dietrich”’s true identity is revealed. Given the narrator’s silence on her motivation, it would seem that the simplest, least “psychological” interpretation is the likeliest one: namely, her quest to meet “Dietrich” is a ruse. While pretending to be seeking information about “Dietrich,” she is actually hoping to learn more about the superior man who has banished him and who had vainly sought her hand in the past. She can assure herself of Rother’s superiority and worthiness as a wooer through a direct comparison with an excellent man who acknowledges his own inferiority to him. In pursuing her goal of meeting with “Dietrich,” she shows herself to be clever and resourceful, every bit the equal of her crafty wooer (Woelker 1940/69, 161). As Rother sought counsel on how to proceed with his quest (S.-C. §A.2), once Luppolt had suggested the appropriate candidate, so the princess turns to the only “counselor” available to

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her, her lady-in-waiting and closest confidante, Herlint. A certain degree of subtlety is necessary here, for the princess’s undertaking is a delicate one: her social position and maidenly status render impossible any move on her part to access these exiles directly. She must seek to learn more about “Dietrich” — and, thus, Rother — in a way that does not in any way diminish her own public honor and status: “owi, we sal ich,” sprach die kuningin, “irwerbe umbe den vater min, daz wer den selven herren gesien mit unsen eren?” (lines 1531–34) [“Alas, how shall I,” said the queen (=princess), “approach my father, so that we might glimpse that selfsame lord and still retain our public honor?”]

Herlint, who belongs to the figure of the nurse-procuress that ultimately derives from Middle Eastern and Hellenistic narrative traditions (Woelker 1940/69, 207; Fromm 1960/77, 371, 388–89),4 suggests that she should urge her father to invite “Dietrich” to a banquet in celebration of Pentecost, so that she might at least catch a glimpse of him. In seeking to do so, the princess’s own wishes coincide, without either one realizing it, with those of “Dietrich” (Haupt 1989, 81), and the date of this celebration creates an obvious time line of seven weeks since his arrival in Constantinople, signaling how long both wooers have waited with neither taking direct action to achieve their mutual goal. As far as one knows from the text, Rother has formulated no plan at all as to how to bring about a meeting, other than hoping to attract her attention by the representation of “Dietrich”’s excellence. In the end it is she who takes the initiative. Herlint, her counselor, proposes the specific strategy, and the princess, as a good king would, considers her counselor’s sage advice and follows it. At the great Pentecost banquet that results from her efforts, the quests of the two wooers will intersect for the first time. Like Rother (S.-C. §B.2.b) the princess, too, knows how to manipulate her father, in that she appeals directly to his vanity and, echoing her mother’s concerns, the honor of the court: . . . “woldit er nu, vater min, dise pinkesten hir heime sin, daz duchte mich ein ere getan, unde sameneten uwere man, daz die recken sagin, ob ir ieht riche waren. ich ne weiz, war zo der vurste sal, her ne hette ettewane schal mit vroweden in dem hove sin!” (lines 1545–53)

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[“If only you now, my father, would spend Pentecost here at home, it seems to me that that it would redound to your honor, were you to gather together your vassals, so that these exiles might see how rich and powerful you are. I do not know what a prince is good for, unless it be occasionally to have noisy merriment5 and joy at his court.”]

One could, of course, take these words as serious concern for Constantin’s honor and prestige, as Zimmermann (1993, 112) seems to do, were it not for the fact that the princess has an ulterior motive, one that she has clearly expressed to Herlint. Constantin, for his part, praises her concern for public honor and her good advice, and agrees to summon a great court. The eagerness with which the king accepts his daughter’s advice, as opposed to the advice of his counselors and even his wife, is quite surprising. The otherwise vainglorious and arrogant Constantin here seems but a marionette in her hands (Kiening 1998, 228). Even more puzzling, however, is his willingness to accept her judgment on matters of royal prestige, when compared to his obvious lack of concern for her opinion when he rejected Rother’s suit without bothering to consult her, since that was a matter that directly affected them both. His response to her suggestion contains high praise, indeed: “wol dich, tochter, daz du levis! we du nach den heren strevis unde retis ie daz beste! ich wille haven geste, daz man immer sagete mere, waz hie schales were, zo disen hochgezitin. min gewalt get so wide: versizzet iz dan geman, der moz den lif virloren han!” (lines 1555–64) [“Hail to you, daughter, that you live! How you strive for honor and as always give the best advice! I will have such guests, so that one will recount for evermore how much noisy merriment there was at this celebration. My power is of such great extent, that if anyone fails to appear, he must pay for it with his life!”]

The express purpose of this banquet, then, is to give Constantin the opportunity to orchestrate a representation of his temporal power, as a response to what he clearly perceives as “Dietrich”’s threat to the public perception of his superiority. He wants to impress his subjects to such a degree that tales of the feast will live on in memory and lore. While his attitude could serve as proof that his concept of honor is limited to its outward representation, as Dinser (1975, 17) has suggested, Knappe

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rightly observes that the use of court celebrations for underlying purposes, often political ones, is typical of the minstrel epic. Such feasts almost always take place, not merely to represent the narrator’s desire to present the public with an exemplum of the gaiety and splendor of courtly life, but to permit the ruler to further his goals and to facilitate the achievement of them; the more the representation of his rule becomes the focus of the feast, the closer he seems to doing so. The court feast, which allows the aura that surrounds and endows the ruler’s feudal authority, as Habermas (1962, 17) put it, to be seen by the people and thus affirmed by them, is always bound up with the ruler’s political intentions and the public perception of his character, insofar as these contribute to the validation of his prestige (Knappe 1974, 96–99).6 That this planned representation of his kingship is important to Constantin is made clear by his almost casual threat to kill any of his sixteen dukes and thirty counts who dare to decline his invitation: swer sich ieht sazte dar widir, deme gebot man iz bi der widen, daz her gerner dar gienge, dan man in hienge. (lines 1573–76) [Whosoever should in any way defy this (invitation), was commanded to do so with the threat of the gallows, so that he would rather come there than be hanged.]

Most critics have interpreted Constantin’s statement as proof that he is an iniquitous king, both an irresponsible and a ruthless ruler (Neuendorff 1982, 167); his threat is viewed as arbitrary, the act of a tyrant (Siegmund 1959, 109–10, 166n80) and an immoral attempt to maintain order by means of dictatorial power (Dinser 1975, 20–21). This abuse of his power in order to compel obedience is meant to compare unfavorably with the eagerness (lines 134–37) with which Rother’s seventy-two vassals respond to his invitation to court (Fischer 2003, 223–25), revealing that Constantin “is unable to command the allegiance of his vassals in any way than other by force, and that his men are bound to him by no feeling of ‘triuwe’ [loyalty] as Rother’s are” (Fisher 1974, 143). While one can surely agree that the unfavorable comparison to Rother within the context of the value system established in the narration is a perfectly valid one, one should, however, be wary of overinterpreting the significance of Constantin’s threatening words. Haupt (1989, 86–88), for example, points out a parallel hint of intimidation in Chrétien’s Erec, where King Arthur similarly threatens those who decline to attend Erec’s wedding, also at Pentecost. Arthur does not go quite so far as Constantin by suggesting that he will execute them if they do not appear; but that, too, may be contextual, since such lethal violence at the center of the Arthurian world would breach the conventions of the courtly romance:

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Li rois le don li otrea, Et par son rëaume anvea Et rois rois et dus et contes querre, Ces qui de lui tenoient terre, Que nul si hardi n’i eüst, Qu’a la Pantecoste ne fust. N’i a nul qui remenoir ost, Qui a la cort ne vaigne tost Des que li rois les ot mandez. (lines 1887–95) [The king granted him this favour and sent throughout his realm for all the kings (and dukes) and counts who held their lands from him, saying none of them should be so bold as to fail to appear at Pentecost. No one dares stay away and not come promptly to court at the king’s summons.]7

Zimmermann (1993, 113–16), too, takes the contrarian’s view by reminding that such threats of force are part of the feudal system and serve quite another purpose in the text. It is precisely through the capability of demonstrating his right to exercise dominance through power that Constantin can demand to be regarded as a strong king and mighty liege lord, whose uncontested status and power make his daughter a suitable wife for King Rother. The banquet thus becomes a final competition in selfrepresentation, the display of wealth as an expression of honor and prestige, between Rother and Constantin. Needless to say, Constantin loses. The irony is, however, that this confrontation only takes place because the princess engineered it; in this way she bears the ultimate responsibility for Rother’s victory and her father’s consequent humiliation. Even before the actual banquet begins, the giants Asprian and Witold with the Pole get involved in a brief mêlée with Duke Friedrich, his chamberlain, and a hundred of his knights in a quarrel over precedence: “Dietrich” or Duke Friedrich. Order of precedence is normally a serious matter,8 but this confrontation is narrated with an emphasis on its burlesque qualities (Haupt 1989, 88) and with an almost aggressive humor (Fuchs-Jolie 2005, 200). Asprian kills the chamberlain, and Witold is so enraged that he wishes to kill all the rest of the duke’s vassals. Deprived of his pole, he lifts Duke Friedrich off the ground by the hair of his head, only to lose his grip; he then proceeds to toss Friedrich’s men through the air like so much straw. When Constantin learns of the trouble, and his vassals demand he do something about the behavior of the exiles, he says that he is sorry about what has happened; nonetheless, he refuses to act on their behalf, suggesting instead that they seek redress from “Dietrich.” His inaction is an abnegation of his responsibility toward them (Meves 1976, 50), in that he did not exercise his feudal obligation to protect them either during the confrontation right in the middle of his own hall

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or when he sent them on to seek justice from “Dietrich” (Dinser 1975, 19; Neuendorff 1982, 195). Here Constantin not only publicly confirms “Dietrich”’s right to precedence over all his Greek vassals, but when he forfeits his right to pass judgment on anyone who threatens them, he forfeits, as well, his authority to rule (Fischer 2003, 226). As one would expect, Zimmermann defends Constantin by pointing out that this mêlée is the result of a quarrel between the vassals of Friedrich and “Dietrich,” over whom they themselves, not the king, must exercise control. Since Constantin finds himself confronted by two equally valid legal claims, there is no reason for him to take sides between his vassals on the one hand, and his most prestigious guest, on the other. By willingly taking on this responsibility himself and offering to punish Witold for the damage done to the vassals’ honor, “Dietrich” could be seen as placing his power and judgment in the service of Constantin, so that the latter’s sovereignty remains unblemished (Zimmermann 1993, 121–24). Here again, if Constantin’s prestige and status were severely diminished, it would render his daughter unworthy of Rother’s courtship. It is therefore in the best interest of both Constantin and “Dietrich” to avoid further violence between the exiles and the Greeks. Constantin, for his part, may well fear that any definitive military clash between the two forces would end in his defeat (Urbanek 1976, 168); he has seen enough of the strength of “Dietrich”’s giants to be well aware of this possibility. This would also change the dynamics of Rother’s bridal quest, altering it from one that hopes to succeed by subterfuge (S.-C.-§B.2.b) to a less subtle one, in which the groom is forced to defeat the father or his agents by force of arms (S.-C. §B.2.c). Thus “Dietrich”’s offer to allow the Greeks to confront the accused may well be designed to defuse the situation (as indeed it does), despite his pledge to punish Witold, if he is found to be guilty, before their very eyes. Duke Friedrich declines to press their case in order to avoid any further contact with Witold, fearing that if he were brought back to answer for his violence, they would again suffer shame and humiliation (lasteris unde schaden, line 1773) at his hands. In this way the characterization of Duke Friedrich is twofold: he is at first an object of ridicule, when Witold drags him around by the hair for daring to challenge “Dietrich”’s superiority, then a model of one who seeks reconciliation and peace, when he advises him to spare Witold and offers his hand to show his willingness to put an end to the quarrel (Urbanek 1974, 70; 1976, 169). The Greeks seek reconciliation rather than confrontation (Zimmermann 1993, 126) and acknowledge “Dietrich”’s superior status by performing a ritual act (Fuchs-Jolie 2005, 197): they join hands and approach him as their judge, and together they commit perjury with one voice:9 sie sprachen: “neina, herre Dietherich, nicht ne ladene vore dich!

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her ne hat uns sulechis nicht geschadit, daz iz dir immer werde geclagit. nu du, helith, virtriven bist, man sal dich eren, wizze Crist, hie in diseme riche: daz stet uns gevohliche!” (lines 1758–65) [They spoke, “O no, lord Dietrich, do not summon him before you! He has not done such harm to us, that a charge should ever be placed before you. Because you, o hero, are an exile, one should honor you, Christ knows, here in this kingdom. That would be the seemly thing for us!”]

This quarrel over precedence has led to a moment of great significance: Constantin’s surrendering to “Dietrich” this highest of judicial powers, the right to adjudicate in matters regarding the Greek vassals, and Duke Friedrich’s acknowledgment of that reality indicate that “Dietrich” now exercises de facto the power of the ruler of Constantinople. He, not Constantin, is the guarantor of peace during Constantin’s great feast (Haupt 1989, 90). It is now Rother’s feast (Fuchs-Jolie 2007, 179). Constantin had hoped to display his power before the exiles but has now experienced a public-relations disaster, in that he has undermined his own authority in the eyes of his vassals and kinsmen: his attempt to increase his prestige through a ritual representation of it has failed miserably (Siegmund 1959, 110). Such a failure is often the sign that the claims to legitimate power of the representer are without basis and signify his superbia, or sinful pride (Brandt 1990, 313), something for which Constantin is later criticized by a messenger (lines 2591–92) and by the queen (line 4549). Although he does not seem to understand how this loss of prestige has come to pass, he is well aware of its political significance and looks to her, the only person at court who shares in his high status, for comfort and support. This is in itself a rather astonishing turn of events, given the criticisms she has consistently voiced and his previous attempts to ignore her words: “eya, arme, wie ich nu gehonit bin an den vremeden magin. die here geritin waren uz anderen richen!” (lines 1779–82) [“Just see, poor woman, how I have been dishonored by the treatment of my foreign kinsmen, who had ridden here from other realms!”]

He goes on to suggest that the whole affair was all a silly quarrel over precedence, as if this were an unimportant matter: “daz hat Dietherichis man

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/ umme ein stole getan!” (Dietrich’s man did this because of a chair, lines 1786–87). These words seem to imply that he regards precedence and ceremony as insignificant and not worth fighting over, which obviously cannot be true, since he specifically stated that his purpose in summoning the great court was to represent his prestige to the exiles. That representation was indeed so important to him that he was quite prepared to impose his will through the exercise of force, if required, by threatening to hang anyone who absented himself from the feast (Fuchs-Jolie 2005, 198 and n43). Countering a perceived slight to his prestige with raw violence is again the theme when he suggests that one should simply have summoned archers to kill Witold (lines 1791–94). The queen’s deflating response to Constantin is simple and direct enough: had Witold been close enough for Constantin to have ordered him killed, Constantin would have been the first to flee the scene. Following this direct accusation of cowardice, she drives home her main theme once again — that Constantin’s wrong-headed marital politics has led to a loss of royal prestige and brought the court into disgrace and shame: “unde were aber Rothere gegeven die unse tochter schone, so ne troste dich nieman honen! her hette dir uze sime lande der thurin wigande gesendit, daz dich nieman mit here torste bestan: von du moz ich wole clagen. nu dulde honede unde schaden hir in dime lande von Dietherichis manne!” (lines 1803–13) [“Had but Rother been given our fair daughter, no one would dare to humiliate you! He would have sent to you excellent warriors from his land, so that no one would dare challenge you with an army: because of this I have every reason to complain. Now, suffer humiliation and shame here in your own land through Dietrich’s vassals!”]

The queen does not spare the feelings of her husband but seems to enjoy his bewilderment at the situation he himself has created. She places the blame squarely upon his shoulders by reminding him once again that his refusal of Rother’s proposal has also doomed him to endure the insults of Rother’s (putative) enemy. The irony is, of course, that it is precisely Rother’s loyal vassals who are making a mockery of Constantin’s authority. She does not, however, see the matter solely in terms of a personal insult, but realizes that Constantin’s unjust treatment of Rother’s messengers has had political consequences that reach beyond the court at Constantinople. By clarifying

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what usefulness to Constantin a familial alliance with Rother might have been, the queen enunciates one of the paramount reasons — at least in theory — for dynastic marriages: mutual assured protection. It is not only her understanding of court ceremony and ritual representation that exceeds her husband’s, but of power politics as well. Constantin seems to comprehend the situation only in terms of his bruised vanity and has no reply to counter her accusations. He promptly sends for his beautiful daughter, perhaps seeking an antidote to the poisonous words of his wife, in hope that her presence can help to reestablish his tarnished prestige. Having instigated the great feast to serve her own purposes, the princess makes a grand entrance into the banquet hall. Her special status among her one hundred beautiful blond ladies-in-waiting is indicated by a golden diadem. All are dressed to impress in silks worked with gold thread, with tufts of black and red sable, a visual signal to all of the splendor, status, and nobility of her family (Zimmermann 1993, 125).10 Her entrance is immediately followed — and overshadowed — by that of “Dietrich.” He and his men are no less splendiferously clad than the princess’s entourage: “Dietrich” wears a ruby sapphire (carbuncle) upon his brow, and he and his men are wearing similarly exquisite mantles of silk worked with gold and lined with ermine. The suitability for each other of wooer and bride and their equality of status is underscored by the narrator through these corresponding visual cues. This is the meeting for which they both, unbeknownst to each other, have been hoping, but it cannot yet take place, for the traditional course of events in the bridal quest does not yet permit a public encounter (Fromm 1960/77, 366). Curschmann (1964, 103) would explain their failure to meet at the banquet by suggesting that it represents the sphere of public honor and prestige, where the issue of love has no place. One cannot, however, so easily separate the spheres of prestige and love in the text, since they are bound inextricably together by the nature of Rother’s quest for a bride equal in status to his own (Meves 1976, 34; Loerzer 1971, 46n19). The princess’s quest to meet “Dietrich” fails, as it must, for the genre demands that first meeting between the wooer and his prospective bride take place in the private sphere.11 After the elaborate description of their entrances into the banquet hall, actually placing them in the same room, the narrator finds a humorous solution to this potential violation of the narrative structure. Because the curious Greeks crowd around “Dietrich,” the princess cannot see him, for they block her view: von den kaffaren virlos die vrowe ir hochgizit, daz sie niene besach des ritaris lif. (lines 1877–79) [Because of the gapers she was cheated of her celebration, so that she never caught a glimpse of the knight.]

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The three-day celebration12 ends in an extraordinary gesture of generosity: “Dietrich” makes a present of his splendid mantle to a poor minstrel (eineme armen spilemanne, line 1888), an act that is imitated by his men, who give their own mantles to Constantin’s other guests.13 Here “Dietrich” once again proves himself the more generous lord in Constantinople. But where he had previously demonstrated his largesse in the confines of his own quarters, he now does so publicly during Constantin’s own banquet, where it had been the latter’s intention to offer a ritual representation of his own wealth and power. It is precisely this victory in representation (Loerzer 1971, 47) that brings about the next stage of Rother’s quest: his first — and private — encounter with the princess. iz newart ouch nie nehein man die Dietheriche dorste bestan, die recken namen hette, daz her so ville getate. von du lobit in daz liet, sie nigenoztin sich alle dar zo nicht.” (lines 1903–8) [There had never been such a man who bore the name of exile, who could dare to challenge Dietrich, now that he had done such great things. For this reason he is praised in this lay: not one of them could compare with him.]

Notes 1

So also Jan de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922; repr., 1974), cxi; Christian Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 61; and Monika Schulz, Eherechtsdiskurse: Studien zu “König Rother,” “Partonopier und Meliur,” “Arabel,” “Der guote Gêrhart,” “Der Ring,” Beiträge zur älteren Literaturgeschichte (Heidelberg: Winter, 2005), 38. Uwe Meves disagrees, since such an interpretation would place the emphasis too much on the activity of the princess; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 35n2. 2

Ingeborg Benath, “Vergleichende Studien zu den Spielmannsepen König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” part 2, PBBH 85 (1963): 382, goes so far as to suggest that she remains a stereotype throughout the narrative, and that her love for Rother is her only characteristic. 3

George F. Lussky, “Die Frauen in der mittelhochdeutschen Spielmannsdichtung,” in Studies in German Literature in Honor of Alexander R. Hohlfeld by His Students and Colleagues, University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 22 (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1925), 121–22, claims that the women in the text are Verstandesmenschen, persons guided by reason, who let nothing divert

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them from their goals, while Constantin is a Gefühlsmensch, someone guided by emotion. There are too many events, however, that contradict this simplistic dichotomy, which leads even Lussky to suggest that the princess is occasionally tempted to give in to her feelings, as when she later enters the minstrel’s ship with the idea of healing sick children. 4

See also Friedmar Geissler, Brautwerbung in der Weltliteratur (Halle/Saale: VEB Max Niemeyer, 1955), 156–60; Ferdinand Urbanek, “Schwund und Verwandlung der Nebenfiguren im König Rother,” ABäG 6 (1974): 66–68; and Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 165–67. Klaus Siegmund, on the other hand, views Herlint as one of the courtly elements in the work, and similar to Lunete in Hartmann’s Iwein; Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 128–29. Hans-Joachim Böckenholt, although acknowledging her Eastern origins, suggests that the vocabulary of courtly love in her speeches to “Dietrich” indicates that her characterization has undergone a courtly transformation; Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: privately published, 1971), 45–47. Charles G. Nelson compares her to the figure of the dolosus servus, the crafty servant, in Roman comedy; Nelson, “König Rother and the Norms of Comedy,” German Quarterly 45 (1972): 77. 5

Great noise was a requisite for any successful celebration at court, and it included not only the din of conversation but also musical entertainment. See Sabine Zak, “Luter schal und süeze doene: Die Rolle der Musik in der Repräsentation,” in Höfische Repräsentation: das Zeremoniell und Zeichen, ed. Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1990), 133–48. 6 On the function and ritual character of feasts in courtly society, particularly as a demonstration of friendship or the reconciliation of enemies, see, for example, Barbara Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung: Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik eines literarischen Motivs in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik, Studia humaniora 14 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), and Gerd Althoff, “Demonstration und Inszenierung: Spielregeln der Kommunikation in mittelalterlicher Öffentlichkeit,” in Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde, ed. Althoff (Darmstadt: Primus, 1977), 243–46. 7 Chrétien de Troyes, Œuvres complètes, ed. Daniel Poirion and Anne Barthelot, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 408 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 47–48; English translation by D. D. R. Owen, Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances Including Perceval, Everyman Library (London: J. M. Dent; Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle, 1987, 31991), 26. 8

Such quarrels over precedence do not only take place in literature: see Althoff, “Demonstration und Inszenierung,” 252–53. 9 Stephan Fuchs-Jolie views their behavior as more calculated: they do not wish to spoil their chances of making later use of this giant for their own purposes; FuchsJolie, “Rother, Roland und die Rituale: Repräsentation und Narration in der frühhöfischen Epik,” in Zentren herrschaftlicher Repräsentation im Hochmittelalter: Geschichte, Architektur und Zeremoniell, ed. Caspar Ehlers, Jörg Jarnut, and Matthias Wemhoff, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte:

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Deutsche Königspfalzen, Beiträge zu ihrer historischen und archäologischen Erforschung 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 179. 10

Surely Böckenholt misunderstands the purpose of the princess’s ritual representation, both for her own and her father’s purposes, when he faults her for what he terms an extraordinary love of courtly pomp and riches (Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau, 36). 11

Theodor Frings and Max Braun, Brautwerbung, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, PhilologischHistorische Klasse 96.2 (1944/48) (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1947), 35, 44, 142; Hans Fromm, “Die Erzählkunst des Röther-Epikers,” Euphorion 54 (1960): 347–79, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 351–96, here 363. This statement, however, is not quite accurate, although the principle is valid; while Oda, for example, is indeed present when Ósantrix first appears at her father’s court disguised as Þiðrekr, she speaks only to her father, not to Ósantrix. In terms of bridal quests one could view the princess’s failed undertaking as a case of Claudia Bornholdt’s rarely occurring “unsuccessful wooing” tales; Bornholdt, Engaging Moments: The Origins of Medieval Bridal-Quest Narrative, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 46 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005), 12. 12

That celebrations last three days is a motif in folklore (P 634.1) and becomes a staple of Arthurian romance as the three-day tournament. Concerning the latter, see Jessie L. Weston, Three Days’ Tournament, Grimm Library 15 (London: D. Nutt, 1902; repr., New York: Haskell House, 1965); Laura A. Hibbard, Mediaeval Romance in England (New York: Oxford UP, 1924; repr. New York: B. Franklin, 1963), index under “Tournament”; Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope, Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp (London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1914), 52–61; and Janine Delcourt-Angélique, “Le motif du tournoi de trois jours avec changement de couleur destiné à préserver l’incognito,” in An Arthurian Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Lewis Thorpe, ed. Kenneth Varty (Glasgow: British International Arthurian Society, 1981), 160–86. 13 Such extraordinary generosity to minstrels is also to be found in Heinrich von Veldeke’s Eneide, composed ca. 1175–86, that is, just slightly later than König Rother: “Dar nâ die vorsten rîke / gâven vollîke, / her iegelîch met sînre hant, / dûre pellîn gewant / ende ros ende skat, / silver ende goltvat, / mûle ende ravîte, / pelle ende samîte / gans ende ongeskrôden / end menegen bouch rôden / dorchslagen guldîn, / tsovel ende harmîn / gâven die vorsten” (Afterwards the mighty princes bestowed on each of them fine gifts: costly garments of pallium silk, horses, silver, gold vessels, mules, uncut cloth of pallium silk and samite, bracelets of enchased gold, sable, and ermine, lines 13,181–94). Eneide: Heinrich von Veldeke, with introduction and notes, ed. Otto Behaghel (Heilbronn: Henninger, 1882; repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1970); in English, Heinrich von Veldeke: Eneit, trans. J. W. Thomas, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 38, ser. B (New York: Garland, 1985), 150. Antonie Schreier-Hornung suggests that any minstrels thus rewarded would not have paraded around the countryside dressed like princes but would have converted these rich gifts into cash; SchreierHornung, Spielleute, Fahrende, Außenseiter: Künstler der mittelalterlichen Welt, GAG 328 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1981), 95.

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to hear of “Dietrich”’s extraordinary gesture of generosity from those who witnessed it:

HE PRINCESS COMES

also der eine inne was, der ander vor den turin was, wante die magit so vil virnam, daz sie den tuginthaftin man von aller slachte sinne in iren herzen begunde minnen. (lines 1915–20) [While the one was in her chamber, the other already stood before the door, until the maiden had heard so much, that she began to love in her heart this excellent and capable man in every regard.]

This is a doubling of the structural element (S.-C. §A.2) that had previously inspired her decision to suggest that her father hold his Pentecost banquet; again, the courtiers play the role of Knower, when they report to her of “Dietrich”’s generosity. That it is for the sake of his excellent qualities that she begins to “love” him, and not for any personal or superficial reason, is twice alluded to in the text, when the narrator emphasizes that the object of her affection is an excellent and capable (tuginthaftin, lines 1918, 1933) man. It should be remembered, however, that the word minne (love), can more generally mean to hold someone in fond or admiring regard and does not always include a carnal component — one can feel minne toward friends or even God1 — lest one over-interpret exactly what the narrator is implying here. In this context, too, the word is ambiguous. It is not his physical person but the representation of his prestige that has aroused her affection, a prestige that is based upon his capabilities and competence (Schröder 1955/77, 334), the manifestation of his noble lineage, his power, and his mastery of public conduct (Zimmermann 1993, 138–44). This corresponds to the dictum of the anonymous author of the Sacramentum coniugii non ab homine, who, as noted above, states that a woman should be attracted to a man as a potential husband for his strength of character, lineage, attractiveness, and wisdom, in that order, all qualities now amply displayed by Rother in his persona as “Dietrich.” G. F. Lussky (1925, 124) would distinguish here the princess’s attitude from that of the queen, suggesting that while the former values inner qualities above external ones, her mother wishes the princess to marry Rother simply because he is rich and powerful.

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Hugo Kuhn finds here a first hint in the German tradition of a courtlylove situation (1969, 213), as does Hans Fromm (1960/77, 368–69), who observed that the theme of love for the virtuous man whom she has never seen, because of his demonstrated capabilities and his ethical excellence, reflects the attitude of the lady in early Minnesang, the poetry of courtly love. For comparison he cites the words of the poet Meinloh: “mich heizent sîne tugende, daz ich vil stæter minne pflege” (his virtues command me to nurture love most constant, 14,32).2 Several points of comparison between the princess and the lady of early Minnesang have been singled out (for example, Böckenholt 1971, 23–24; Fischer 2003, 227n60): in addition to love from afar (lines 1920–21), one finds the active pursuit of the knight (lines 1930–33); the use of an intermediary (lines 1935–38); watchful spies (line 2003); the offer of knightly service (lines 2003–4.); and the lady who watches from a window (line 2177). Böckenholt (1971, 32) theorizes that the language of courtly love-service implied by the word minne was part of an original intent by the poet to establish such a relationship between her and “Dietrich,” which he later did not pursue. It would, however, be reading too much into the text to state that love is being thematized in any particular way, since the theme of love in the bridal quest is simply part of the given structure, in which the concept is treated schematically. Only in the courtly romance and in Minnesang is the transition made to a fateful personal experience in its connection to the idea of knightly service (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 65). In general, however, one can agree with Stock (2002, 266n137) that love in König Rother is to be understood as an exterior phenomenon that only serves to legitimate the marriage of the best with the most beautiful, and any comparison to love service in Minnesang serves little purpose. After her initial attempt to engineer a meeting with “Dietrich” has been thwarted, the princess once again demonstrates her intellect and her resourcefulness. Thematically, her continued action is consistent with her — and her mother’s — role in the upside-down world of Constantinople, where the royal women must take the initiative to find her a suitable spouse in the absence of an authentic, active male presence. Although her suggestion of the great banquet has furthered Rother’s bridal quest by giving him the opportunity to best her father and demonstrate before the Greek court his own fitness to be her spouse, his quest has once again come to a standstill. The prerequisite of his suitability has been achieved and acknowledged, seemingly by everyone but Constantin, but there continues to be no apparent mechanism for actually bringing the wooer and bride together. The princess again seizes the initiative in an epic doubling that represents a structural parallel to Rother’s own decision to go to Constantinople (S.-C. §B.2) after his messengers have failed in their mission (Benath 1963, 391). A private encounter between suitor and prospective bride, initiated by her, is a traditionally constituent part of the structure of the perilous

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bridal quest (Fromm 1960/77, 370; Bornholdt 2005, 14–15). Basing his argument upon the placement of initials in the manuscript, Fromm suggests that the events leading up to their first meeting, beginning with the princess’s entrance at the Pentecost banquet, are consciously structured into a series of scenes that move from the tumult of the public sphere, by means of a transition scene, to a series of private dialogues in closed rooms with alternating changes of scene, what Haupt (1989, 103) describes as a great court celebration with an enclave of love. I (1814–41) Entrances of the princess and (1842–79) of Rother-“Dietrich” II (1880–95) Bestowal of gifts to the minstrels III (1896–1924) Dissemination of rumors of generosity IV (1925–44) Princess and V (1945–2038) Herlint with Herlint in her Dietrich; later chamber joined by Asprian VI (2039–2100) Princess and VII (2101–48) Herlint with Herlint in her Dietrich; later chamber joined by Asprian Interlude (2152–76): Dietrich and Berchter Spectacle of the giants VIII (2177–2316) Chamber scene: Rother — princess3

Following the onslaught of reports about “Dietrich,” a quiet descends upon the princess’s chamber: “In der kemenatin wart iz stille” (in the chamber it grew silent, line 1925), a silence Stock attributes to the princess’s psychological state: love makes one speechless, or love forms desires that demand an intake of breath before they can be uttered (2002, 263). Moved by her admiration for “Dietrich”’s qualities — actually, of course, those of the king within — she considers her next move. She again consults with her “counselor,” Herlint — an epic doubling of their earlier consilium familiare concerning the Pentecost banquet (S.-C. §A.2) — as to how she can remedy her failure to meet him face to face. Following her lack of success in the public forum of the banquet, she takes an alternate tack and wishes to see him in private. “owi, vrowe Herlint, wie groz mine sorge sint umme den herren Dietheriche! den hettich sichirliche vorholne gerne gesen, unde mochit iz mit gevoge geschen unbe den tuginthaftin man.” (lines 1927–33)

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[“Alas, lady Herlint, how great is my sorrow concerning the Lord Dietrich! I should certainly like to see him in secret, if it could take place in a seemly fashion on the part of that man of excellent qualities.”]

Of prime concern here is that this meeting should not violate the rules of decorum. The princess and “Dietrich” are spatially separated from one another, both corporally and emotionally, by the rules of proper conduct. The subsequent series of private dialogues between the women and Rother take place against the background of the public world of the court: the path to love develops in the area of tension between the personal space of the individual and that of society, silhouetted against the theme of sovereignty, but at the same time bound up with it (Haupt 1989, 94–95). The princess is concerned not only for the preservation of her own honor, but also explicitly for that of “Dietrich.” She is, however, not acting out of a slavish devotion to courtly etiquette, but in her own self-interest: she cannot afford to risk a diminution in her prestige, for that would render her unsuitable as a possible spouse for Rother, and she expects “Dietrich” as a man of excellent qualities, to understand this. The public preservation of decorum, however, is yet another ruse on her part, like the Pentecost banquet, meant to mask a hidden purpose. Where she had first sought, unsuccessfully, to use the decorum of her father’s court in order to further her own private goal, without colliding with those of her father (Zimmermann 1993, 147 and n403), she now intends to skirt the sphere of public honor altogether (Curschmann 1964, 103–4). After the princess dangles the prospect of a messenger’s fee of five presumably golden arm-rings, Herlint eagerly volunteers to serve as her courtship messenger. Here her role parallels that of Luppolt (S.-C. §A.3– B.1). In terms of the structure of the bridal quest, one can see here a reversal of the norm for male wooers: where Rother sent Luppolt to Constantinople (S.-C. §B.1) before he went himself (§B.2), the princess goes herself to meet “Dietrich” (parallel to §B.2) then, having failed, sends her messenger (parallel to §B.1). Herlint does not just share the structural role of courtship messenger with Luppolt; she possesses the same important skill: she is a “cunning woman” (listigez wif, line 1950), as Luppolt was “a most cunning man” (ein vile listiger man, line 161). Her interest in the finer things of life, like the sapphires and gold that adorned the clothing of Luppolt and Rother’s other messengers, has already been noted by the narrator, an interest that prompted her curiosity as to how much grander King Rother might be (lines 280–87). The gold rings offered her by the princess thus represent an appealing guerdon, and Herlint assures her that the embassy can be undertaken with no fear of having the princess’s honor compromised (ane laster, line 1944) by “Dietrich,” since he has proved himself to be a man who understands the norms of courtly decorum (doch pflegit her sulicher zuchte, line 1943). As the female courtship messenger

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who seeks to bridge the spatial gap between them, she, too, understands ritual representation and dresses herself in fine court robes. Having made her way to “Dietrich”’s quarters, Herlint seats herself close to him, assuring the privacy of their conversation. In providing a conduit for communication between Rother and the princess, something he himself was unable to establish, she becomes, in effect, the co-conspirator (Fromm 1960/77, 370) of both. She delivers her message, in which the princess confesses her affection for “Dietrich,” a man whom she has never met — again the motif of love from afar — as Rother had never met the princess when he sent Luppolt to woo her for him: “dir imbutit holde minne min vrowe die kuninginne unde ist der vruntshefte underdan: du salt hin zo ir gan! dar wil die magit zware dich selve wole infan, nicht wene durch din ere, aller truwin herre! des mach du vil gewis sin an der iuncvrowen min.” (lines 1955–64) [“My mistress, the queen (=princess), offers you her fond affection and is humbly devoted to your friendship (or love): you should go to her! There the maiden will, in truth, herself receive you well, solely for the sake of your public honor, embodiment of loyalty that you are! Of this you may be quite certain on the part of my maidenly mistress.”]

Here again, the basis for the princess’s feelings is described as admiration not for his person, but for his public virtue. This message, however, is cunning indeed in its ambiguity. The princess is offering him holde minne, but as noted above, minne can mean different things. So can holt. In the Nibelungenlied, for example, Hagen says of Siegfried, man sol in holden hân (101,3), meaning one should encourage his friendship (“sich gewogen machen”), while Kriemhild later speaks of the slain Siegfried as mîn holder vriedel (2372,3), where intimacy is clearly implied, since vriedel means spouse (sexual) lover. The same ambiguity holds true for vriuntshaft, as can be seen from the words of Etzel’s bridal messenger to the widowed Kriemhild in that same text, when Rüdiger offers her Etzel’s minne âne leit (love untouched with sorrow) and stæter vriuntschefte (steadfast friendship, 1232,1–2).4 To interpret these words as a declaration of the princess’s love, as one now understands that term in a romantic context, goes too far. She has clearly taken a bold step by declaring her interest in him, without any indication that he is reciprocally interested in

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her, but here she is clearly the cunning wooer. By phrasing her interest in ambiguous terms she is leaving it to “Dietrich” to interpret her statement as he will. The evocation of his public honor, with which her message ends, provides her with plausible deniability, should anyone accuse her of indecorous conduct. “Dietrich” is cautious. He understands or, more likely, cunningly pretends to understand, that Herlint’s invitation might be some sort of cruel joke played upon an exile, or even a trap set by Constantin, who has already stated his fear that they might have come to Constantinople to sue for the princess’s hand. He even goes so far as to suggest that Herlint herself has invented the message without the knowledge of her mistress, for although he had enjoyed such expressions of favor — presumably from ladies — while he was a powerful count at Rother’s court, he is now unworthy of them. Here he is simply matching ruse with ruse by playing hard to get, even as Herlint is actually offering him that which he has sought ever since he first decided to woo the princess. After Herlint assures him that the princess did indeed send her, she immediately retreats from the private language of fond affection to the rhetoric of the public sphere, by suggesting that the princess’s invitation is motivated by perfectly valid and decorous concerns: the princess is astonished that a nobleman to whom her father has shown such public favor has not sought her out to pay his respects, as befits her status as her father’s daughter, and she, for her part, wishes to give him this opportunity: “sie nimit michil wunder, daz du so manige stunde in desseme hove heves gewesen und sie ne woldis nie gesen. daz ist doch seldene getan von eime so statehaften man!” (lines 1989–92) [“She is greatly astonished that you have spent so many hours at this court, yet have never wanted to meet with her. That is truly strange behavior from such an imposing man!”]

Despite the fact that he is convinced of the genuineness of this invitation — her wiste wole, daz iz ir ernist was (he knew full well, that she was in earnest, line 2002) — “Dietrich” continues in his calculated refusal, suggesting that those watchers (merkere, line 1995)5 at court who keep a prying eye on the affairs of others might learn of their private meeting. That could damage his reputation, exile that he is and dependent upon Constantin’s favor, as well as her own. Should their private meeting be made public, her father might well banish him from Constantinople, which would further damage his already reduced status. Thus, despite the message from the princess that indicated her positive interest in him, he

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does not tip his hand as a wooer, in that he counters Herlint’s resorting to the public, decorous motivation for their meeting with an equally decorous — and deceptive — refusal: “nu sage der iuncvrouwin din min dienist, ob sie is gerochit! ich ne mach sie nicht gesochen vor der missehelle: ich vorte, daz iz irschelle uns beiden lasterliche. so virbutit mer daz riche Constantin der herre. so moz ich immir mere vluchtich sin vor Rothere unde ne mach mich niergin generen.” (lines 2010–20) [“Now convey to your lady my respects, if they are of value to her! To avoid any misunderstanding, I dare not seek her out: I fear that it would redound to the disgrace of us both. As a result the Lord Constantin would banish me from his kingdom. Then I would have to flee from Rother forever more and would nowhere be safe from him.”]

Even in his refusal to meet with her, “Dietrich” advances the cause of King Rother, by suggesting that he, to whom the princess has expressed her fond interest, is the latter’s inferior. His words, which clearly do not at all reflect the reality of the situation, are meant to convey a correspondingly mixed message to the princess: the excellence of “Dietrich”’s courtly virtue, as well as the surpassing greatness of Rother. Monika Schulz (2001, 76), however, chooses to take him at face value when he asserts his concern for decorum, by reminding that the success of Rother’s bridal quest depends upon his unimpeachable ideality. “Dietrich” orders his goldsmith to fashion two pairs of shoes, one of gold, the other of silver, then instructs the giant, Asprian, functioning as his chamberlain, to present Herlint a messenger’s fee consisting of one pair of the shoes, mismatched, as well as a mantle and twelve golden armbands (bouge, line 2045).6 do bat her Asprian, daz sie zo einime voze quamen, daz her die beide neme unde der vrowen geve unde enin mantil vile got, zwelf bouge golt rot: so sal men einir kuninginne ir botin minnin!7 (lines 2029–37)

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[Then he bid Asprian to take both shoes that fit the same foot and give them to the lady, along with a very good mantel and twelve armrings of red gold: that is how one should show affection for the messenger of a queen!]

Thus begins the bargaining, an interplay of giving and taking, of supply and demand (M. Schulz 2005, 38). It is important to note that the shoes are part and parcel of Herlint’s messenger’s fee (Botenlohn), and there is no specific statement by “Dietrich” or the narrator that they are actually intended for the princess herself (Voigt 1965, 110; also M. Schulz 2001, 74). This detail was often overlooked by earlier critics, which led de Vries (1961/77, 132) and others8 to comment that it is almost an act of gross rudeness to make such a gift to the daughter of a king. What is particularly striking about these gifts is not that Herlint is receiving yet another fine fee for delivering “Dietrich”’s response to the princess’s message, in addition to the hefty guerdon of five armrings the princess has already promised, but that “Dietrich”’s fee is so much more magnanimous than hers. Any one of these items would have been sufficient, even generous, but it is their sheer extravagance that overwhelms. As the narrator subsequently confirms, they are part of “Dietrich”’s plan. His extravagance is meant to signal his excellence to the princess and further intensify her curiosity about him, while appearing to deny her that which she already desires most: a meeting. His strategy of lavish generosity has thus far served him well. By this means he won over the loyalty of the non-Roman exiles in Constantinople, then the lower echelons of Constantin’s own vassals; in giving his splendid mantle to the lowly minstrel at the banquet he had succeeded in heightening the princess’s desire to meet him, which prompted her to send him a secret message. Now her own lady-in-waiting has a gift that trumps even the minstrel’s reward: her mantil vile got is accompanied by even more extravagant gifts, gifts fit for a princess, but given outright to her messenger. Seemingly everyone but the princess has met “Dietrich” and benefited greatly from that encounter, even her closest confidante, Herlint. By sending shoes that are mismatched, “Dietrich” is providing Herlint, and through her, her mistress, with a perfect excuse to contact him again; indeed, he is making further contact a necessity. Upon her return to the princess, Herlint informs her that “Dietrich” has declined to meet with her. He has done so because he wishes to keep the king’s favor (ime sin des kuningis hulde lieb, line 2045), for such a meeting would be a breach of proper conduct (voge, line 2048). In her description of what has taken place, Herlint begins with the end and with that which has obviously impressed her most, the gift of the gold and silver shoes: “nu warte an dise schohe! die gab mir der helit got

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unde tete mir lievis genoch; unde einin mantil wol getan — wol mich, daz ich ie dare quam! — , unde zwelf bǒge die ich han, die gaf mir der helit lossam. iz ne mochte uffe der erdin nie schonir ritar werden dan Dietherich der degin. so laze mich got liebin, ich kaffedene undankis ane, daz ich mich is imer mach schamen!” (lines 2048–60) [“Now just look at these shoes! They were given me by that excellent hero, and in this alone he did me a sufficient kindness; and a lovely mantle — how fortunate for me, that I ever went to him! — and these twelve armrings I have were given me by the praiseworthy9 hero. I can imagine no handsomer a knight on this earth than Dietrich the warrior. As God lets me live, I could but gape at him against my will, something of which I must always be ashamed.”]

Pointedly enough, she stresses “Dietrich”’s handsomeness and its effect on her, thereby underscoring her privileged position relative to the princess, that she has actually seen him with her own eyes. The princess, for her part, laments her misfortune and offers Herlint gold in exchange for the shoes. By essentially purchasing “Dietrich”’s gift from Herlint, she assumes the latter’s role as the receiver of the gift, the possession of which brings her one step closer to the donor, as a substitute for not being able to see him for herself. As of this moment, as Monika Schulz has suggested, the shoes cease to be part of the messenger’s fee and become, in the princess’s mind, symbolic of “Dietrich” himself: “Iz schinit wole,” sprach die kuningin, “daz ich nicht selich nebin! nu her min nicht wil gesehen: mach du mir die scho geven, durch des herren hulde, die vullich dir mit golde!” schire wart der cof getan. (lines 2061–67) [“It truly seems,” said the queen, “that I am not fortunate! Since he wishes to see nothing of me, if you would give me the shoes for the sake of my favorable regard for that lord, in return I will fill them with gold for you!” The purchase was quickly made.”]

There is clearly something extraordinary about these shoes, something Herlint herself recognizes when she so pointedly directs the attention of

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the princess to them; moreover, it is only the shoes that interest the princess, since she does not express any desire to acquire the splendid mantle and the bouge. The value of the shoes to her obviously goes beyond the fact that they are intrinsically precious, gold and silver, since the princess offers Herlint more than their intrinsic value when she proposes to fill them with both with gold, more precious than silver, just to acquire them. The symbolic significance and narrative origin of these mismatched shoes has been a focus of great scholarly interest. Noting that there is only one pair of shoes in the parallel episode from Þiðreks saga, Voigt proposes that the second pair is a later addition to the plot by the author of König Rother, meant to underscore “Dietrich”’s knowledge of courtly etiquette that would forbid his seeking a private audience with the princess, but also functioning to increase the narrative tension. The purpose of expanding the motif can likely be viewed as an attempt to add a retarding moment to the action of the plot (Voigt 1965, 109; Köppe-Benath 1966, 558). De Vries (1961/77, 400) finds the whole business with the mismatched shoes to be nonsensical, particularly in that the princess, although subsequently concerned that the shoes do not fit, makes no comment about the astonishing fact that they are made of gold and silver in the first place. Gellinek (1968, 98–99) interprets them as a coded sign to the princess that represents the difference in rank between “Dietrich” (silver) and Rother (gold); similarly, Haupt (1989, 102) views them as symbolic of Rother’s double role as Rother and “Dietrich.” Noting that symbolic pledges played an integral part in the concluding of a Germanic marriage contract, by which the prospective bride’s guardian gave his explicit approval and the suitor obligated himself to marry her, Schulz goes so far as to claim that in sending the mismatched shoes, “Dietrich” is making the princess a virtual pledge of marriage (M. Schulz 2001, 77; 2005, 40). Schulz supports her interpretation by stressing that Rother’s other gifts, including the bouge, which she understands as finger rings, not armbands or neck rings (2005, 39), are also recognized pledges of betrothal: the ring and the mantle possess unambiguous symbolic value, for the mantle is also symbolic of a protective relationship (n117).10 Somehow, apparently, the princess is supposed to recognize that these shoes were actually intended not for Herlint, but for herself, which then prompts her to purchase this marriage pledge from Herlint. There are three obvious objections to Schulz’s interpretation. According to her own logic, “Dietrich” would have to be making this coded proposal to Herlint, all the while assuming that the princess would understand the significance of the shoes and take them for herself. After all, as Schulz herself has emphasized, the shoes were part of Herlint’s messenger’s fee. Furthermore, she offers no explanation as to why the shoes themselves do not match; mismatched shoes could well just as easily signify, in such a context, the impossibility of marriage. Schulz also

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ignores the fact that the shoes have been sent by a man whom the princess knows full well to be an exile and thus unworthy of her hand. No matter how much gold he has at his disposal and how generous he is with it, no matter how praiseworthy or handsome he may be, she is still the daughter of the king of Constantinople. Though she may find him interesting, even fascinating, she could not possibly commit herself to him without first being absolutely certain as to his true social status. Both attempts she has made to meet him have been accompanied by expressions of the importance of preserving her public honor and prestige. It is inconceivable that she would suddenly abandon her principles and accept his proposal because of a pair of shoes, no matter how extraordinary they may be. Worse yet for this theory: the princess would actually have purchased this putative proposal from her own social inferior. The suggestion that the princess recognizes these shoes as a pledge of marriage is, therefore, contingent upon her realization, or at least suspicion, that “Dietrich” is indeed Rother or Rother’s courtship messenger, for which assumption she has as yet no concrete evidence. Once the princess tries on the shoes and learns that they both fit the same foot, she has but two choices, according to Karhof, who does suspect that she already knows that “Dietrich” is Rother: she can either forgo the matching pairs and content herself with the precious gifts as they are, or she can seek to acquire the shoes as complete pairs (Karhof 1968, 164–65). The latter, naturally, opens the way for further communication between the two and would advance the relationship. The princess opts for the second choice and requests Herlint to return immediately to “Dietrich”’s quarters to retrieve the proper matches for the shoes, and, more importantly, to repeat her invitation that he, personally, should visit her in her chamber. Herlint’s second embassy is not only an epic doubling of the already doubled messenger’s journey (S.-C. §A.2),11 which again increases suspense by retarding the action, but also provides Herlint, as Knower, the opportunity to learn more about “Dietrich” and his status, specifically his lineage (slachte, line 2082 and kunne, line 2111). Clarification of that mystery is the condition of the princess’s renewed invitation to him to meet with her. That his obvious wealth is not her focus here, but his family, the factor that defines status, may be the first real indication that she is beginning to consider the possibility that “Dietrich” might be Rother’s courtship messenger, but hardly suffices to indicate that she believes he is Rother: “introwen, du most hine widir gan unde bitten Dietheriche harde gezogenliche, daz her dir den anderin schon gebe12 unde mich gesen wille selve,

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of her in sime kunne ie goter slachte gewunne.” (lines 2076–82) [“In truth, you must go there again and ask Dietrich in a most proper manner, that he give you the other shoe, and if he would meet with me himself, if he has ever possessed noble forebears in his family.”]13

Ignoring the rules of decorum that dictate a lady’s proper gait, Herlint hikes up her skirts to her knees and rushes back to “Dietrich”’s chambers to retrieve the proper matches. Although he receives her courteously, pretending as if he had never seen her before (line 2098), it is clear from the narrator’s words that “Dietrich”’s ruse of the mismatched shoes is working according to plan: “do wiste der helit wole san, / warumme sie dar wider quam!” (For the hero then knew full well, why she was returning, lines 2099–2100). When Herlint informs him that the princess is now in possession of the shoes, which Herlint has given her for his sake (durch dinin willin, line 2106), and that the former desires both the shoes’ matching mates and a private meeting, “Dietrich” now has confirmation that he has established a direct line of communication to the princess that circumvents court convention, for she has sent back to him a similarly coded response. That the public sphere of the court is antithetical to the private sphere of love is emphasized once again by “Dietrich”’s concern that the chamberlains (kamerere, line 2114), as previously the watchers, might report his visit and by Herlint’s assurance that everyone is currently distracted by the various knightly entertainments. To insure that their visit is kept private, Herlint will see to it that no one lingers near the princess, and Berchter suggests that he and the giants will further distract the court by creating a noisy diversion at the Hippodrome (Poderamus hove, line 2156). Herlint returns to the princess with her happy news (liebh mare, line 2150) and a messenger’s fee identical to her first, including a second mismatched pair of shoes provided by Asprian that will complete the princess’s set. Although “Dietrich” has accomplished his goal of establishing direct contact with the princess, and without her father’s knowledge, he is still cautious. He and Asprian act out a deception for Herlint, in which Asprian places the blame for mismatched shoes on the laborers who are responsible for delivering the many pairs of such shoes ordered by “Dietrich.” He is not ready to admit to the princess that the shoes were a ruse on his part. Before he reveals his true intentions, he must be sure of her character, apart from that which his Knower, Luppolt, had told him at the beginning of his quest. He has, after all, met her father, and the daughter of such a man might herself be afflicted with the same deficits of character and thus be unworthy of Rother. She, for her part, is concerned about his status. The equality and mutual suitability of Rother and the princess is

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confirmed by the degree to which both of them are willing to take risks to discover the truth about each other. The situation is also not without its humorous aspect: he must preserve his incognito; she must camouflage her curiosity about him. In this way decorum becomes a mask behind which both are simultaneously hiding (Fromm 1962, 328).14 Bornholdt (2005, 14–15) concludes from her study of the earliest European bridal-quest narratives that the private meeting between wooer and potential bride is the key moment and central motif in all perilous wooings. When Rother arrives accompanied by two knights — meeting her alone would be too great a violation of decorum — she informs him that she is willing to do anything he asks, provided it does not dishonor either one of them. She claims that she has desired to see him in person exclusively because of his worthiness, and for no other reason. While this is literally true, it can also be regarded as a deception of self-preservation, the mask of decorum, for she, like Rother, is unwilling to state the true purpose of the meeting, which is for her a clarification of his status — and his possible relationship to Rother, if this is what she indeed suspects — until she has all the facts: “ich han dich gerne, herre, durch dine vromicheit gesen, daz ne is durch anderis nicht geschen! desse schon lossam die saltu mir zien an!” “vile gerne,” sprach Dietherich, “nu irs geruchit an mich!” (lines 2190–96) [“I have gladly met with you, my lord, for the sake of your excellent qualities, and for no other reason did this take place! These lovely shoes, you should put them on me!” — “Most gladly,” said Dietrich, “since you require it of me!”]

It is she, not “Dietrich,” who takes command of the situation and suggests that he put the shoes on her feet, and it is he who lowers himself before her, as she places her foot upon his thigh. The apparent, but simulated, difference in the social status of these two is preserved in the visual signals: der herre zo den vuten gesaz, vil schone sin gebere was. uffe sin bein sazte sie den voz: iz ne wart nie vrowe baz geschot. (lines 2197–2200) [The lord knelt down at her feet; his bearing was most excellent. Upon his leg she placed her foot: there was never a lady better shod.”]

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This brief tableau is an extremely important moment in the text, for here both bridal quests, Rother’s and the princess’s, physically converge in a touch. Both of them have outwitted the bride’s father (S.-C. §B.2.b) in order to meet in secret; both are now face-to-face with the object of their respective quests. The act of placing the shoes on her feet is the first physical contact of the would-be lovers, and there is an obvious erotic moment in the contact of foot and thigh.15 Yet the equivocal visual signals and gestures contained here make it difficult to determine exactly how one is meant to interpret the significance of the “shoeing.”16 It was a medieval custom for the suitor make a gift of shoes to his prospective bride as part of the engagement ritual (Sartori 1894, 166), and Gregory of Tours documents this practice among the Franks in his life of St. Liphardus, founder of the monastery Meung-sur-Loire in the sixth century (Reynolds 1994, 386–87).17 As Jacob Grimm notes in his study of ancient German legal rituals, the symbolic act of shoeing a bride has legal ramifications: the bridegroom brings a shoe to the bride; as soon as she puts it on her foot, she is regarded as being subject to his authority.18 This observation has led many if not most scholars to interpret “Dietrich”’s shoeing of the princess as a proposal of marriage, a laying claim to Rother’s bride.19 Þiðreks saga seems to confirm the interpretation of the gesture as part of an engagement ritual, where, in contrast to the scene in König Rother, Ósantrix sets the princess on his knee before placing each of the two mismatched shoes on her foot — in Þiðreks saga they are both for the same foot — first the silver, then the gold. While the giving of shoes, along with other articles of clothing, to one’s fiancée is also a documented custom in Nordic engagement rituals, the putting on of shoes, as such, does not appear to be. The taking of someone upon one’s knees, however, was a ritual gesture in the sphere of family law, particularly associated with the acceptance of a newborn child into the family or the acceptance of a foster-child. Voigt cites in this context two relevant examples. In the story of Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri, later King Hákon I of Norway, King Haraldr hárfagri’s messenger tricks English King Aðalsteinn by placing Haraldr’s bastard son, Hákon, on Aðalsteinn’s knee, thus making the latter the foster father of Hákon against his will. This is a coup for Haraldr, since the foster father was regarded as the inferior man to the father (Voigt 1965, 120). In Þiðreks saga itself Mimir takes the naked foundling Sigurðr upon his knee and clothes him, intending to make him his foster son (132). That the composer of Þiðreks saga essentially doubles the engagement motif by augmenting the unfamiliar gesture of putting shoes on a fiancée’s feet with the familiar Nordic knee-sitting may well be an attempt to clarify for his Scandinavian audience the significance of what would otherwise seem a strange act by placing it into a familiar context, presuming, of course, he himself knew the proper significance of the original gesture in his non-Nordic source (100–107).

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Monika Schulz (2005, 40), as noted above, believes that the princess already understood the original gift of shoes as an offer of marriage and that her desire to find a proper match for them was a signal of her acceptance of the proposal. According to this view the actual shoeing is merely the necessary legal act that confirms the secret consent of the partners that had previously been established. In the depiction of this act elements of an abbreviated archaic rite of adoption, the alliance of two clans, and the granting of legitimate familial status (Geschlechtsleite) predominate (2001, 80). Voigt, however, who does not agree that the princess’s desire to meet with “Dietrich” stems from her previous acceptance of a marriage proposal, has found that legal authorities are in nearly complete agreement that Germanic law did not recognize adoption, in the strictest sense of the word, as opposed to fostering (1965, 100–103), and goes so far as to imply that Rother may actually be tricking her into an engagement, as he attempts to bring about the formal act, without her having previously recognized his true intentions (109). Such an interpretation has its correspondences in international folklore (K 1372.1). If the gift of the shoes is meant to symbolize the bridegroom’s traditional dominance over the bride, when the princess places her feet in “Dietrich”’s lap she is countering that assertion of dominance by one of her own, one that signals her superiority and “Dietrich”’s inferiority. In ancient times, for example, the sandal was used to symbolize a woman’s dominance over a man, although this may have its roots in the erotic relationship of shoes to the concept of fertility (Sartori 1894, 159). It was also customary that the victor place his foot upon his prostrated enemy as a sign of the latter’s total subjugation (Grimm 1899/1956, 1:196).20 Voigt (1965, 121n64) offers several Old Norse examples in which taking hold of someone’s foot symbolizes humility and submission, citing the authority of Eugen Wohlhaupter (111–12). Wohlhaupter offers documentation from Bavarian and Austrian sources indicating that there are essentially two quasi-legal meanings attached to the giving of shoes and clothing, especially fur coats: all such gifts indicate that the shoe fundamentally symbolizes the recognition of the donor’s submission or the recognition of an obligation of gratitude to a third party (Sartori 1894, 174; Wohlhaupter 1929, 146). Voigt extrapolates from this that a gift given on the basis of a feudal relationship and customary law can be viewed, in the context of a bridal quest, as an expression of courtly love, a feature of knightly love service with its judicial and erotic double meanings (1965, 112): love service demands that the knight serve the lady. According to this interpretation, when the princess places her foot in “Dietrich”’s lap, she is asserting the dominance of the lady in the courtly-love relationship and thus reversing and neutralizing the traditional meaning of the shoes as the bridegroom’s dominance over the bride, rendering any claim to male power ineffective through the power of love (Haupt 1989, 100).

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This reading of the text certainly makes good sense, if one were to understand the ethos of love here as that of courtly love at some extremely early stage of its development, but even so, it ignores the very important questions of social status and public honor. If “Dietrich” were indeed proposing marriage to the princess by the act of shoeing her, and had she accepted his proposal by allowing him to do so, the dialogue that follows would make no sense. This is not to deny, however, the metaphorical connection between the shoes and matrimony, for the association of the two is made clear from “Dietrich”’s own words. After putting on the shoes, he asks whom she would pick for her husband: do sprach der listiger man: “nu sage mer, vrowe lossam, mere uffe die truwe din, alse du cristin wollis sin: nu hat din gebetin manic man; ob iz an dinin willin solde stan, wilich under in allen der beste gevalle!” (lines 2201–8) [Then the cunning man said, “Now tell me further, lovely lady, upon your faithful oath as you are a Christian: many a man has sought your hand; if it should be your choice, which among them all would please you most?”]

The very use of the word listig (cunning) by the narrator indicates that “Dietrich” has not yet reached his goal. Had he done so, cunning as such would no longer be necessary in his private conversation with the woman who had agreed to marry him. Monika Schulz (2005, 41), however, would liken “Dietrich”’s question here to the interrogatio of the marriage ritual — that is, do you take this man, and so on — in which the public acknowledgment of the consent of the couple is solicited by a third party. That third party is traditionally a clergyman, and Schulz suggests that one also finds three parties here: Rother is asking the question as “Dietrich.”21 But to suggest that the shoeing completes the marriage ritual is to ignore the princess’s gesture of domination. The shoeing does indeed lead directly to the moment of recognition and avowal of love (Fromm 1960/77, 376), but it is only the symbolic precursor of that actual moment of consent (Gellinek 1968, 99). Were she truly accepting “Dietrich”’s marriage proposal through the shoeing, either she would have to assume that he is actually Rother, or she would have to have abandoned her often stated commitment to do only that which enhances her public honor. “Dietrich” has emphasized at every opportunity, as part of his subterfuge, that Rother is a greater man than he; were she to accept

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the exiled “Dietrich” as a husband, Rother would have confirmation that she is indeed not the most suitable bride for him, for she would be admitting that she is willing to settle for second best. She does not and cannot yet view him as an appropriate candidate for marriage, since he is, as far as she knows, not of equal status (Zimmermann 1993, 155–56). In this sense her implicit rejection of “Dietrich” as a wooer is perhaps exactly what Rother is hoping to hear: “der uze allen landen die turin wigande zo einander hieze gan, so ne wart nie nichein man der din genoz mochte sin. daz nemich an de truwe min, daz nie nichein moter gewan ein barin also lossam, daz iz mit zuchtin, Dietherich, muge gesitzin ineben dich: von du bistu der tuginde ein uzgenumen man. soldich aber die wele han, so nemich einen helit got unde balt, des botin quamin her in diz lant unde ligin hie zware in minis vater kerkenere. der ist geheizin Rothere unde sizzet westert uber mere. ich wil ouch immer magit gan, mer ne werde der helit lossam!” (lines 2213–32) [“If one summoned together the excellent warriors from all lands, there has never been any man who could claim to be your equal. This I avow by my faith, that never did a mother bear such a praiseworthy (or lovely) child, that it could properly take its place beside you, Dietrich: for that reason you are a man of exceptional qualities. But should I have the choice, I would take a hero excellent and bold, whose messengers came to this land and indeed lie here in my father’s dungeon. He is called Rother and dwells in the west across the sea. I shall also forever remain a maiden, if that praiseworthy hero cannot be mine.”]

This speech is really quite remarkable, for it begins with an expression of “Dietrich”’s surpassing excellence and would seem to be leading toward an acknowledgment that he himself is the appropriate and most desirable wooer. This is quickly resolved, however, when she draws the unexpected or, rather, the expected conclusion: her commitment to excellence transcends mere personality. The princess’s choice of an

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appropriate husband cannot be based merely upon his beauty or even his representations of wealth and power, such as “Dietrich” has offered in abundance. For her, lineage and status are paramount considerations, and these qualities are possessed only by that great king, Rother, whom she — at least to her knowledge — has never seen, but whose superiority has been acknowledged by the otherwise supremely excellent “Dietrich.” Conversely, her own high status has also been acknowledged to her satisfaction by Rother and his greatest (non-exiled) vassals, who had agreed to act as his courtship messengers. If for nothing else, these two belong together simply because of their hierarchical virtues, equality of birth and suitability of rank. This must be so, for in the bridal quest, the most beautiful lady always loves the mightiest man (Schröder 1955/77, 334); the best man, the most beautiful lady (Kiening 1998, 212). The princess can marry only Rother, because he is the only wooer whose own status befits this daughter of a mighty king; therefore, spinsterhood is preferable to a diminishment of her public honor (Zimmermann 1993, 141). Yet, she does express high praise for the man who kneels before her. His extravagant generosity and obvious excellence have made a most favorable impression upon her and aroused her curiosity, such that she has used every subterfuge available to her in order to bring about a meeting with him. His putative defeat by Rother, however, means that, despite his fine qualities, qualities praised — and feared — by the entire court, he is not quite worthy of her, for there exists a man whom he acknowledges to be his own obvious superior. In light of her words the matter of the princess’s motivation to meet “Dietrich” can be addressed once again. Having originally been moved to arrange a public encounter at her father’s Pentecost feast because of his outstanding qualities and competence, it is her fond regard (minne) for him that then moves her to invite him to a private meeting in her chamber. This suggests on the surface that she has fallen in love with “Dietrich” himself. Bertau (1972, 1:473) contends that this is indeed so, but qualifies this by defining that love as her admiration for his celebrity, “Bewunderung des Berühmten.” Kokott (1979–85, 35) regards her as conflicted, in that her subjective attraction to “Dietrich” stands against the objective fact that Rother is so powerful a prince that he has been able to banish him. This interpretation, however, would imply that by doing so she would be placing duty above the inclinations of her heart, something that would potentially demean the nature of her future love relationship with Rother and place in a negative light her previous comments about the importance of status and public honor in her choice of a husband. Schröder (1955/77, 334n16), on the other hand, maintains that she actually loves both men, “Dietrich” and Rother, since in reality they are the same, although she does not know this. Here again, however, as in the discussion of the princess’s asking Herlint to inquire of “Dietrich”’s

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noble forebears during her second embassy to him, it would be wise to remember Böckenholt’s suggestion (1971, 29–33) that she already suspects “Dietrich” to be a secret courtship messenger from Rother. In this context her flattering words concerning “Dietrich” could be seen as a prelude to her greater praise of Rother, to whom she hopes “Dietrich” will convey her sentiments, or they could be seen as a test of “Dietrich”’s true loyalties: if he is truly an enemy of Rother, as he claims, he would reject her praise of him, but if he is secretly acting as Rother’s man in Constantinople, he would confirm her suspicions — hopes — by agreeing with her. In either case, she makes her own position unambiguously clear. Even though Rother has now heard from her own lips that the goal of his bridal quest is achievable, he does not immediately reveal his true identity to her. That cunning man (die listege man, line 2234), in turn, tests her loyalty and honor by imply that he, “Dietrich,” does indeed possesses the capability of communicating with Rother, so that an equally clandestine meeting between the two of them might also take place: “wiltu Rothere minnen, / den wil ich dir schire bringin!” (If you wish to love Rother, I will bring him to you without delay, lines 2235–36). In addition, he praises Rother for all the good things he did for him in the past, before that excellent hero (helit got, line 2246) drove him into exile. This revelation, deceptive as it is in stating what is literally true, but meant to be misinterpreted, takes their relationship to a new level that builds the narrative tension in expectation of the moment of recognition. The princess now believes she understands the situation: “Dietrich” is not an exile at all, but a secret courtship messenger sent by Rother:22 “Intruwen,” sprach die iunge kuningin, “ich virstamich an der ride din! der ist Rother also leib [sic], her ne hat dich virtriven nicht. swannen du verist, helit balt, du bist ein bode her gesant, die sint des kuningis hulde lieb. nu ne virhel mich der rede nicht! swaz mir hute wirt gesagit, daz ist imer wole virdagit biz an den iungistin tac.” (lines 2247–58) [“In truth,” said the young queen, “I understand what your words mean! Rother is very dear to you; he did not banish you. Whence ever you come, bold hero, you have been sent here as a messenger; the favor of that king is dear to you. Now do not conceal from me your message! Whatever is said to me today will always remain a well-kept secret until the Day of Judgment.”]

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Rother’s caution in not immediately revealing his true identity to her is understandable. The daughter of such a man as King Constantin might herself be as prideful and weak as her father, and thus unworthy to be his queen. Her promise to keep secret between the two of them what she believes is “Dietrich”’s true purpose as Rother’s messenger might for example, be an attempt to entrap “Dietrich” as Rother’s spy and betray him to her father. He has been wooing her based solely upon the information of the Knower; now he has become the greatest Knower, since he, unlike Luppolt, has actually met and spoken with her in secret. To reach this point he has exercised extreme care, using the shoes as a means of assuring himself that the princess indeed wished to meet with him and repeatedly expressing his wariness with regard to the gossips and spies who might betray him. Cunning Rother does not reveal himself to her until he is sure of exactly what reaction that revelation might bring. He keeps the character of “Dietrich” as a barrier between them, until he is assured, not only of her true excellence and her desire to marry him, but also of her willingness to cooperate in his winning of her. He cannot know, as the reader does, that she herself has been on a quest to win him. Rother accepts as sincere the expression of her intention to marry him and her offer to enter into a secret conspiracy with “Dietrich” against her father in order to bring about that marriage. Following her vow of secrecy Rother states the truth of his real identity quite simply, invoking the visual image of the shoes, as if he had planned just this method of revealing himself all along. This is the great moment of anagnorisis, the culmination of both their quests: “nu lazich alle mine dinc an godes genade ande din. ia stent dine voze in Rotheris schoze!” (lines 2259–62) [“Now I consign all my affairs to God’s grace and to you. Indeed, your feet lie in Rother’s lap!”]

The princess is taken aback by this revelation and immediately removes her foot from his leg. Her reaction is not merely the sign of an awareness of her unintended violation of the rules of courtly etiquette (zur Nieden 1930, 20) or embarrassed confusion (Fromm 1960–77, 382), nor is it a calculated gesture, not to be taken quite seriously (Karhof 1968, 167–68). “Dietrich”’s revelation has suddenly clarified for her the lingering question of his status and social inferiority. While placing her foot upon Rother’s lap may have been good enough for “Dietrich,” her social inferior, such a gesture of dominance is unworthy of Rother himself, and she reacts accordingly:

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Die vrowe harte irsricte. den voz sie uf zuchte unde sprach zo Dietheriche harde boltiche:23 “nu newart ich ne so ungezogin! mich hat min ubermot bedrogen, daz ich mine voze satte in dine schoze. (lines 2263–70) [The lady was most startled. She jerked away her foot and said very quickly to Dietrich, “Up to now I have never been so ill-mannered! My pride betrayed me, when I placed my feet in your lap.”]

Her words would seem to contradict the interpretation that placing her feet in “Dietrich”’s lap was an acknowledgment of his knightly love service to her, for when she learns that he is Rother, a greater man than “Dietrich,” whose love service would also be correspondingly more prestigious, she quickly retracts her gesture of dominance and criticizes what she herself defines as an act that betokens pride. Furthermore, nothing in her speech indicates that she is agreeing to become his wife in an engagement ritual. Empty pride is a sin one normally associates with her father and his weak kingship, for Constantin is an embodiment of superbia (Szklenar 1966, 139). When, for example, he is later attacked by Ymelot and asks who dares to challenge his might, his own messenger answers: “din groze overmot / der nis zo nichte got!” (Your overweening pride does you no credit,’ line 2591–92),24 and pride is also associated with the extravagant representation of luxury and power at his court (for example, line 1834). When confronted with a world that is right-side up, ruled by a man who deserves to be king, the princess corrects her gestural statement and assumes her place in that world by acknowledging his equality, not to say superiority, for she now realizes that her desire to maintain her own status by finding a mate who is worthy of her is actually achievable: “ande bistu Rother so her, so nemachtu, kuninc, nimir mer bezzer tugint gewinnen. der uzgenumener dinge hastu von meisterschaft list, so wilchis kunnis du aber bist. min herze was hellende, unde hette dich goth nu her gesendet, daz were mer innencliche lieb. ich ne mach is doch getruwen niet, du nescheinis mir die warheit. und wariz dan al der werlde liet, so rumde ich sichirliche

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mit samt der die riche. sus ist iz aber immir ungetan!” (lines 2271–86) [“And if you are really that Rother, so exalted, then you, king, can never achieve greater excellence. You have a masterful cunning concerning extraordinary things, whatever your lineage. My heart was in exile, and if God has now sent you here, that would be deeply pleasing to me. Nevertheless, I cannot believe this, unless you prove to me it is true. But if it were true, were all the world against it, I would certainly leave this land together with you. Otherwise, that will never take place!”]

If “Dietrich” is indeed Rother, she is prepared to leave her homeland with him, for there is no one who rivals him in excellence. This then, and not the princess’s sending for the proper matches to the golden and silver shoes, is the moment in which she enters into a clandestine Friedelehe (marriage by mutual consent, Gellinek 1968, 99–100) with Rother. Interestingly enough, she does not use the word minne, which described her feelings for “Dietrich,” when she commits herself to marry Rother, which would suggest after the fact that her minne for the former was indeed fond regard, and not love. The Friedelehe differs from the more binding Muntehe (guardian marriage) in that it excludes the families from the process: the bride’s family does not contractually promise during a formal engagement ritual (Latin desponsatio) to turn the bride over to the groom and place her under his legal authority (mundium), nor do they receive from the groom the otherwise obligatory marriage portion (pretium nuptiale) originally meant to compensate them for her loss (Mikat 1964–98, 1:811–13). The Friedelehe is concluded by the bride and groom alone and by mutual consent. The principle of consent alone (nudus consensus) as the single requirement for a valid marriage was based upon the classic phrase in late Roman law and taken up by the church in the twelfth century: solus consensus facit nuptias (consent alone makes the marriage, Gellinek 1967b, 558; Mikat 1964– 98, 1:819).25 While Gratian had declared in the Decretum that consent begins the marriage, and sexual intercourse completes it, Peter Lombard (ca. 1095–1160) challenged this view in his Libri quatuor sententiarum (Four Books of Sentences), which formed the basis of scholastic commentary for the next four centuries, by arguing that consent alone made the marriage. Pope Alexander III (r. 1159–81) attempted to resolve this conflict by formulating that consent made marriage when it was expressed in the present tense; consent in the future tense made marriage if it was followed by intercourse or by an expression of consent in the present tense (McCarthy 2004, 17). This had the effect of giving clerical sanction to clandestine marriages (Brundage 1987, 335–36).26 The theological reasoning for the validity of such a marriage is that marriage is a sacrament

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instituted by God and elevated to a sacrament by Christ, the interior Divine Grace of which comes into effect when both partners declare their intention to marry; for this no external sacramental ceremony is required (M. Schulz 2002, 4n9).27 The princess’s words of consent meet the conditions of a Friedelehe, although Fromm (1960/77, 383) suggests this is not truly a clandestine marriage (matrimonium clandestinum), which faced growing opposition from church authorities in the twelfth century and was threatened with both ecclesiastical and civil sanctions (Mikat 1964–98, 1:820–21), in that the public sphere is represented by the two noble knights who accompanied “Dietrich” to the princess’s chamber (line 2181) and who function as silent witnesses to their vows. Rother’s invocation of God and God’s grace in line 1160, however, is enough for Monika Schulz (2005, 47) to find in this secret pledge of troth a sacramental moment, indicating that their bond, unlike the normal Friedelehe, which can be dissolved at the behest of either wife or husband (Mikat 1964–98, 1:825), is indissoluble.28 Yet the princess is cautious where matters of her honor and status are concerned. “Dietrich” must prove that he is truly Rother; she is not willing simply to accept his word for it. Her consent to marry him is, then, actually a contingent or conditional consent (Gellinek 1968, 100; M. Schulz 2005, 42), contingent in so far as he must adequately prove his identity. Such conditional consent is not inconsistent with canon law, as Gratian (Decretum C. 28 q.1 d.p.c. 17) implies, and “if the condition were not fulfilled, there was no marriage” (Brundage 1987, 238).29 While the princess clearly expresses her affection and admiration for Rother, and her willingness to defy her father in order to be his wife, her heart does not overpower her awareness of her status. She can only be certain that the object of her fond regard coincides with the man claiming to be Rother — predestined by the structure of the bridal quest to be her husband (Stock 2002, 264) — when “Dietrich” and Rother are proved to be one and the same. It is clearly part of Rother’s strategy for gaining access to his imprisoned men that he suggests to her — “sin gemote was harte listich” (his intention was most cunning, line 2290) — that the only evidence he can offer as to his true identity is the testimony of his courtship messengers. Whether Rother was so listich that he had planned all along to use his men to validate his identity to the princess and had taught them the three melodies on his harp for that purpose, as Stock (2002, 264) suggests, is not necessarily implied in the text; it is, on the other hand, rather a convenient turn of events. She, for her part, seeks to find some imaginative and clever way (mit ettelicheme sinne, line 2299) to ameliorate their suffering. Where she had earlier used her guile to influence her father in pursuit of her own goal, catching a glimpse of “Dietrich” at the Pentecost banquet, she now advances the combined cause of Rother and herself against the false pride of her unjust father.

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Her plan, and in its details it is her plan, not Rother’s, is to have the prisoners’ custody transferred temporarily to herself. She assures Rother, however, that her father will demand hostages for them who will pay with their lives, should the prisoners escape. Rother suggests himself as the guarantor that the messengers will not flee, and she rewards his offer with a kiss: “die vrowe also lossam / kuste den herren” (The lady so lovely kissed the man, lines 2312–13). While the kiss is a ritual gesture of courtly life, it takes on special symbolic importance as the conclusion of their expressed intention to marry, in that it can be viewed as a betrothal kiss, a tradition dating back to Romano-Christian times (Reynolds 1994, 387–88). Whether his kiss was on the cheek, a courtly baiser d’étiquette, or on the lips, is not stated; nevertheless, it is indicative of an escalation in their relationship and an anticipation of their physical union, should Rother prove his identity. Their touching has progressed from foot and thigh to face and lips, from dominance and submission to a recognition of equality, as they combine their respective skills in cunning subterfuge to serve the cause of both. Rother’s reunion with his messengers will not only resolve the secondary motive for his journey to Constantinople, that is, to learn of their fate and rescue them, if possible, but will also provide the evidence the princess requires in order to accept him as a husband. Once his true identity has been established to her satisfaction, both she and Rother will have finally achieved the common goal of their separate quests: a hierarchically suitable spouse. Rother leaves the matter of his messengers in her capable hands, and the princess spends the night considering how she can bring about the reunion of Rother with his messengers. Once again relying on her ability to manipulate her father, she appears the next morning before her father and mother, much to their horror, dressed in black, as if she were a nun, and bearing the pilgrim’s palm leaf. In a comedy of hypocrisy (Szklenar 1966, 132) she informs her father listichliche, cunningly, of her intention to go on a pilgrimage and remain abroad for the rest of her life, for she has dreamed that if she does not do so, she will burn in hell (lines 2337– 48). The only thing that can prevent this calamity is Constantin’s permission for her to tend to the needs of Rother’s imprisoned messengers for at least a short time, to see that they are bathed and properly clothed. In this doubling of her earlier ruse, by which she convinced her father that it was in his interest to hold the Pentecost banquet, she again advocates for a public action that serves her secret agenda. She proves herself every bit Rother’s equal in guile by adopting his own methods, in this case, literally and metaphorically appearing under false colors: Rother himself will later echo her ruse when he dons pilgrim’s garb to rescue her from Constantin and a forced marriage to the infidel prince Basilistium. The princess, however, is not solely relying upon her costume to manipulate her father; she lends credence to her deception through the invention of a dream with a

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divine warning. While receiving advice from a dream is yet another motif in international folklore (D 1814.2), only when one considers that the dream was traditionally used in earlier medieval texts, not to mention classical literature, as a way of conveying direct revelations from God — one need only to think of Charlemagne’s dreams in the Song of Roland, for example — does the ruthlessness of her subterfuge become apparent. By profaning divine revelation through dreams (Böckenholt 1971, 34–35), she in effect exploits her parents’ faith in God and, one could almost say, God himself in the service of her decidedly worldly cause. Constantin agrees to his daughter’s request, but demands a guarantor for the lives of the prisoners, as the princess had expected. Gellinek (1968, 100) suggests here that in granting her wish to free the hostages, thus providing her with the required proof of Rother’s identity, Constantin is indirectly — and unbeknownst to him — giving his consent to their marriage. Although this may be somewhat overstating the case, it is obvious that his assent to her plan unwittingly furthers Rother’s (and her own) quest and affords “Dietrich” yet another opportunity to demonstrate his excellence in comparison to Constantin’s vassals. When the weeping princess subsequently goes round her father’s banquet table, inquiring who would be willing to take responsibility for Rother’s messengers, all refuse until she reaches “Dietrich,” before whom she makes great show of her request, reminding him that if he accepts, he will reveal Constantin’s vassals as cowards. “Dietrich,” naturally, accepts. The success of this bit of public theater, with which the princess deceives her father and the entire Byzantine court, proves beyond a doubt that the princess now identifies herself, not with her father and his kingship, but as Rother’s co-conspirator against him. After the princess has been given permission to tend the prisoners, “Dietrich” takes up his harp in her presence and plays the songs that had been designated as the prearranged signal of his proximity. The prisoners recognize his voice at once, and the princess now has the confirmation she needed: “wie rechte die vrowe do sach, / daz her der kuninc Rother was!” (How rightly the lady then understood, that he was King Rother, line 2528–29). The stated condition of her acceptance of Rother’s marriage proposal has been fulfilled: her quest for him has come to an end. Now fully confirmed in her decision to marry him, she tends to the needs of the messengers: after that they must be returned to captivity in three days. She commands that their prison be cleaned and clandestinely sends them fresh bedding and food. While her conduct conforms to the Christian ideal of caritas, as documented in numerous contemporary vitæ of female saints,30 the princess does not do this to save her soul from certain damnation, as she had suggested to her father as part of her subterfuge, but because she has already assumed the role of their queen. As Rother’s feudal obligation to his vassals dictated that he search for them, so his

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secret queen fulfills her obligation by doing what she can to ameliorate their humiliation and suffering. Even though Rother and the princess have reached a private understanding and given their mutual consent to marry, Rother cannot simply declare their intention to Constantin, since the latter continues to regard Rother as unworthy of his daughter’s hand and would reject the idea out of hand (Zimmermann 1993, 159). In addition, a declaration of their intention would bring Rother into mortal danger, and he would run the risk of enduring the same fate as previous unacceptable wooers. Although he has an impressive force with him, the Romans are still vastly outnumbered in Constantinople. Rother and his bride have no other choice but to flee her father and his men, as the structure of the bridal-quest narrative indeed requires of them (S.-C. §C). Rother’s quest is not complete until he successfully leads his bride back to Bari. The opportunity for escape is provided by an invasion of the kingdom by the infidels, led by King Ymelot of Babylon.31 Ymelot’s goal is to make Constantin his vassal (line 2569), for his power is greater; Ymelot is indeed the equal in might only to Rother, since he also rules over seventy-two kings (Schröder 1955/77, 328). “Dietrich” offers to aid Constantin against the invaders, volunteering to lead a Byzantine army of 20,000 men that will include even Rother’s imprisoned messengers, who would be freed for this purpose. Constantin’s acceptance of this offer is a further demonstration of his own incompetence as a weak king, in that he himself will not lead the troops. In his speech of gratitude for this offer he actually refers to himself as wretched or pitiable (mir wenigin man, line 2619) in the face of this crisis of kingship. In doing so, Constantin is confessing that he views himself as inherently incapable of organizing and leading his own forces in defense of his realm (Kokott 1979–85, 35). On the other hand Rother, whom Constantin had deemed unworthy of his daughter, demonstrates his excellence by attempting to save Constantin’s throne. Rother is not being altruistic here, for he has every good reason to protect him: he cannot allow Constantin’s public honor to be diminished, since the status of the princess would then be diminished as well, and he requires a queen of superior status at his side (Zimmermann 1993, 162). His own honor would be attenuated, and his clandestine marriage a mésalliance if his bride’s father were reduced to vassalage to a heathen potentate. While Constantin’s soldiers believe they face certain death and spend their time asking their comrades to look after their wives and children, Rother and his closest advisors concoct a plan of action. Without informing Constantin of his intentions, Rother leads a small group of men and giants into Ymelot’s camp, employing the subterfuge that he himself is an infidel who has come to join their forces. In doing so, his strategy is to avoid a pitched battle that would entail many losses on both sides;

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he particularly wants to avoid any loss of life among Constantin’s troops (ane Constantinis schadin, line 2671). Ymelot is successfully deceived and quickly taken prisoner, while a goodly number of the enemy are slain by Rother’s men. That Rother has defeated the foreign invaders without any assistance from Constantin or his army is not only a tribute to his prowess as a military strategist but also speaks to his efficacy as king. In this conflict two equally powerful kings, one representing the good West, and one, evil heathendom from the south, were fighting over Constantinople and its heritage, the land that had always served as a buffer between them. Constantin’s own power to defend the city was not equal to its geographic and strategic importance. It is Rother, the Roman king, who has saved this gateway to the West32 from the infidels, where Constantin could not, thereby demonstrating and legitimizing Rother’s claim to universal sovereignty as defender of the Christian faith and preparing the way for his grandson, Charlemagne (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 330), who, as king of the Franks, styled himself the devout defender of the Holy Church (devotus sanctæ ecclesiæ defensor).33 Moreover, by avoiding casualties among his own men as well as Constantin’s, he has preserved the bases of both Roman and Byzantine power, which is dependent upon the number of vassals and soldiers at their kings’ disposal, and by doing so has also increased the obligation of his own men to him by having saved their very lives (Kokott 1978, 113). In response to Rother’s victory Constantin praises his deeds and expresses the wish that he possessed something he desired, something he could offer him in exchange for the captured Ymelot: “eia, turlicher degin, wilich ere dir ist geschen! hettich nu sigen gut des dir immir wurde not, daz sal der wesen undirtan!” (lines 2811–15) [“Behold, worthy warrior, what glory you have achieved! If I now possessed anything that you ever should need, that shall be at your disposal!”]

Unbeknownst to Constantin, he does indeed have something — the one thing — Rother wants: namely, his daughter (Fischer 2003, 228). His words spoken here might well be interpreted by Rother as a justification — in lieu of consent — for his subsequent elopement with his bride; indeed, the queen later states to Constantin that Rother has taken their daughter as a pledge (wete, line 3004) for expected payment of all Constantin owes him. While Rother’s bridal quest clearly follows the scheme of wooing by means of tricking the bride’s father through cunning and subterfuge (S.-C. §B.2.b), one could use his defeat of Ymelot

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to make the case that the poet has added the hint of a second variant in the structure: winning the bride through the fulfilling of tasks (§B.2.a). Constantin did not, of course, specifically assign to Rother the task of defeating Ymelot so that he could win the hand of the princess; however, he eagerly accepted Rother’s offer to take on this task. It is also obvious that Rother recognized that it was in his interest to do so, for this would advance both his causes: winning his bride and freeing his messengers. Now that he has accomplished the task and defeated Constantin’s enemy, Rother could well expect that Constantin would grant him the hand of his daughter, according to the bridal quest scheme. Indeed, Constantin’s words in praise of Rother seem to be doing just that. While not specifically granting consent to the marriage, they can be understood as granting an open-ended rash boon, which Rother chooses to interpret in a way favorable to his own agenda. Seizing the opportunity, as the cunning Rother (lines 2823, 2836) is wont to do, “Dietrich” suggests that a messenger be sent to the ladies of the court, to tell them of the victory. Constantin falls into the trap and suggests that “Dietrich” himself undertake this mission for the sake of his daughter (durch miner tochter willen, line 2829). There is a pointed irony here: that is exactly why Rother has made the suggestion. One wonders, however, why Constantin specifically thinks of his daughter in this context and not, for example, of the queen. Is this an expression of how dear she is to him and how important it is that he relieve any anxiety she may have regarding his own safety or the safety of the realm? Or could he himself now be thinking of the benefits of an alliance between his daughter and “Dietrich,” that man whose military prowess he might again exploit, should Constantinople be again threatened in the future, as, indeed, it will be? Never before has he seemed concerned that these two should meet, and now he is specifically instructing “Dietrich” to speak directly with her. One does not wish to read too much into the text, but the circumstance is so unusual, that one is tempted to speculate on the nature of the otherwise-so-arrogant Constantin’s motivation. Returning to the city with his men, “Dietrich” lies to the queen, informing her that Ymelot, whose function here resembles that of an infidel deus ex machina (Kiening 1998, 234), has slain Constantin and his men and is riding against Constantinople with an army. He does not believe he can defend them and will escape the enemy by ship; the women and children must flee the city or be slain by the Babylonians. The queen summons the princess, and both beg “Dietrich” to save them from the infidels (lines 2871–76), whereupon he graciously offers them refuge aboard his vessel, in which he will bring them to safety in his kingdom. This represents a narrative innovation, since in the majority of European bridal quests of the perilous variety it is the bride who suggests the plans for a successful elopement, although in some few instances,

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it is the wooer who outlines the escape route to her (Bornholdt 2005, 15). In either case, however, the plan for the elopement is traditionally shared by both of them at the time of their secret betrothal. Ever since the princess instigated the Pentecost banquet, she has been an active participant in Rother’s and her own spousal quest; after their secret meeting in her chamber, they plotted as one, in order to bring about their union. Here, however, although Rother has revealed his grand subterfuge (lines 2823, 2836, 2877) to his loyal messengers (lines 2843–46), the princess knows nothing of it. Indeed, from her piteous reaction to the news of her father’s defeat, it might seem that she genuinely believes, along with her mother, that Rother plans to abandon them to the Babylonians. One could explain Rother’s conduct in essentially two ways: either the suddenness of Ymelot’s defeat did not allow him the opportunity to take her into his confidence, and he assumes that she will trust in him, or he purposefully gives her no sign of his true intentions so that her fear might be more convincing to the onlookers. Her reaction also presents two explanations: either she truly fears that the exemplary Rother is unworthy, which is highly unlikely, or she implicitly trusts Rother and, although she is unaware of his precise plan, puts on another public “performance” of emotion, like her weeping before Constantin’s vassals, to further it. The narrator goes on to describe how the ladies-in-waiting follow “Dietrich” to his ship weeping and wringing their hands, and begging him to save them, as well. This ruse is very different from any other in the work, for where the others evoke a certain admiration for Rother’s ability to deceive, here the image of weeping maidens, and a weeping queen and princess, do not redound to his public honor. The poet seems well aware of the cruelty of this ruse, as he ameliorates that cruelty by having “Dietrich” quickly comfort the distraught ladies by assuring the maidens (lines 2889–90), then the queen (lines 2906–13), that the imminent threat of death — and perhaps worse — at the hands of the infidels is a ruse. This particular ruse, however, does seem an unnecessary element in terms of the logic of the plot, since it demonstrates less Rother’s individual cunning than the power of the bridal-quest structure, which requires the bride to be abducted by a ruse (Meves 1976, 30). With Constantin absent on the battlefield, Rother could simply have gone to the queen, revealed his true identity, and relied upon her often voiced support of his bridal quest to guarantee her approval of his elopement with the princess. Once the princess is safely on board his ship,34 Rother reveals all to the queen, who had remained behind on the quay with her ladies, astonished at this apparent contradiction to “Dietrich”’s previously noble and admirable behavior: ir weinin was grozlich, sie sprach: “owi, herre Diederich,

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weme wiltu tugint haftir man unsich armen wif lan?” (lines 2899–2902) [She wept copious tears and said, “Alas, Lord Dietrich, to whom are you, excellent man that you are, abandoning us poor women?”]

It is, of course, a moment of sweet vindication for her when she finally learns that “Dietrich” is indeed Rother and that her wishes for her daughter and for the family’s prestige, a union with this excellent king, have been fulfilled. Rother also has a message for Constantin: “ir mogit eme werliche sagin, sin tochter si mit Rothere gevaren westene over mere. nu gebut mir, vrowe herlich, ione heiz ich niwit Dietherich!” (lines 2914–18) [“Now you may tell him in truth that his daughter has journeyed westward with Rother across the sea. By your leave, exalted lady, my name is not Dietrich at all!”]

The queen then expresses her satisfaction that Rother has found her daughter at last and demonstrates, as well, her own lack of “wifely” concern for Constantin’s anticipated reaction. This outcome is, after all, one that she has been urging upon him since “Dietrich” first arrived in Constantinople and demonstrated to her beyond any doubt that King Rother is the suitable match for her daughter: “Wol mich,” sprach die kuningin, “daz ich ie gewan den lif min! nu laze dich got der gode durch sine otmode die mine tochter lossam lange mit gemachin han! daz ist war, turlicher degen, si were der samfter gegevin, dan du si hast gewunnin, inde stund iz an minin willin! swie Constantin nu den lif quelede umbe daz schone wif,35 daz ist mir daz minnist, nu du Rother bist!” (lines 2919–32) [“O happy me,” said the queen, “that I was ever born! May our gracious Lord grant you through His mercy long years of ease with my lovely daughter! It is true, splendid warrior, she would have been given to you in a gentler fashion than you have won her, had things

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gone according to my will! However much Constantin will now torment himself over this beautiful woman, that means nothing to me, since you are Rother!”]

For her part, the princess no longer seems to feel any connection with Constantinople or her father; she has freed herself from his realm of mere courtly representation and chosen the realm of true public honor ruled by Rother (Meves 1976, 35). Her single farewell is addressed to and only concerns her mother: “gehavet uch wole, moder min!” (Fare thee well, mother mine, line 2926). In contrast to their weeping and hand wringing, the queen and her ladies now return to Constantin’s hall laughing (line 2938). Their joy is no doubt twofold: they have been delivered from the threat of the infidels, and they relish the happy fate of the princess. No description of a wedding ceremony is given, and because it is a marriage by consent, none is necessary: taking home the bride in public and sharing the marriage bed (Mikat 1964–98, 1:816) was sufficient to found their consensual union. On the way to Bari, they consummate the marriage, and Rother’s wife conceives a son, which fulfills the original purpose of his quest by presenting him with an heir and his vassals with a guaranteed and secure future. According to the simple structure of the traditional perilous bridal quest, König Rother would end here, with the marriage of Rother and the princess (S.-C. §C.1.d), bringing the tale to a happy conclusion. The continuation of the plot is not a strictly necessary development (Benath 1963, 376), yet there are structural and thematic factors that would indicate a continuation is in order. Thus far Constantin has made no attempt to recapture his daughter with a military force, one of the fixed points in the simple bridal-quest structure (S.-C. §C.1.a; Bornholdt 2005, 15), although one might suggest that the narrator has substituted for this element the battle against the infidels. Furthermore, the marriage bond is a Friedelehe, a personal union which is easily dissolvable, not a Muntehe that contractually unites two families. The marriage has not received the public approval of the bride’s father that would permanently legitimate it (Stock 2002, 269) and is therefore still under the public suspicion of having been a raptus in parentes, elopement without the consent of her parents. This could lead to questions about the validity of the marriage and the legitimacy of Rother’s heir. The first explicit edict regarding marriage by abduction in Roman law was promulgated by Constantine the Great on 1 April 326 and is preserved in the Codex Theodosianus (AD 438). Constantine threatens the severest of penalties, which one is to understand as crucifixion, being thrown to the lions, or burning, for the abductor as well as his consenting bride, with an equally horrific punishment for her nurse, if her complicity was suspected; forgiving parents also pay a hefty price:

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If someone who has not previously made any agreement with a girl’s parents should seize her although she is unwilling or if he should lead her away when she is willing . . . the girl’s response shall be of no use to him according to the ancient law, but rather the girl herself shall be made guilty by association in the crime. (1) And since often the watchfulness of the parents is frustrated by the stories and wicked persuasions of nurses, these (the nurses) first of all . . . this punishment shall threaten: that the opening of their mouth and of their throat, which brought forth the destructive encouragements, shall be closed by the swallowing of molten lead. (2) And if voluntary assent is revealed in the virgin, she shall be struck with the same severity as her abductor; impunity shall not be offered to those girls who are abducted against their will either. . . . But we impose a lighter penalty on these girls, and order that only legal succession to their parents is to be denied them. . . . (4) . . . the parents for whom revenge (for the abduction) was the major concern, if they displayed forbearance and repressed their sorrow, shall be punished with exile. [Evans-Grubbs 1989, 60]

A subsequent law of AD 349 (CTh IX. 24. 2) mitigated the severity of the possible punishments by specifying a capital penalty, presumably execution by the sword, and in AD 374 (CTh IX. 24. 3) a statute of limitations of five years was assigned to the crime (Evans-Grubbs 1989, 66–67). There were no mitigations of this law in the western empire through the early sixth century (Arjava 1996, 39). In canon law it was also irrelevant to the condemnation of the wooer’s action in the matter of elopement whether or not the bride agreed to it (Mitterer 1924, 2), for the actual crime, to which the bride is also a party, lies not in harm done to the bride’s honor, but in the abrogation of the rights of her father or guardian (pater potestas). As such, elopement was viewed as a threat not only to the family, but to civil order, and was often regarded as a lasting bar to legitimization of the marriage, even if the parents did give their consent after the fact (Mitterer 1924, 7–8; also M. Schulz 2005, 33–35), although if the abductor offered restitution to the family and paid a fine to gain their consent, the marriage could theoretically be retroactively legitimized (Reynolds 1994, 397–99; Mikat 1964–98, 1:816). In Merovingian times raptus had been regarded by the state as just cause for a feud and punishable by death for the perpetrator; a bride who gave her subsequent consent was to suffer the same penalty, although evidently parents could give their consent after the fact, something not permissible to parents living under Roman law (Arjava 1996, 39–40). Among the Carolingians, anathematization and exile could result. It should, however, be noted that such dire penalties were meant to serve as a deterrent, and early medieval society had a “somewhat greater tolerance” (40) of and greater flexibility in dealing with elopement than the various penal codes would indicate.36

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The words and actions of the princess’s mother, however, clearly show that she consents to this marriage. As a mother she shares the right of consent with her husband, according to canonical documents on consent; thus her position mitigates somewhat the accusation that Rother’s elopement with her daughter is a genuine raptus. Even here, however, canon law is explicit: when the parents disagree over the suitability of the wooer, the father’s will trumps that of the mother (M. Schulz 2005, 51 and n153; Arjava 1996, 34 and n19). Without a reconciliation between Rother and Constantin, this marriage has the taint of impermanence and therefore of questionable validity. The need to resolve these issues would seem to make the doubling of the quest structure (S.-C. §C.2) a necessity, and soon enough Rother’s apparent success in his quest for a bride who is worthy of bearing his heir proves to be transitory, when her father retrieves her and reasserts his legal authority over her. Rother faces the loss of not only his bride, but also his heir in fœtu, which places him exactly where he started before his bridal quest began: an ideal ruler whose kingdom lacks a future. Stock (2002, 275) sees in this turn of events a larger theme in the context of kingship: winning a bride and siring an heir is not enough to secure the future of Rother’s kingdom; that is an ongoing process, not the result of just one event. This is borne out by the fact that during Rother’s absence his viceroy, Amelger, has died, and six margraves have sought to depose him, “deme richen ervelosan man” (that mighty, heirless lord,’ line 2957), in favor of Duke Hademar von Diessen.37 Here the narrator’s specific reference to Rother’s lack of an heir is a reminder of the public and political significance of his bridal quest. The chaos and instability that follows the death of Amelger is proof that Rother’s young vassals were correct when they feared that the lack of a legitimate and acknowledged heir would endanger the longterm stability of his kingdom and their own authority (Dinser 1975, 6). The vassals remaining loyal to Rother, and that is the vast majority, have defended his kingship in his absence, and the rebels have no way of knowing that the issue of the future has potentially been resolved, in that his new bride has conceived that longed-for heir. The blot on his honor and kingship has been removed, and the future stability of his kingship will be ensured. For the short term, however, Rother must abandon his pregnant bride. Leaving her under the protection of his most trusted and loyal vassal, Luppolt, Rother sets off north to the Rhine with an army to restore order in the kingdom by hunting down and crushing the rebels.

Notes 1

See “minne” and “minnen” in Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, S. Hirzel, 1872–78, 31974), 1: col. 2144–45 and 2150 resp.

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2

Des Minnesangs Frühling, ed. Karl Lachmann et al., 36th ed., ed. Hugo Moser and Helmut Tervooren, 3 vols. in 4 (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 1977–81), 1:31. 3

Hans Fromm offers a detailed analysis of his structure; Fromm, “Die Erzählkunst des Röther-Epikers,” Euphorion 54 (1960): 347–79, repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 351–96, here 364–84. See also Barbara Haupt, Das Fest in der Dichtung: Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik eines literarischen Motivs in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik, Studia humaniora 14 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), 93. Günter Karhof corrects Fromm’s errors in his use of the ms. initials to construct this outline; Karhof, Der Abschnitt als Vortragsform in Handschriften frühmittelhochdeutscher Dichtungen: Seine strukturbildende Funktion und Bedeutung für die Chronologie (PhD diss., Münster University, 1968), 161–68. 4

Das Nibelungenlied: Nach der Ausgabe von Karl Bartsch, ed. Helmut de Boor, 22nd ed., ed. Roswitha Wisniewski (Wiesbaden: Albert, 1996); in English, The Nibelungenlied, trans. A. T. Hatto (London: Penguin, 1965, 22004), 159.

5

Jan de Vries sees in this word another connection to the typical Minnesang situation, where those who seek to hinder the love service of a knight are also called merkære; de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922, 21974), cxi. 6

Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches. Handwörterbuch, 1: col. 333, defines bouc as “größerer ring, spange, kette bes. hals- oder armring als schmuck für männer und frauen” (rather large ring, clasp, chain; especially neck- or armring as an ornament for men and women). The Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, ed. Georg Friedrich Benecke, Wilhelm Müller, and Friedrich Zarncke, 3 vols. in 4 (S. Hirzel, 1854– 61; repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1963), 1:177, cites passages that clearly distinguish the bouc from the ring, vingerlîn.

7

This use of minnen makes it clear that this verb does not necessarily mean “romantic love”: “Dietrich” clearly does not “love” Herlint. 8

Also Karhof, Der Abschnitt als Vortragsform, 165, and Christian Kiening, “Arbeit am Muster: Literarisierungsstrategien im König Rother,” in WolframStudien XV: Neue Wege der Mittelalter-Philologie; Landshuter Kolloquium 1996, ed. Joachim Heinzle, L. Peter Johnson, and Gisela Vollmann-Profe (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1998), 227. 9

Concerning the dual meaning of the ornamental epithet lossam, from lustsam “lovely, winning, charming” for courtly women; and lobesam, “praiseworthy,” for males of the knightly class, see Günter Kramer, “Zum König Rother: (Über dulden und lobesam, lustsam),” PBBH 79 (1957): 189–203. 10 See also Monika Schulz, “‘Iz ne wart nie urowe bas geschot’: Bemerkungen zur Kemenatenszene im König Rother,” in Literarische Kommunikation und soziale Interaktion: Studien zur Institutionalität mittelalterlicher Literatur, ed. Beate Kellner, Ludger Lieb, and Peter Strohschneider, Mikrokosmos: Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft und Bedeutungsforschung 64 (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2001), 77n20. 11

On the parallel structure of Herlint’s two embassies to Dietrich, see Benath, “Vergleichende Studien zu den Spielmannsepen König Rother, Orendel und

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Salman und Morolf,” part 1, PBBH 84 (1962): 312–72; part 2, PBBH 85 (1963): 374–416, here 2, 401–2. 12

That Herlint here speaks only of one shoe offers two possibilities of interpretation. It is either an indication that there was only one pair of shoes in the original, as Helmut Voigt suggested in his “Zur Rechtssymbolik der Schuhprobe in Þiðriks saga (Viltina þáttr),” PBB 87 (1965): 109, or the princess is only concerned with finding a mate for one of the shoes, presumably the golden one. 13

Hans-Joachim Böckenholt bases his translation of this phrase on ms. H, which reads geuinne (line 2082): “wenn er für sein Herrscherhaus jemals eine vornehme adelige Generation gewinnen möchte” (if he would ever like to win eminent, noble heirs for his ruling house), implying that she assumes him to be a member of Rother’s family and, as such, a courtship messenger; Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: privately published, 1971), 20, 29. 14

See also Charles G. Nelson, “König Rother and the Norms of Comedy,” German Quarterly 45 (1972): 78. 15

On the aphrodisiac power of the foot, and shoes as symbols of fertility see Paul Sartori, “Der Schuh im Volksglauben,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 4 (1894): 48–50, 157–73, and Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, Eduard HoffmannKrayer, and Gerhard Lüdtke, eds., “Schuh,” in Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, Handwörterbücher zur deutschen Volkskunde, 10 vols. (Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1927–42, 32000), 7: col. 1293, whereby, however, the shoe usually represents female aspects, the foot, male. Karl zur Nieden fails to find any eroticism at all in the chamber scene; zur Nieden, Über die Verfasser der mittelhochdeutschen Heldenepen (Bonn: L. Leopold, 1930), 20. 16

On the shoes and the events that take place in the princess’s chamber see, for example, Christian Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 69–71, 98–99; Rita Zimmermann, Herrschaft und Ehe: Die Logik der Brautwerbung im “König Rother,” Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 1422 (Frankfurt am Main and New York: P. Lang, 1993), 148–58; and Monika Schulz, “‘Iz ne wart nie urowe bas geschot,’ 73–88. For the legal significance of the shoeing as part of an engagement ritual, see Jan de Vries, “Die Brautwerbungssagen,” GRM 9 (1921): 330–41 (part 1); and 10 (1922): 31–44 (part 2); repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 99, 92–125; and Voigt, “Zur Rechtssymbolik der Schuhprobe,” 109–12. Böckenholt argues against a legal interpretation of the shoes, whether as a proposal of marriage or as an erotic token (Voigt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau, 25–28). 17

Gregory of Tours, Gregorii Turonensis opera, ed. Wilhelm Arndt and Bruno Krusch, 2 vols., MGH: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1884–85), 2:741: “Denique, dato sponsae anulo, porregit osculum, praebet calciamentum, caelebrat sponsaliae diem festum” (“Leobardus in the end gave a ring to his betrothed, offered her a kiss, bestowed shoes on her, and celebrated a feast on the day of the betrothal”); trans. Edward James, Life of the Fathers, Translated Texts for Historians: Latin series 1 (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool UP, 1985), 131.

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18

Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, 4th rev. ed., ed. Andreas Heusler und Rudolf Hübner, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1899; repr., Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1956), 1:214; similarly, Karl Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Vienna: C. Gerolds Sohn, 1882; repr., 2 vols. in 1, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1968), 1:372, and Bächtold-Stäubli, “Schuh,” 7:1326–28. 19

It should be noted, however, that de Vries regards this scene not as the imitation of an ancient engagement or any other ritual but as pure fiction: it is intended to direct her attention and interest toward him (Rother, lxxxvi). This is certainly the minority opinion. On the attempt by de Vries to derive this episode from the Celtic mabinogi “Math van Mathonwy” (“Die Schuhepisode im König Rother,” ZfdPh 80 [1961]: 129–41; repr. in Schröder, Spielmannsepik, WdF, 397–412), see the devastating critique by Gerhard Eis, “Die Schuhepisode im König Rother und in der Vilkinasaga,” Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 77 (1962): 224–30. 20

Hugh of St. Victor gives a marvelous example of the association of feet with dominance in his discussion of the relationship between man and woman, which is not without relevance in our context: “Why woman was made from man, and why from the side. But afterward as a help to generation woman was made from man himself, since, if she had been made from another source, surely the beginning of all men would not have been one. Now she was made from the side of man that it might be shown that she was created for association in love, lest perhaps, if she had been made from the head, she would seem to be preferred to man unto damnation, or, if from the feet, to be subject unto slavery. Since, therefore, she was furnished to man neither as a mistress nor a handmaid but as a companion, she had to be produced neither from the head nor the feet but from the side, in order that he might realize that she was to be placed beside him, whom he learned had been taken from his very side.” Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), trans. Roy J. Deferrari, The Mediaeval Academy of America 58 (Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951), 117 (1: 6, §35). 21

Christian Gellinek, “Marriage by Consent in Literary Sources of Medieval Germany,” Studia Gratiana 12 (1967): 562, 571, defines Rother’s dual role here as that of match-maker (Dietrich) and Trauungsmittler or Trauwalt, the elicitor of assent (Rother). The latter’s responsibility in the concluding of a Friedelehe (marriage for love), in which the bride was not given away, was not to act as the bride’s guardian and grant assent to the marriage, but merely to elicit the free consent of both parties. On the so-called Friedel- or Konsensehe, see Paul Mikat, “Ehe,” in HRG, ed. Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann, 5 vols. (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1964–98), 1: col. 816–17, §2.1.c. 22 Voigt asserts that the thought first crosses her mind at this moment (“Zur Rechtssymbolik der Schuhprobe,” 113, 116). 23

Concerning the various theories regarding the meaning of this word, see König Rother, ed. Theodor Frings and Joachim Kuhnt; 2nd ed., ed. Walter Fläming (Halle/Saale: VEB Max Niemeyer, 1961; 3rd ed., ed. Ingeborg Köppe-Benath, 1968), 88. 24 Rodney Fisher sees Constantin’s pride, a sin often associated with paganism, as a link to Ymelot, who according to the narrator desires to subjugate the entire world and claims he is equal to God (lines 2573–76); Fisher, Studies in the

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Demonic in Selected Middle High German Epics, GAG 132 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1974), 48, 144. In this he can be likened to Lucifer. Later the narrator does in fact refer to Constantin as “des valandes man” (the devil’s vassal, line 3374). The desire to be worshiped as a god seems to be part of the contemporary view of great infidel kings, possibly rooted in the perception of Alexander the Great’s contemporaries that the proskynesis demanded by Persian kings meant that they viewed themselves as gods. See, for example, King Cosdras of Persia, in the Kaiserchronik: “ain haidenisker chunich hiez Cosdras, / dem geriet der vâlant, / daz er hiez wurchen uber sîn lant / ainen himel êrîn, / vil gerne wolt er got sin . . .” (There was a heathen king named Cosdras; the devil urged him to construct over his land a heaven of bronze; he wanted very much to be God). Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen, ed. Edward Schröder, Deutsche Chroniken und andere Geschichtsbücher des Mittelalters 1, part 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1892; repr. Deutsche Neudrucke: Texte des Mittelalters, Berlin: Weidmann, 1964), 285, lines 11,143–47. 25

The debate on the nature of marriage in medieval civil and canon law is obviously much more nuanced than is indicated here. This brief summary is meant only to orient the reader in this complex issue. A substantial bibliography on the topic may be found in Mikat, “Ehe,” col. 830–33. 26

Mikat emphasizes, however, the importance of public acknowledgement even in the Friedelehe, when he states that the consensual union becomes official when the groom publicly brings home the bride and subsequently takes her to bed (“Ehe,” col. 816). 27

For a summary of the discussion of consent in canon law, see Monika Schulz, “Iz ne wart nie urowe bas geschot,” 79, and Eherechtsdiskurse: Studien zu “König Rother,” “Partonopier und Meliur,” “Arabel,” “Der guote Gêrhart,” “Der Ring,” Beiträge zur älteren Literaturgeschichte (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2005), 36–38. 28

Mikat comments that the Friedelehe was popular among the Merovingian and Carolingian elite precisely because it could be so easily dissolved, since it made possible the polygyny favored by the noble classes; a husband could have auxiliary wives by consent in addition to the one wife married with the consent of her guardian (“Ehe,” col. 817). 29

See also Rudolf Weigand, Die bedingte Eheschließung im kanonischen Recht, Münchener theologische Studien, Abt. 3, 16 (Munich: Max Huebner, 1963), 414–23. 30

König Rother: mittelhochdeutscher Text und neuhochdeutsche Übersetzung, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz, Beatrix Kroll, and Ruth Weichselbaumer, trans. Peter K. Stein, Universal-Bibliothek 18047 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), 450, n. to 2355.

31

As Friedrich Panzer notes, Babylon refers here to Egyptian or Deltaic Babylon, seat of the Fatimid Caliphate in what is today known as Coptic Cairo; Panzer, Italische Normannen in deutscher Heldensage, Deutsche Forschungen 1 (Frankfurt am Main: M. Diesterweg, 1925; repr., Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1974), 50–51. Roger II of Sicily fought many campaigns against the vassals of the Caliphate, the Zirid rulers of Ifriqiya (roughly, modern Tunisia). Klaus Siegmund identifies the Ymelot figure in part 1 of König Rother with Saladin (r. 1174–93), the famous foe of Richard the Lionheart; in part 2, with Kilij Arslan II, Seljuk Sultan of Rum

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(r. 1156–92), with Basilistium taking the role of the latter’s son, Kutbeddin of Iconium, also a son-in-law of Saladin; Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 32–37, 47. Kutbeddin fought a major battle against Barbarossa’s forces in May 1190. This identification, however, is only possible if one accepts Siegmund’s late dating of König Rother. 32

Daniel Rocher, “Le ‘roi Rother’: Une caricature allemande des byzantins au XIIe siècle,” Médiévales 12 (1987): 28. Rocher reminds that medieval maps viewed the world as a T, Europe to the west, Africa to the south, and Asia to the east, with Byzantium as the gateway among them. 33

Ian S. Robinson, “Church and Papacy,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350–c. 1450, ed. James Henderson Burns (Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge UP, 1988), 294. 34

Claudia Bornholdt notes that it is typical in the minstrel epics for the couple to elope by ship, “whereas in the Latin chronicles, the Norse stories, the Walter tales, the bridal-quest narratives in Þiðreks saga, and in Ortnit the couple escapes on horseback, often with a treasure taken from the girl’s father”; Bornholdt, Engaging Moments: The Origins of Medieval Bridal-Quest Narrative, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 46 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005), 15. 35

This phrasing might suggest a remnant of the incest theme in the perilous bridal quest: of all the things the queen could suggest that Constantin will miss in his daughter, she cites here only her beauty. 36

For a brief survey see Jo-ann McNamara and Suzanne F. Wemple, “Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom,” in Women in Medieval Society, ed. Susan Mosher Stuard (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1976), esp. 100–101. 37

On the historical counts of Diessen and their possible connection to Hademar, see Gellinek, König Rother, 84, who thinks the Diessen name was derived from the Kaiserchronik, and Uwe Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 75–79. In the 12th century the pro-Hohenstaufen counts of Diessen were often in conflict with the Welfs; the Kaiserchronik (lines 17,185–245), for instance, states that the Diessen Bishop Henry of Regensburg was instrumental in keeping the Welf prince, Henry the Proud, from succeeding his father-in-law, Lothar III, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1138, in favor of Konrad III, a Hohenstaufen. Ferdinand Urbanek hypothesizes that the model for Hademar might have been Otakar III of Styria (Steiermark); Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 107–8. Siegmund’s suggestion that the model for Hademar was Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (1173–1227), son of Henry the Lion, who survived the death of his own son and was, therefore, without a male heir (Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 49), is surely incorrect: it is not Hademar who is as yet childless, but Rother (Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 97; Meves, Studien zu König Rother, 37n2).

8: Counter-Quest

W

CONSTANTIN RETURNS to the city following Rother’s elopement with his daughter, the queen reveals to him with no little pleasure and ample disdain “Dietrich”’s true identity: HEN

“der sich da nante Dietherich, daz was der koninc Rother unde hat gevort over mere mine tochter unde din. wie mochte si baz bestadet sin? . . . her hat uns rechte getan, wir hetten wonderlichen wan: wat reken mochte dar so riche sin? ir sit gewarnet, Constantin: kome u imer mer gein vetriven man, da solit ir uch baz vor warnan! (lines 2998–3012) [“He who called himself Dietrich was King Rother and has taken my daughter and yours across the sea. How could she ever be better situated? . . . He treated us as we deserved, for we had strange delusions: what exile could have been so mighty? Be warned, Constantin: should any exiled man ever come to you again, you had better be wary of him!”]

Constantin, in contrast to his gloating wife, weeps over the loss of his daughter — “owi, vrou koningin, / nu rowet mich die thochter min” (Alas, my queen, how I rue the loss of my daughter, lines 3017–18) — and then faints from the sorrow (line 3023). This is symbolic of his helplessness in dealing with the unexpected situations that confront him (Meves 1976, 52), such as the giants’ aggression or Ymelot’s attack. Ehrismann (1922–35, 21:307) adjudged Constantin’s behavior here as both unkingly and unmanly, although he may, at least in terms of weeping, be a victim of modern sensibilities in his evaluation, for Althoff (1997, 233–35, 248) has documented that public weeping belonged to a ruler’s arsenal of orchestrated emotions in ritual representation, as a sign of his being deeply moved. The fainting, of course, is something else again, and stands in stark contrast to the hand wringing and three days of silence (lines 438, 450–51) with which Rother greeted the news of his missing messengers; Rother did not faint, but began to contemplate a plan of

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action. — Rother will only weep later, when any hope of rescuing his wife seems impossible. — Zimmermann (1993, 168), however, suggests that Constantin’s fainting is not due to the fact of his daughter’s abduction, but results from his horror at the damage done thereby to his own prestige, in having lost her to a man he regards as inferior in status, since Rother has not yet demonstrated the contrary to him. The implicit narrative condemnation of Constantin’s fainting, not his tears, is to be found in its immediate negative consequence. When he collapses, Ymelot takes advantage of his thus distracted guards and makes his escape (lines 3024–35), essentially undoing Rother’s victory over him and potentially exposing Constantin’s kingship to renewed attack. Constantin’s image is further diminished when he then surrenders one of the main duties of a king, the exercise of royal generosity, to his wife. He instructs the queen to distribute treasure among his vassals as a means of getting them to pursue Ymelot. Because of his miserliness his vassals are not as loyal as Rother’s, and their service in his cause must be purchased. As Constantin had previously entrusted the defense of his kingdom to Rother, he now entrusts a woman with salvaging the victory he has allowed to slip from his grasp. That same vanity that led Constantin to behead any man who dared seek the hand of his daughter can also not allow him to accept her defection to Rother. Legally and morally speaking, according to Zimmermann (1993, 170), he has every right to seek redress for this assumed affront to his status and a duty, as the father and guardian of an abducted bride, to rescue her from the hands of her abductor. Marriage by mutual consent, though acknowledged in the West, as noted above, was not accepted in Byzantine Christianity, where such marriages were forbidden by church and civil law, and considered void, even if the bride was a willing participant in her raptus in parentes (M. Schulz 2005, 48). Granting that this is true, it is difficult to imagine that the poet is familiar with the finer points of Byzantine law. Legal justifications or psychological explanations for Constantin’s actions are, in a sense, irrelevant: he must go after his daughter, because the structure of the perilous bride quest requires it. Even in the simple, non-doubled quest structure the father (or guardian) must attempt to rescue the bride from her wooer (S.-C. §C.1.a; Bornholdt 2005, 15) and is either reconciled with or slain by him (§C.1.b) before the wooer is able to return to his homeland to marry the bride (§C.1.c.-C.1.d). The doubled quest structure ensues (§C.2), when the bride’s father has not been defeated in combat by the wooer or remains unreconciled with the marriage, which thus endangers the personal bond of wooer and bride (Schmid-Cadalbert 1985, 63). When this is the case, the wooer’s return home with the bride (§C.1.c) and their marriage (§C.1.d), which conclude the simple structure, become the first stages of the doubled quest (§C.2.a and C.2.b, respectively), in which the father

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successfully retrieves his daughter from the wooer, whereupon the wooer enters upon a second quest to win her again. As the narrator employed, with modifications, the traditional structure of the wooer’s quest when recounting the princess’s parallel quest for Rother, so he also uses it as a model for structuring Constantin’s counterquest. This quest, too, will be a quest through guile, not military force, but Constantin, as in everything else, is not Rother’s equal in subterfuge. Seemingly unable to concoct a list of his own, he acquiesces in a clever kidnapping scheme proposed by a minstrel. The latter will pretend to be a Greek merchant and sail to Bari, and when the princess boards his ship to examine his merchandise, he will sail home for Constantinople with her. While the ability to use subterfuge demonstrates the intellectual superiority of the deceiver and is in itself value neutral (Curschmann 1968, 65; Haug 1988, 181), the narrator thematizes the difference between Constantin’s ruse and those of Rother. Rother’s cunning consistently serves the express good of the state — providing his kingdom with an heir — and his ruses are carried out with the knowledge and approval of his vassals. They are not, in that sense, personal. Constantin’s plan, on the other hand, has an expressly private motive (Meves 1976, 37). Once cannot so easily make a case here, as Zimmermann is wont to do, that Constantin is bent on recovering his daughter in order to validate his own status or vindicate the prestige of the state. His vassals are not taken into his confidence, although they, like those of Rother, have a vested interest Constantin’s public honor. The minstrel, by definition a lowly character, is his substitute for the elder statesmen who served as Rother’s wise counselors in this negative mirror image of the quest structure (S.-C. §A.2.). Similarly, the ensuing messenger’s journey to regain the abducted bride by means of a ruse (§C.2.c, parallel to §B.1.a) is an anti-wooing expedition carried out not by his vassals, but by that single minstrel working alone. The very secrecy of Constantin’s plan, excluding his own vassals and liege men, is prima facie evidence that his actions are not motivated by reasons of state, for evidence from both the heroic and the minstrel epic indicates that when such plans are hatched in secret, without the knowledge or participation of a council of vassals, they generally involve intrigue or treason, or other such matters that thrive in darkness (J.-D. Müller 1993, 124–25). This ruse is indeed not Rother’s prudent cleverness of the strong man who seeks to avoid violence and conflict, but rather the weapon of a weak man who has no other choice but deceit (Schröder 1955/77, 336). Rother’s deceptions are always insightful and clever measures, while Constantin’s attempts to deceive always seem devious and cruel (Gellinek 1968, 46). Constantin’s behavior conforms to the timehonored stereotype of Greeks in general, according to which they are said to eagerly resort to deceit out of fear, desire for profit, or other ignoble motives (Szklenar 1966, 132).

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Interesting in the context of a putative minstrel epic, of course, is Constantin’s choice of a minstrel to act as his anti-wooing messenger (parallel to S.-C. §A.3) and carry out his dastardly plan. Because minstrels moved relatively freely from place to place, they are often assigned a variety of roles in the medieval epic, particularly that of messenger. One need only think of Werbel and Swemmel in the Nibelungenlied. The minstrels’ mobility also made them politically useful as spies and general gatherers of intelligence (Erb 1963–64, 12:767). Hans Joachim Gernentz (1959/60), 123) suggests that with the various depictions of minstrels in König Rother, the putative minstrel-poet wishes to praise his own class, and Erb, thinking along those same lines, finds in Constantin’s choice of his co-conspirator a kind of career advertisement for minstrels (“spielmännische Berufsreklame”). Both Gernentz and Erb, however, were prominent East German scholars, and one can easily imagine that their giving a positive spin to the role of the minstrel is more the product of a political agenda than of a close reading of the text. Bräuer (1966, 553), although himself an East German, somewhat cautiously disagrees with Gernentz and Erb, finding here a certain ironic distancing from and devaluation of the minstrel class. Antonie Schreier-Hornung (1981, 126) is much more objective when she reminds that performing as a minstrel was officially categorized among the dishonorable professions. While their entertainment was a welcome diversion, their living outside the norms of society made them morally suspect. She goes even further than Bräuer, finding here a pointed criticism of the unseemly conduct of minstrels whose constant pursuit of reward for their services could lead them to augment their traditional role as messenger with other, less than honorable, undertakings and occasionally to violate the trust of their patrons (1981, 103–4, 120–23). She is doubtless correct, for the narrator makes his opinion of this minstrel perfectly clear by associating him with the devil: “listich was der valant!” (This devil was cunning, line 3113) and “Nu siet zo deme valandas man” (Now behold this liege man of the devil, line 3235). Later in the text, following Rother’s deliverance from the gallows, the giant, Grimme, nearly beats a hundred minstrels to death with a stick for their treachery in accompanying the infidels to the intended place of Rother’s execution (lines 4293–98). The plan of the abduction, with the minstrel disguised as a merchant1 from Constantinople, has a certain foundation in historical reality. Constantinople was a major trading center between East and West, and merchants played a major role in the life of the city. Among the wares historically exported from Constantinople were spices, plants, precious stones, jewelry, silk and other textiles, and ivorywork (Szklenar 1966, 125–26 and n46.), things particularly designed to attract female shoppers. Constantin’s minstrel, however, miscalculates when he assures him that the exquisite and unusual clothing he will offer for sale will easily lure

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his daughter on board (lines 3076–78). Upon his arrival in Bari the minstrel finds he must alter the plan: the finery, which he sells at the astonishingly bargain price of a penny, attract the townswomen, but not Rother’s queen. It is not a superficial desire to see his exotic luxuries, such as have drawn others to the vessel,2 that eventually leads to her abduction, but rather her desire to cure the crippled children of one of her important knights by means of magic stones. These stones — actually common pebbles — supposedly possess the power to heal all the sick and the lame in the entire kingdom when held in the hands of a queen (lines 3144–61; 3189–3214).3 It is not without a certain calculated irony that children are used as bait to lure the young mother-to-be into a trap. Rother’s queen, who as a princess showed her humanity and her devotion to her future subjects by tending his imprisoned messengers, cannot let such an appeal go unanswered. When the trap is sprung, parallel to the courtship messenger’s outwitting of the bride’s father in the simple quest structure (S.-C. §B.1), the wicked Greeks (leide Criechin, line 3108) weigh anchor and set sail for Constantinople. One could argue, with Gellinek (1968, 37–38), that this indeed is the only real abduction that takes place in the entire text, since Rother had the tacit permission of his mother-in-law to elope with his bride.4 The victim expresses no concern for her own situation once she learns that she is being returned to her father, but only has thoughts of Rother and their love for each other. Even in separation and suffering, they will remain equals: “owi, koninc Rothere,” sprach daz wenige wif, “wie du nu dinen lif beginnis quelin umbe mich! so duon ich minin umbe dich! Die vrowe gehate sich ovele!5 (lines 3244–49) [“Alas, King Rother,” said the weeping woman, “however much you now begin to suffer torment for my sake, so do I for yours!” The lady was in a miserable state!]

Upon his daughter’s return to Constantinople, Constantin receives her with copious hugs and kisses (line 3251), but her mother weeps for her. This is a complete reversal of their reaction to her elopement with Rother. In Böckenholt’s view (1971, 50) this is the first time the queen’s maternal feelings are revealed, because they have previously been completely subsumed under her attempts to preserve the power and reputation of the royal house. Constantin, on the other hand, prefers to ignore his daughter’s resolute silence, assuming she will get over her grief. The queen attempts to comfort her, but in vain:

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he [=Constantin] halste sie unde custe, wie wol in des geluste! die moder weinende genc, ir thochter sie ungerne infienc. swaz die moder redde, die tochter iz alliz dolete. Constantine was vil lief, her inhatte uf ire sprechin nit. he liez si swigin unde dagin, biz si is gnoh mohte havin. (lines 3259–68) [Constantin embraced and kissed her: how greatly that pleased him! Her mother approached in tears; she did not embrace her daughter gladly. No matter what her mother said, the daughter endured it in silence. Constantin was very happy; he did not wait for her to speak. He allowed her her silence and was content to wait, until she had had her fill of it.]

Here we no longer find the crafty princess who actively pursued her suitor and conspired with him in their elopement, but the victim who helplessly submits to her fate with passive suffering (Böckenholt 1971, 39), and passive she will remain until almost the very end of the text. The emotional scene in Constantinople has its counterpart in Bari, where Rother’s subjects await his return from fighting the rebellion along the Rhine. When they learn of the abduction of their new queen, they prepare to flee the city in order to escape Rother’s anticipated wrath. Only Luppolt’s assurance of Rother’s sense of loyalty toward his people (line 3291) can persuade them not to do so. Luppolt offers Rother his own life in exchange for theirs, as he takes responsibility as his queen’s failed protector, informing him of the facts of her abduction and the present location of his wife. A new quest against Constantinople must begin, and it is narrated according to same structure as the first perilous quest. Luppolt is here reprising his role as Knower (S.-C. §A.2). When Rother learns the bad news, however, he demands no punishment for Luppolt; in fact, he praises him for his loyal service. Luppolt has already proved himself by spending more than a year in Constantin’s prison for the sake of Rother and his quest; if Rother were now to turn against him, he would be like Judas, who destroyed himself through his own disloyalty (lines 3346–48). But unlike his royal foil, Constantin, Rother does not weep or faint at the news that an abduction has taken place: he immediately turns to rectifying this wrong done him. He must return to Constantinople on a second, doubled bridal quest, the narration of which follows the structure of the first. In the certain knowledge that his wife was destined to be his, he is confident that he and his loyal vassals will win her back:

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“iz levet so manich schone wif! is uns aver sichein guot von der vrowen geordinot, daz mach ze iungest wal irgan.” (lines 3334–37) [“There lives so many a beautiful woman! If, however, any happiness with this lady is ordained for us, it will go well in the end.”]

The meaning of Rother’s words, “iz levet so manich schone wif,” has evoked much critical consideration. Gellinek (1968, 61) speculates as to whether this statement that on the surface seems uncourtly and lighthearted may not merely be masking his true state of agitation. Lussky (1925, 131) understood this to mean that the loyalty of Rother’s vassals is more important to him than the love for his wife. For Stock (2002, 270n147) the obligation of loyalty requires that Rother attempt to assuage by any means necessary Luppolt’s guilt and remorse for his failure to protect his queen, no matter how great the damage done, even if that includes inappropriate pronouncements. Meves (1976, 38), on the other hand, more neutrally sees in his words a relatively honest assessment of objective reality. Peter K. Stein (1988, 327–28) finds here an example of male humor, and in his commentary to this line (Bennewitz et al., 2000, 451) he suggests that the everyday reality of the feudal nobility, namely, the availability of other suitable brides, is taking precedence, at least for a time, over the structure of the bridal quest. Surely the interpretation proposed by Köppe-Benath (1967, 217), which requires no psychologizing or application of extra-textual reality, is the correct one. There are many women in this world to choose from; but if God has ordained the union of Rother and his queen, he will indeed be reunited with her. Finding, however, no explicit reference to God here, Kiening (1998, 221–22), objects to Köppe-Benath’s interpretation and posits that Rother is giving voice to an awareness of the demands of the bridal-quest structure. That their union is indeed ordained by God and why it is so important that Rother’s queen be saved are made clear in a foreshadowing. Their union is of monumental significance for the Roman state, and for the church, as well; indeed, it guarantees the future of Western civilization. Through his agent Constantin has not only delivered the progenitor of the Carolingian emperors into the hands of the Byzantines, their great rivals to the claim of sovereignty over the Roman Empire, but also nullified Rother’s own claim to universal sovereignty over the Christian world, achieved through his defeat of Ymelot (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 330). Rother’s queen already carries in her womb the father of Charlemagne, defender of the church, just as she will later bear him a saint, Gertrude (Geretrudis) of Nivelles.6 Constantin’s arrogance has led him to commit an act that will subvert history as well as divine purpose, and Rother’s loyal soldiers must set things to right:

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. . . als uns das buch gezalt hat, mit wie getanen erin sie Rothere deme herrin gewunnen die vil goten Pipinchis muder, van deme uns Karlus sit bequam unde eine magit lossam, die gode sanctæ Gerdrut. . . . von du nis daz liet von lugenen gedihtet niet! (lines 3479–91) [. . . as the book has informed us, with what great deeds of honor they restored to Rother, their sovereign, the most excellent mother of little Pippin, from whom later Karl (=Charlemagne) came to us, and a praiseworthy maiden, good Saint Gertrude. . . . That is why this lay is not the product of lies!]

With the assertion that his tale is not a work of fiction, a common topos of authenticity, the narrator breaks the frame of the narration by evoking historical characters and, through them, future events that exist beyond the text. Charlemagne and St. Getrude belong to the experience of the audience outside the text, in objective reality. In this greater context secular and sacred history are merged (Reiffenstein 1972, 563). St. Gertrude was the most celebrated saint of the Carolingian monarchs and, at one time, the most popular saint in northwestern Germany, especially in the area along the Rhine, where the tale of King Rother is presumed to have originated. Charlemagne himself was canonized by Anti-Pope Paschal III in 1165, although this was subsequently annulled at the Third Lateran Council in 1179. If Rother’s queen is not rescued, the West may be cheated of its greatest ruler, the rex iustus par excellence and the medieval model and ideal of the Christian emperor (Siegmund 1959, 103–4; Geith 1977, 262–63), and the church may be deprived of a beloved saint, or possibly two. Like his son Luppolt, Berchter of Meran also reprises the role he played during the preparations for Rother’s wooing journey (S.-C. §B.2), when the latter sought his counsel as to how to learn the fate of the courtship messengers. Here, too, Berchter gives him the same advice: they should mount a military campaign against Constantinople (lines 3375– 76). Berchter’s concern is not just to regain the freedom of his queen, but also to take vengeance upon Constantin for all the suffering he caused Luppolt and the messengers during their imprisonment (lines 3467–69). When Berchter previously proposed this course of action, it was rejected by Rother’s council in favor of their more subtle plan employing subterfuge and disguise; but in this doubling of the wooer’s journey, Rother follows Berchter’s counsel. This time he will not travel to Constantinople

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disguised as a knight errant (in recken wis, line 589) with his exiled followers, but as the leader of a great army, ready to do battle if other means fail. His vassals vie with each other to show their loyalty to their king and to his undertaking (parallel to S.-C. §A.3).

Notes 1

The merchant disguise is a motif in international folklore (K 1817.4).

2

This clearly contradicts Hans-Joachim Böckenholt’s criticism of her excessive love for courtly splendor and fancy ornament, which he suggests originally attracted her to “Dietrich”; Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: privately published, 1971), 36, He does, however, acknowledge that this is a blind motif, supplanted by an emphasis on her caritas. George F. Lussky, too, claims that a preference for superficial things, beautiful clothes, jewelry, power, and wealth, characterizes the women in the epic; however, he does concede that the princess places less emphasis on these things, and that her concern for the sick in this episode demonstrates she has a heart; Lussky, “Die Frauen in der mitlelhochdeutschen Spielmannsdichtung,” in Studies in German Literature in Honor of Alexander R. Hohlfeld by His Students and Colleagues, University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 22 (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1925), 121–22. 3

Magic stones with the power to heal wounds, as well as the selling of such stones, is a motif in international folklore (D 1331.1 and K 115, respectively). Antonie Schreier-Hornung sees this fraud perpetrated by the minstrel as an attempt by the composer of the written version of the epic, whom she deems to be a cleric, to undermine the minstrels’ fabled association with a knowledge of black magic and miraculous potions (150–51) by exposing his deception to the audience; SchreierHornung, Spielleute, Fahrende, Außenseiter: Künstler der mittelalterlichen Welt, GAG 328 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1981), 188–93. For her, the poet emphasizes the importance of belief in the Christian faith by preaching that putting one’s faith in magic is foolish and warning against believing in deceivers like the minstrel, who could also lead those who are listening to or reading the text into misfortune similar to that of Rother’s queen (189–90). 4

See also Gudula Dinser, Kohärenz und Struktur: Textlinguistische und erzähltechnische Untersuchungen von “König Rother,” Böhlau forum litterarum 3 (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1975), 62n188; 104. 5

Christian Gellinek suggests that this is an indirect reference to her pregnancy, in that she is seasick because of it; Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 14. 6

Gertrude of Nivelles (626–59) was actually the daughter of Pippin the Elder of Landen (ca. 580–640), the founder of the Carolingian dynasty, who served as Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia under the Merovingian kings Dagobert I and Sigebert III. It was not Pippin the Elder but his great-great-grandson, Pippin III the Short (714–68), who was the father of Charlemagne. See Christian Gellinek,

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“Die Rolle der Heiligen im König Rother,” JEGP 64 (1965): 497–500, and Ferdinand Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im “König Rother,” PSuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 183. Edward Schröder notes that a faked document of the 12th century indicates that Gertrude, a sister of Charlemagne, was a benefactor of Frankish convents, and this likely resulted in the merging of the two Carolingian Gertrudes into one; Schröder, “Die heilige Gertrud im König Rother,” ZfdA 57 (1920): 144. Gellinek reminds readers that the “synchronization” of historical figures is not an unknown practice in medieval fiction (Gellinek, “Die Rolle der Heiligen,” 497). Stricker’s Karl der Große, composed sometime between 1210– 50, also represents Charlemagne and St. Gertrude as siblings; Karl der Große von dem Stricket, ed. Karl Bartsch, Bibliothek der gesammten deutschen NationalLiteratur, Abth. 1, 35 (Quedlinburg and Leipzig: G. Basse, 1857; repr., Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1965), line 140.

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for Greece, this time with twenty-two ships, 30,000 men, and the twelve giants, in order to retrieve his bride (S.C. §C.2.e, as parallel to §B.2). But though he has tremendous military might at his disposal, he will first attempt to achieve his goal through list, a strategy of dealing with his enemies that had proven so successful for him as a wooer. They land a mile from Constantinople, and Rother’s men hide themselves in a wood outside the city. The king disguises himself as a pilgrim (in walleres wise, line 3668)1 — as before he had disguised his identity as “Dietrich” — in order that he might more easily reconnoiter the situation. This pilgrim’s disguise, a motif from international folklore (K 1817.2; as a means to enter an enemy’s camp, K 2357.2), is the classic ruse by which a city is taken in the minstrel and heroic epics (Kofler 1996, 47).2 A pilgrim could always gain easy access to the court, since he was a welcome visitor who potentially brought news from distant parts that he had acquired during his travels (Schmitz 2002, 184); moreover, the pilgrim’s habit, black robe with hood, and long beard provide a convenient way of hiding one’s face. He also has with him Wolfrat von Tengelingen’s horn — a doubling of “Dietrich”’s harp — which he will sound, should he run into danger. Accompanied only by Berchter and (presumably) Luppolt, in similar disguise, Rother makes his way toward the city. Along the way they encounter a knight, apparently one of the exiles at Constantin’s court who was a recipient of “Dietrich”’s generosity (lines 3724–25, 3789–91).3 He asks them for news, but his request goes unfulfilled, since it is they who seek information from him. Acting as a second narrator in a tale-within-the-tale, he structures his narrative in two parts, echoing the structure of the work as a whole (Stock 2002, 271–72), beginning with a description of Rother’s successful bridal quest and continuing, after a brief interruption, with the minstrel’s kidnapping of Rother’s bride, all of which is known to Rother, and to the reader. Then new information is revealed, which neither has heard: Ymelot has once again attacked Constantin and this time has been victorious. Ymelot’s victory over Constantin has apparently reduced the latter to the status of a vassal to the infidel king (Neuendorff 1982, 199), thus fulfilling Ymelot’s earlier threat, which at that time could only be countered through “Dietrich”’s intervention. Ymelot’s subsequent actions, however, seem to signify that he still regards the defeated Constantin as a king of sufficiently important status (Zimmermann 1993, 186–87), in that he seeks a dynastic marriage between his son, OTHER AGAIN SETS SAIL

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Basilistium,4 and Constantin’s daughter. Rother has arrived just in time, for the marriage is to be consummated that very night. Marriages between Christians and non-Christians (Jews or infidels) were forbidden by canon law, according to Gratian in the Decretum (C. 28 q. 1 d.a.c. 15 and c. 15–17). Constantin’s motive for acquiescing in such a union is made perfectly clear in the text and does not redound to his credit: he bargains for his own life with the happiness of his daughter (Dinser 1975, 20): do loste Constantin sinen lif unde gaf daz Rotheres wif deme vreislichen koninge van woster Babilonie. des sune sal sie nemin hinacht. . . . (lines 3810–14) [Then Constantin redeemed his life and gave Rother’s wife to the abominable king of Desert Babylon; his son will take her this very night.]

This proposed marriage, as opposed to Rother’s elopement with Constantin’s daughter without his consent, adheres to the proper form of the Muntehe: it is contracted with the public assent of both families, and Constantin receives a marriage portion — his life. Since Rother has done nothing to gain Constantin’s retroactive consent to his Friedelehe, it remains from the latter’s perspective a raptus in parentes and thus invalid. He is therefore exercising his legal right as her father and guardian to negotiate with Ymelot for her hand. While he can assume that her marriage by consent to Rother has been consummated, he, along with everyone aside from the reader, and perhaps his daughter, has no way of knowing that she is pregnant. In practice, however, what he is doing would also create an invalid union, for it violates the prohibition against vis et metus (force and fear), which is a hindrance to legitimate Catholic marriage and was also forbidden by contemporary Byzantine marriage law (M. Schulz 2005, 49). Constantin agrees to give his daughter to Basilistium out of fear, and his daughter is not asked for, nor does she give, her consent. As has been noted, it is consent above all that makes a marriage. Zimmermann (1993, 186–87), however, is convinced that Constantin willingly agrees to this marriage because he finds in Basilistium that which he did not find in Rother: a wooer of appropriate status for his daughter’s hand. In addition, an alliance with Basilistium’s family will increase the security of Constantin’s own realm, since he will be able to depend on Ymelot’s army to guarantee it, even against Rother himself. Her interpretation would seem to ignore the important fact that Basilistium is not a Christian, a fact that alone that would surely demean his status in the eyes of the contemporary reader. One might suggest, furthermore, that

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in making this bargain, Constantin is actually placing himself on the same level as the infidels by engaging in this essentially un-Christian act (Schreier-Hornung 1981, 185), thus totally disqualifying any claim he himself might have to sovereignty over the Christian world (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 331) as a defender of the church. The knight hopes that Christ will undertake to turn the impending evil of this day to the good, a hope that the three “pilgrims” share. Once Rother is again alone with his loyal men, he expresses his despair over his wife’s impending remarriage, weeping bitter tears, as did Constantin when he learned of his daughter’s elopement, and wringing his hands (lines 3830–31). Rother, however, does not faint; he acts. The fate of Rother’s wife seems very bleak indeed, for in Ymelot Rother has an enemy who is equal to him in military strength and far cleverer and far more dangerous than was Constantin (Stock 2002, 272–73), when Rother managed to outwit him and elope with his daughter. She, for her part, is apparently continuing her strategy of silence as a form of passive resistance, for the text cites not one word spoken by her since her expression of her own and Rother’s presumed suffering over her abduction by her father. The knight confirms, however, that her suffering continues unabated: “dar stat Rotheres wif / unde quelit den erlichin lib: / van herzeleide daz ist” (There stands Rother’s wife and torments her honorable self: this she does from heartfelt sorrow, lines 3820–22). Constantin, for his part, evidences no sympathy for her plight; he does not seem to appreciate, and indeed is incapable of appreciating, that she now fully identifies with her status as Rother’s wife and no longer as his daughter. It is also as Rother’s wife (Rotheris wib, line 3848) that she is referred to by the narrator, even as she is about to be given to another man by her father, a circumstance that both emphasizes her unity with the hero and contributes to the narrative tension by reminding the reader that this unity is threatened. Rother makes his way to Constantinople to join the throng of those celebrating the marriage festivities, a motif familiar in international literature and folklore as The Timely Homecomer (“Der rechtzeitige Heimkehrer,” Geissler 1955, 86–88) or The Husband at the Wedding of his Wife (Schirmunski 1961, 56, 109–10), the classic example of which is Odysseus. Within Rother’s hearing Constantin reveals to his daughter a prophetic dream — another folkloristic element in this sequence of action (M 302.7) — in which she is taken to Rome by a falcon.5 Unlike the feigned dream she had revealed to him as part of her ruse to establish Rother’s true identity, this dream is indeed the harbinger of things to come: “nu swic, tochter min! mir troumite nochte von der — des saltu wol geloubin mir —,

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wie ein valke quame gevlogin von Rome unde vorte dich widir over mere.” (lines 3851–56) [“Now be silent, my daughter! I dreamed this night, in this you should believe me, that a falcon came flying from Rome and led you back again across the sea.”]

Here the narrator again plays on the disparate levels of understanding between the characters in the text and the reader. That the falcon is a metaphor often signifying the beloved in Minnesang and epic6 would suggest to the reader that the falcon represents Rother and foreshadows a happy end to the tale. Constantin obviously interprets it otherwise and offers it as proof to her — “nu swic, tochter min!” — of the rightness of his actions. He seems to understand the falcon as signifying Basilistium, and the dream as presaging the conquest of Rome and its integration into the heathen empire, which would permit the return of his daughter as queen to Rome without Constantin’s having to acknowledge her as Rother’s wife (Zimmermann 1993, 188n46). Whether or not Rother’s wife interprets Constantin’s dream correctly is not expressed in the text. Her protest of silence, however, is finally broken in response to the braggadocio of the infidel kings, as they praise their own military might and threaten to drown Rother in the sea, or worse, should he dare to reappear in Constantinople. “owi, gesentin unse trechtin under uch so richin, he worchte etlicheme, daz he in sivin nachtin virsmerze nine mochte!” (lines 3869–73) [“Alas, if only our Lord would send him amongst you, as mighty as you are, he would wreak such things that you would not get over your pain for seven nights!”]

Her words hearten Rother as an expression of her continuing loyalty to him and her confidence in his ability to defeat their common enemy. Sitting at her feet upon a footstool (vozschemil, line 3875), a gesture that echoes their first meeting, when he knelt to place the golden shoes upon her feet (Gellinek 1968, 29), he surreptitiously passes to her a golden ring with his name engraved upon it. The implied (golden) shoes of footstool symbolically evoke the initiation of their marriage by consent, and the golden ring, a “symbol of conjugal faith,”7 is a confirmation of its enduring quality (M. Schulz 2005, 49). Although de Vries (1922/74, ci) finds this gesture a ridiculous invention of the poet, borrowed from the legend of Solomon, the recognition of the lover by means of a ring is a

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common motif in folklore (H 94) and in bridal-quest literature (Geissler 1955, 206–7). Here again, as was the case when the courtship messengers learned of Rother’s presence by means of his harping and when the golden shoes signaled his identity to his prospective bride, recognition is achieved by means of a sign: human relationships in this text, as Schröder (1955/77, 335–36) has noted, are indeed often signaled by objects. Her happy reaction to Rother’s presence is further confirmation of her loyalty to him, just as it represents a contrast to her weeping over the proposed marriage to Basilistium, and she eagerly shares the glad news with her supportive mother: als in [=des koningis name] die vrǒwe gelas, daz Rother in deme sale was, do lachete die gote unde sagetiz ir motir, daz in von Bare der kuninc kumen ware. (lines 3880–85) [When the lady had read it (=the king’s name), that he was in the room, the good woman laughed and said to her mother that the king had come to them from Bari.]

This laughter parallels her mother’s own laughter as she had earlier contemplated Constantin’s reaction to Rother’s abduction of their daughter. Constantin, ever the misinterpreter of signs, misunderstands the reason for his daughter’s behavior and mistakenly rejoices that she, too, is now happy at the prospect of her marriage to Basilistium. In a doctored oath, through which she again demonstrates her facility in guile, she promises her father that she will never be angry with him again. Ymelot, however, is not so easily fooled and sees through her ruse, suspecting the presence of spies sent by Rother; prophetically he vows that if he is wrong, he will forfeit his own head. Basilistium suspects that Rother himself is present and calls upon him not to behave as a fleeing thief (line 3926); this is too ironic, in that he himself is attempting to steal away Rother’s wife. Ironic, as well, is the notion that Constantin, whose fitness as king has been questioned throughout the text, then demands that Rother reveal himself for the sake of his kingly honor (lines 3927–29). As the exits are being blocked Rother hides under a table with Berchter. In what seems like an almost grotesque parody (Stein 1988, 328) of the maxim that a good king should always seek the counsel of wise men, they engage in a long consultation of twenty-one lines — the additional presence of Luppolt must be assumed, although the narrator does not mention him — as to what they should now do. Berchter counsels that they should trust in God, the Heavenly King — one notes the emphasis on God’s kingship — and all his hosts (lines 3934–35) to protect them

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from the infidels, as He had helped the Israelites cross the Red Sea (lines 3939–47). They surrender themselves in the name of St. Giles (Gilies, Ægidius), one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, which may be an attempt at humor (Gellinek 1968, 98), since, according to legend, Giles’s hermitage was also discovered by accident, when hunters inadvertently wounded him instead of the hind he protected. The allusion to St. Giles may also be another foreshadowing of the success of Rother’s quest to retrieve his wife and guarantee the future of his dynasty, for the legend of St. Giles also asserts that he was the confessor of Charlemagne.8 When Rother does come out of his hiding place, as Stock has observed, he divests himself at last of all disguises; it is the first time that Consantin and his court, as well as the infidels, actually see him for who he truly is. Basilistium threatens to have Rother drowned as punishment for his having taken Ymelot captive, and Constantin, too, demands a shameful death for him (he sal ovele erstervet sin! line 3972). At first glance his capture and the pronouncement of a death sentence seem to indicate that Rother has, despite all his cleverness, reached a moment of crisis (Stock 2002, 273): that while his ruses were effective against Constantin, and even against Ymelot, during his first wooing expedition, they are not now adequate to his purpose, unless, of course, one believes that being captured is an anticipated part of his plan to rescue his wife. Schröder (1955/77, 343) and Neuendorff (1982, 181) have suggested that his disguise may not have been intended to fool them at all, and the failure of that disguise could actually have been the ruse of an unsuccessful ruse that was intended to be uncovered. Whether or not capture was part of his original ruse, Rother’s subsequent duplicitous expression of resignation to his fate indicates that he is still able to turn to his own advantage what appears to be a defeat. Cunning has not abandoned him, and the narrator’s description of his response to the situation as clever or wise indicates that his words signify more than their literal meaning indicates. Rother goes on to propose to Basilistium the manner and the place of his own execution, designating a hill near the wood where his Roman soldiers are lying in wait (lines 3977–79): do sprach der koninc riche harde wisliche: “wer mir nu der lif, sone mochte ich doch genesen nit. sies du ienez geberge stan vor deme walde lossam? dar wil ich hangin!” (lines 3973–76) [Then the mighty king spoke most cleverly: “If I were to escape with only my life, I have no desire to survive. Do you see the hill standing before that lovely wood? There I wish to be hanged.”]

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Once again Rother is effectively able to compel his adversaries to act according to his own rules in order to serve his own purposes (Kiening 1998, 229). His disguise as a pilgrim had provided the only means by which he could gain access to his wife without resorting to overt violence, his army against the combined forces of Constantin and Ymelot. Placing his troops in hiding near the city indicates that he anticipated the possibility that a military clash might become a necessity and planned for this contingency, if not that he specifically intended to let himself be taken prisoner in order to trick the enemy forces into marching into an ambush. If the ruse of the pilgrim’s disguise is itself part of that more elaborate ruse, it is one that deceives both his enemies and the reader, who fears the worst for Rother until he demands execution near the wood. At that moment the narrative tension is resolved, as the reader learns that all is not lost, because cunning Rother does indeed, at least now, have a plan. While the interpretation of Rother’s capture as the ruse of an unsuccessful ruse is certainly intriguing, both Stein (1988, 326) and Stock (2002, 273n 152) find it somewhat far-fetched when one considers the serious consilium between Rother and Berchter under the table: Rother would have to have been gulling loyal Berchter, as well as the reader, which would violate his practice of never using guile to deceive his own people, and would reveal his stated trust in God and St. Giles as a sham. Citing a Roman law previously unmentioned in the text, that a legal act such as the execution of a prince requires it be witnessed by other princes, Rother then demands that Ymelot and thirty of his vassal-kings also accompany him to the designated hill. This seems at first counterintuitive: if Rother is merely hoping his own men will rescue him, the fewer guards he would have, the better. But the narrator again reassures the reader with explicit statements that Rother speaks most cleverly (harde wisliche, line 3974) and his words are spoken as part of a subterfuge (daz wart durch list gesprochen, line 3994). Rother’s wife, however, is unaware of the narrator’s comforting words. When she sees Rother taken into custody by Ymelot’s men and hears her father agree to help them, going so far as to demand that Berchter be executed as well, so that none of the Romans ever learn the fate of their king (lines 4006–13), she is overcome with grief and faints, another expression of the suffering passivity (Böckenholt 1971, 39) that characterizes her portrayal during the second half of the text: wie harte truren began die iunge koninginne unde virwandelote die sinne von grozir herzeleide! (lines 4017–20) [How greatly the young queen began to lament, and her senses failed from her great, heartfelt sorrow.]

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Her overt passivity in this instance, however, has the effect of action, in that it triggers a response among the ladies of the court. The news of what has taken place eventually spreads throughout Constantinople and prompts Count Arnolt and his men, weeping over Rother’s fate, to remember his generosity to them. In this way, one could say that she is once again, albeit indirectly, taking an active role in securing her own happiness with Rother, in that what begins as an outpouring of a wife’s desperate grief over the fate of her husband actually becomes the mechanism of delivery from that grief. The narrator is quick to assure the reader that Arnolt will rescue Rother from the abominable (vreissam) King Ymelot (lines 4027–29). It is in this speech that the tone of the text explicitly changes: the military confrontation between husband and father-in-law or, alternatively, with his rival for the hand of his wife, traditional in the perilous bridal quest (S.-C. §C.2.f), begins to take on the mood of a Crusade, a “Kreuzzugsstimmung” (de Vries 1922/74, lvin1), or at least the mentality of a Crusade “Kreuzzugsgesinnung” (Kokott 1979–85, 36). Arnolt focuses his justified rage not on Constantin, who had treated him and his fellow exiles in Constantinople so shamefully and who is now an active participant in the intended execution of the virtuous Rother, but on Ymelot and Basilistium. Arnolt cites their faith,9 not the injustice of their actions against Rother, as his motivation, and with the help of St. Giles and St. John the Baptist,10 he hopes to destroy them: “Nunar, goten knechte, lazit it an minen trechtin und hælfit im vromicliche: ir virdinet daz himilriche, . . . ia vore wir godis recht! swer hie hute wirt irsclagin, des sele sal genaden haven. die heiden sulwir slan!” (lines 4067–75) [“Now onward, excellent warriors, leave the matter to Our Lord and assist Him courageously: you will thus earn a Heavenly reward, for we act in the cause of God! Whosoever shall be slain today, his soul will receive His mercy. We must slay the infidels!”]

The concept of Rother’s rescue as a holy war against the infidels (Stock 2002, 275), introduced into the text by the character of Arnolt and advocated solely by him (Meves 1976, 39, 64; Kokott 1978, 109), alters the inner dynamic of the work, for the infidels are the enemies of both Rother and Constantin. Heretofore the tension between wooer and father of the bride, the good king and iniquitous king, dominated, as is proper to the bridal quest. The invasion of Constantinople by the infidel kings, although regarded with explicit horror by Constantin’s Christian

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subjects, particularly the ladies of his court, served the wooer’s purposes: the distraction of their invasion enabled Rother to elope with his bride. Constantin’s subsequent defeat by Ymelot, which gave him the opportunity to use his daughter to bargain for his own life, again places Constantin squarely in the camp of Rother’s enemies, a position to which he adjusts very quickly, despite his Christianity, as he eagerly gives his support to their intention of destroying Rother. Yet by framing the rescue of Rother as a conflict between Christians and infidels, Arnolt implicitly places Constantin on the same side as Rother, and his rescue of the latter will have the concomitant effect of also freeing the defeated Greek Christians from the yoke of their Moslem conquerors. In this way Arnolt can be viewed as representing the ideal image of the knight-Crusader (Urbanek 1974, 80), who exhorts his men explicitly to fight for the cause of God and against those who do not believe in Him. His speeches are infused with the language and slogans of contemporary Crusade rhetoric (Urbanek 1976, 178; Neuendorff 1982, 182; Stein 1988, 329). Whether or not the poet intended Arnolt’s campaign to be identified with a genuine Crusade in the historical world (Wentzlaff-Eggebert 1960, 115–16; Dobozy 1985, 129, 133, 141) or merely as similar to a Crusade (for example, Szklenar 1966, 146), the text is certainly tinged at this point with the ideological rhetoric that sustained the idea of a holy war. Kofler (1996, 202–3), however, theorizes that styling great battles in the form of a Crusade replete with the appropriate rhetoric may have been an attempt to modernize the archaic sources of twelfth-century texts without actually importing the attendant Crusade ethic or ideology. The idea of a holy war is not here being advanced by a representative of the church — no priests appear, nor are masses said before the battle11 — but by members of the knightly class who see themselves as the effectors of divine wrath (Fischer 2003, 230–32). Even they, however, are actually fighting, not for their God, but out of feudal loyalty to King Rother (Kofler 1996, 190). Furthermore, there is no journey to the Holy Land, nor any attempt to convert the infidels, but merely the desire to kill them. This would also serve to distinguish Arnolt’s intention from that of a genuine Crusade (Gellinek 1968, 14–15, 88).12 Rother, Berchter, and Luppolt are led to their place of execution by Ymelot and Basilistium, accompanied by their thirty vassal-kings with their troops and 100,000 Cuman soldiers (Valewin, line 4097).13 With a reliquary bound to his lance (line 4102) Arnolt attacks the infidels with his cohort of five thousand men, again exhorting his men to victory, but this time with the promise of a twofold reward, a divine one for those who fall in the ensuing battle and an earthly one for the survivors: “nu horet, gote knechte, warumbe wir hute vechtin:

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uns sint gebotin zwei lon, wi mugin iz deste gerner ton! daz ist sichirliche daz schone himelriche. swe hie ligit tot, des sele wirt geledigot in daz wunnichliche leven: waz mochte dar bezzeris sin gegevin? daz ander ist also getan: generder den getruwin man, er vorit uch in sin lant unde behalt unsich alle samt!” (lines 4125–38) [“Now hear, excellent warriors, why we fight today: we are offered two rewards, so that we might do this all the more eagerly! One is certainly beautiful Heaven. Whosoever lies dead here, his soul will be freed into that blissful life: what could possibly be better than that? The other consists in this: should he save this loyal man (=Rother), he will take you to his land and will care for all of us together.”]

Arnolt thus acknowledges Rother for what he truly is, a noble king whose generosity cannot be matched, even by the king in Constantinople, and he intends, with his vassals, to serve him in the future when he returns to his Roman kingdom. Inasmuch as Rother’s rescue serves God’s purpose as well, it does so in the context of the preservation of the feudal order ordained by Him, which demands that Rother’s exalted status be acknowledged and defended (Zimmermann 1993, 194–204). When Arnolt fights his way to Rother, the king urges Arnolt to cut his bonds, so that he might sound his horn in order to summon his hidden army of Romans and giants to battle. Oddly enough, it is not Rother himself who blows the horn but Luppolt, and the horn call is recognized by Asprian as his, not that of Rother. Why it is that Rother does not himself signal for reinforcements remains obscure, although it is clearly meant to be understood as significant; otherwise, the narrator would not deem it necessary to be so specific about it. Perhaps it is meant to underscore once again Rother’s general preference for subterfuge over direct involvement in acts of violence; perhaps, to give Luppolt the opportunity to repay Rother for his earlier rescue of him and the other bridal messengers from Constantin’s prison by rescuing Rother from certain death; or perhaps, to give him the opportunity to redeem himself for having failed to protect Rother’s queen from abduction. Perhaps it is a conscious attempt on the part of the poet to distinguish this horn call from that of Roland at Roncevaux, where Oliver and Roland famously argue over whether or not sounding the Oliphant to summon Charlemagne to battle is a sign of cowardice (Chanson de Roland, lines 1049–92; Rolandslied, lines 3864–93).

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Having recognized Luppolt’s signal, Asprian fears for the lives of Rother (line 4203) and Luppolt, since the latter is the foundation of all loyalty (gruntveste allir trowe, line 4206). The twelve giants then join the fray, followed by Wolfrat of Tengelingen, who leads the human warriors. The heroic deeds of Rother’s vassals and those loyal to Arnolt are recounted in some enthusiastic detail. Erwin, for example, slices one of Ymelot’s vassalkings in half, from shoulder to saddle, to avenge the near-hanging of his father, Berchter (lines 4272–76). Witold runs among the wounded infidels lying on the battlefield, silencing their moans by stepping on their faces with his giant foot (lines 4281–84). There is no mention of Rother’s active participation in the slaughter of the infidels; the single command issued by him is a warning to Asprian to make sure that the Roman forces do not mistakenly attack Arnolt’s men in the general slaughter. Luppolt seems to be responsible for destroying Rother’s enemies; Rother, for ensuring the safety of those loyal to him. If this conflict is meant to signify a Crusade, Rother takes no part in or direct responsibility for it, for he is never directly associated with the military action (Siegmund 1959, 18). He is motivated here not by religious fervor, but by his desire to destroy Basilistium, the rival for his wife’s hand (Gellinek 1968, 88), and to restore his honor by avenging his humiliation as a captive of Ymelot. That his enemies are infidels is not of primary importance to him at this moment, although the battle to validate his honor and to defend God’s good order do merge here, for Ymelot not only rules over all the lands of the infidels, but also seeks to extend infidel rule to every land at the expense of Christianity. In the course of his bridal quest Rother’s transitory victory over Ymelot had elevated him beyond a great temporal king to defender of the faith, but his final defeat of the infidels and the annihilation of their army, a victory granted by God, is a direct, divine confirmation of the legitimacy of his sovereignty (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 335). Ymelot is permitted to escape, so that he can tell those back in Desert Babylon who it was who defeated him (lines 4288–92). Basilistium is not so fortunate: he is hanged instead of Rother, his rival for the hand of Constantin’s daughter (S.-C. §C.2.f.ii). This means that Ymelot is now in the same position as was Rother at the beginning of his quest, a father with no heir.

Notes 1

Walter Johannes Schröder suggests that this disguise is meant to win the Greeks over to his side, making the later battle against the infidels seem more a conflict of Roman and Orthodox Christians against the infidels, not Romans against Byzantines; Schröder, “König Rother, Gehalt und Struktur,” DVjs 29 (1955): 301–22, repr. In Spielmannsepik, ed. Schröder, WdF 385 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 323–50, here 336–37.

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2

On the portrayal of pilgrims in the minstrel epics see also Ingeborg KöppeBenath, “Christliches in den Spielmannsepen König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” PBBH 89 (1967): 237. 3

Michael Curschmann is surely overinterpreting when he suggests that Rother’s assuming a pilgrim’s disguise signifies his humility; Curschmann, Der Münchener Oswald und die deutsche spielmännische Epik: Mit einem Exkurs zur Kultgeschichte und Dichtungstradition, MTU 6 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1964), 107. Although the exiled knight does describe “Dietrich” as humble or mild-tempered (othmote, line 3748) in the context of his generosity toward the exiles, Rother’s new disguise itself is merely another subterfuge. See also Peter K. Stein, “‘Do newistich weiz hette getan. Ich wolde sie alle ir slagen hanc’: Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zum König Rother,” in Festschrift für Ingo Reiffenstein zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Stein, Gerold Hayer, Renate Hausner, Ulrich Müller, and Franz V. Spechtler (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1988), 326. Curschmann also suggests (326n2) that the presence of Berchter and Luppolt on this mission might be a reminiscence of the honor theme from part 1 of the epic. 4

Christian Gellinek suggests that the name Basilistium is derived from Greek basiliskos (little king), the diminutive of basileus, and is used here to ridicule the infidels, since the Greeks also used basiliskos to designate the winter wren (Troglodytes troglodytes); Gellinek, König Rother: Studie zur literarischen Deutung (Bern: Francke, 1968), 82. This is likely an overly subtle interpretation, given the fact that it was an actual Greek name most famously borne by the Byzantine anti-Emperor Basiliskos (Flavius Basiliscus), who briefly deposed Zeno (r. 474– 91) in 475. Rodney Fisher also finds here a lexical connection with “basiliskos,” but in terms of the legendary reptile whose gaze was lethal, reputed to be the king of serpents; Fisher, Studies in the Demonic in Selected Middle High German Epics, GAG 132 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1974), 49n1. This suggests to him “a demonic affinity similar to Ymelot’s own, through pride, with Lucifer.” Monika Schulz identifies Ymelot with the infidel fathers of the bride found in other minstrel epics; M. Schulz, “Die falsche Braut: Imperative feudaler Herrschaft in Texten um 1200; Zur Instrumentalisierung des nudus consensus in den sogenannten ‘Spielmannsepen,’” ZfdPh 121 (2002): 7. 5

Emil Benezé suggests that this dream would have made more sense had it been assigned to the queen; Benezé, Das Traummotiv in der mittelhochdeutschen Dichtung bis 1250 und in alten deutschen Volksliedern, Sagen- und litterarhistorische Untersuchungen 1 (Halle/Saale: M. Niemeyer, 1897), 36–37. Dreams and their interpretations were often the province of women in medieval secular literature; one thinks here of Queen Uote’s interpretation of the falcon dream of her daughter, Kriemhild, in the Nibelungenlied (stanzas 13–14). Benezé’s theory, were it true, would provide a further motive for Rother’s wife to share the secret of Rother’s presence in the hall only with her mother, in addition to the fact that her mother has been a constant supporter of their union. See Hans-Joachim Böckenholt, Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in den mittelhochdeutschen ‘Spielmannsdichtungen’: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des literarhistorischen Standorts der Epen “König Rother,” “Salman und Morolf,” “St. Oswald” und “Orendel” (Münster: privately published, 1971), 51 and n127.

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6

Gellinek notes that the falcon symbolizes a king in Greek-Byzantine interpretations of dreams (König Rother, 62). 7

Christian Gellinek, “Marriage by Consent in Literary Sources of Medieval Germany,” Studia Gratiana 12 (1967): 573. The wooer’s giving a ring, the annulus pronubus, to his betrothed as a pledge of intent, like the betrothal kiss, is of Romano-Christian origin and was a custom known already among the Visigoths and Langobards. See Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: the Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 24 (Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1994), 92. Gellinek also notes that the mutual exchange of rings (mutatio anulorum) at the wedding itself was not practiced in Germany before the marriage of Duke Otto IV of Brunswick, Count of Poitou, to Beatrix of Swabia, in 1204, a custom that only became widespread in the thirteenth century (“Marriage by Consent,” 579). See also Gernot Kocher, “Ehering,” in HRG, ed. Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück, and Dieter Werkmüller, 2nd rev. ed., 6 vols. (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 2004–), 1: col. 1221–23, esp. the bibliography. 8

Since Rother is invoking the help of St. Giles († ca. 710), the latter is obviously already deceased. An allusion here to the Charlemagne of the future (b. 747) would clearly be a hysteron proteron within the chronology of this work. But one might assume that the association of St. Giles with Charlemagne was so familiar to the audience that this chronological gaffe might pass unnoticed. 9

On the portrayal of infidels in the minstrel epic in general, see Köppe-Benath, “Christliches in den ‘Spielmannsepen’ König Rother, Orendel und Salman und Morolf,” PBBH 89 (1967): 228–33. 10

It is curious to note that St. John the Baptist also had a special relationship to the historical King Rothari, from whom Rother may have derived his name. Paulus Diaconus tells of a thief who despoiled Rothari’s tomb near a church dedicated to St. John (either in Modicia or Ticinum) and was subsequently punished for this infamy by the saint (book 4, §47); Paulus Diaconus, Historia gentis Langobardorum, ed. Ludwig Konrad Bethmann and Georg Waitz, MGH 48 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1878). See also König Rother: Mittelhochdeutscher Text und neuhochdeutsche Übersetzung, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz, Beatrix Kroll, and Ruth Weichselbaumer, trans. Peter K. Stein, Universal-Bibliothek 18047 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), 452–53, n. to 4076–77. 11

The obvious comparison is Roland’s battle against the Saracens, where in a rousing speech Archbishop Turpin of Reims grants absolution and a place in paradise to those who fall at Roncevaux (Chanson de Roland, lines 1124–38; Rolandslied, lines 3905–40). For a discussion of the various interpretations of Pope Urban II’s famous promise — at least according to the report of Fuocher of Chartres — of remissio peccatorum (remission of sins) and an æterna præmia (eternal reward) during his call to the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095, see Walter Kofler, Der Held im Heidenkrieg und Exil: Zwei Beiträge zur deutschen Spielmanns- und Heldendichtung, GAG 625 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1996), 156–61. According to Robert the Monk, who claimed actually to have been present, Urban II promised remission of sins, but only “the assurance of ‘glory which cannot fade’ [1 Peter 5:4] in the kingdom of Heaven”; James A.

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Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary Survey (Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 1962), 19. 12

Eva-Maria Woelker, Menschengestaltung in vorhöfischen Epen des 12. Jahrhunderts: Chanson de Roland / Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad / König Rother, Germanische Studien 221 (Berlin: Ebering, 1940; repr., Nedeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1969), seems of two minds as to whether a Crusade is being represented here. While she claims that the subsequent battle against the infidels is a holy Crusade against them (157), she later suggests it is not being mounted as a Crusade (260n417). 13

The Cumans were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe, fabled for their bloodthirstiness, who dwelled in an area, Cumania, north and west of the Black Sea. Gellinek believes the narrator is using this designation as a pejorative word for the Greek troops, since only infidels and Greeks are otherwise mentioned in the text (König Rother, 90). See also Bennewitz et al., König Rother, 453, n. to 4097.

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of the battle against the infidels, there is no mention of Constantin, who does not personally take part in the attempt to execute Rother. This serves to create some narrative distance between him and his infidel allies. The narrator moves the focus from the battlefield to the city by following the path of one of the minstrels, who has escaped death with only a shaved head and a beating at the hands of Grimme, as he returns to the court to report what has transpired. He warns them that Rother will now hang them all, unless they flee. Hanging Constantin would, of course, be the perfect response to his having actively encouraged Rother’s hanging by the infidels. It is not without irony that the narrator mentions Constantin’s wealth and might at the very moment his vassals prepare to abandon him and flee for their lives, and he sits helplessly awaiting the fate he so richly deserves: URING THE NARRATION

Die hueven sich ze vluchtin. do saz in leiden trechtin Constantin der riche ime harde lasterliche. (lines 4329–32) [They sprang up in order to flee. There sat in unhappy contemplation the mighty Constantin, to his great shame.]

Constantin has reached his low point, and he would no doubt be even unhappier, were he aware of Grimme’s plans for him. Grimme proposes that they fetch Rother’s wife, then burn Constantinople to the ground and slay all its inhabitants, including Constantin — the “good” queen seems forgotten here — sparing only those who manage to flee the burning city and evade the watchful eye of Witold, who will guard the city’s gate (lines 4387–96). The rationale for Asprian’s immediate rejection of Grimme’s plan is not based upon the significance of Constantin’s kingly status or position as father of the bride, but upon Constantinople’s importance in the history of Christianity: seven of the twelve Apostles had lived there, as well as Constantin’s mother,1 St. Helena, who had discovered the True Cross. Even Constantin’s unworthiness in allying himself with the infidels cannot diminish that importance.2 The giants agree not to destroy the city, a decision echoed by Luppolt and Berchter, who counsel Rother to send for his wife without further violence against Constantin for fear of offending against God and thereby endangering Rother’s immortal soul (line 4464). While the fact that Rother does not

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deal as harshly with his father-in-law as the latter deserves may indeed be a sign of his moderation and self-control (Schwietering 1931/57, 108) or, as has often been suggested, by his Christian ethic, particularly caritas (for example, Schröder 1955/77, 343–44; Neuendorff 1984, 183–84), the text makes it clear that his mercy is not an exclusively personal decision, but rather a reflection of the collective wisdom of his soldiers (giants) and counselors. Were Rother to destroy Constantin, who is himself a sovereign Christian ruler, in the course of demonstrating his sovereignty over the Christian world by destroying the infidel aggressors, he would place the unity of that world in danger (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 331). Zur Nieden (1930, 25), on the other hand, finds no significance in Rother’s sparing of the city and points out an obvious historical consideration: Constantinople cannot be destroyed in the text, because the contemporary reader would have known that the city still existed. Constantin, fortunately, also sees the error of his ways, and this offers an objective rationale for sparing him (Neuendorff 1984, 198). Rother’s victory over Ymelot forces Constantin to reflect on his behavior toward Rother (Meves 1976, 39). His journey to regret and reconciliation, however, is not so much motivated by ethical considerations as by the fear of what will happen to him now, as he explains to the queen: “owi, trut vrove min, daz ich ie den lif min gewan: mich slant Rotheres man! wie grozer kintheit it gewelt, daz ich ime sin wif nam: dar gescach mir ovele an! iz was ouch alliz ane not, he hette mir wol gedienot. des woldich deme richen hude bosliche lonin mit deme galgin. . . . die grove hetich gegravin, ic moz dar selve in varin,3 so iz allir wedichet ist, mich innere der waldindige Crist unde die gude koningin.”4 (lines 4513–31) [“Alas, dear wife of mine, I rue that I was ever born: Rother’s men will slay me! What a great childish thing I did, when I took his wife from him. Because of that, evil has befallen me! There was also no good reason to do so, for he had served me well. In return I sought villainously to reward this excellent man today with the gallows. . . . I have dug the pit and now must myself fall into it, as is rightly my due, unless I am saved by the will of Christ and the good queen.”]

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One might suggest here that what he regrets is really not his foolishness, but the fact that his treachery has failed. Had the victory gone to Ymelot, he would likely never have acknowledged that Rother was a suitable wooer for his daughter or that their elopement constituted a valid marriage. He now, however, reevaluates his past behavior and singles out two spheres, the personal and the public, where he has dishonored himself. He acknowledges, for the first time in the text, that she is indeed Rother’s wife (sin wif, line 4517), no longer referring to her exclusively as his daughter, and that it was “childish” of him to insist on retrieving her. He has, furthermore, besmirched his public honor by repaying Rother’s loyalty to him by treachery, a violation of the lime that binds feudal society together; it was, after all, Rother who saved him from defeat at the hands of Ymelot when the latter first attacked him. The reward he promised him then was paid out in disloyalty. Yet Constantin is still not quite ready to take full personal responsibility for his foolishness by a public submission to Rother, but first seeks intermediaries to plead his case, intermediaries whom Rother would likely find sympathetic. He beseeches the queen to intercede for him, using their daughter again as the bargaining chip, as she was in his negotiations with Ymelot to save his life: “nu nim die scone thochter min unde vore sie deme helede uz der burc intgegene unde bide in durch got den godin gedenkin minir node, daz he mich laze genesen.” (lines 4532–37) [“Now take my daughter and lead her from the city to that hero; and ask him for the good Lord’s sake to consider my plight, that he might let me live.”]

These women are to act as fidi intercessores (trusted intercessors) or fidi mediatores (trusted mediators), to use the technical terms (Althoff 1997, 177–79), by arranging the terms of Constantin’s surrender and promising Rother that he will henceforth rule Constantinople in such as way as also to glorify Rother. Constantin’s transformation into a just king will date from the day Rother spares him from hanging: “ich wil immir me wesen zo Constantinopole wervhaft, daz man seit biz an den tomistach, daz he ze Constantinopole hat getan, do in Rother nine liz irhan!” (lines 4538–42) [“I shall for evermore behave in such a way in Constantinople, that people will speak of it until Judgment Day, saying, all this he has done in Constantinople, after Rother refused to have him hanged!”]

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That women could indeed function as mediators in important medieval conflicts is illustrated, for example, by the presence of two powerful women among those who arranged Henry IV’s submission to Pope Gregory VII at Canossa in 1077: Adelaide of Susa, margravine of Turin, mother-in-law to the former, and Matilde of Canossa, margravine of Tuscany, a staunch supporter of the latter. In the context of this work, however, in which the queen, whose wise counsel Constantin has consistently ignored, has been the sole representative of good kingship in Constantinople, the necessity of his relying upon her to save him indicates that his kingship is still incomplete. It will remain so until he publicly acknowledges as valid the marriage between Rother and his daughter, and the success of Rother’s bridal quest is confirmed. The queen’s reply to his request is delightfully venomous, making it perfectly clear that her previously expressed contempt for his behavior has not diminished. Although her mocking tone is the same, this speech is different from those that precede it, in that it introduces religious themes. She indicts not his inadequacy as king, but his failure to follow the Christian teachings of humility and piety (Böckenholt 1971, 51–52).5 Constantin has brought the current evil upon himself, as a consequence of his not heeding her good advice all along; the sin of pride has defeated him, leaving him to abandon the laws of God and follow Lucifer, who himself was punished by God for overweening pride: “wes vorhtis du, Constantin? der helfint die koninge von woster Babilonie, daz du Rotheren hais! waz, of du in noch gevais? dinis overtruwen scaden, ich ne mochtis dir zende nie gesagin. du versmades harde got, der uns ze levene gebot unde volgedis deme vertrivenin, die legede dich dar nidere. (lines (4544–54) [“Why are you afraid, Constantin? The kings of Desert Babylon will help you to hang Rother! What if you are still be able to capture him? I was never able to persuade you of the danger of your pride. You have shown great scorn for God, whose Word gave us life, and followed instead him who was cast out (of Heaven); these things have laid you low.”]

By following Lucifer’s way and not God’s, Constantin in his arrogance has allowed his kingdom to become a world turned upside-down, in which it is the queen who thinks and acts as a just king in order to protect him

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and the kingdom from the consequences of his folly. His false pride in rejecting Rother’s bridal quest and his bargain to marry off his Christian daughter to an infidel are symptomatic of the disorientation of this world. The sin of pride can have but one consequence, as the fate of Lucifer illustrates. Here the queen echoes the sentiments of Witold, whose fear of a fate similar to Lucifer’s had kept him from destroying Constantinople: “in vure unde in glude / von sime overmode / is he verstozen / von allin sinen genozin” (For his pride he was cast out from among all his equals into fire and into glowing embers, lines 4449–52). Her indictment is met with Constantin’s usual reaction to her wise counsel; he sits in silence and contemplates how to save himself from Rother’s men. He arrives at what the narrator states is the best possible solution (do dahte he des bestin, line 4572): he will dispense with the idea of using his wife and daughter as mediators, who would presumably negotiate in secret more favorable terms of surrender, and will face Rother himself. This decision seems to represent at least the beginnings of a conversion, in that for the first time he demonstrates a modicum of personal bravery. Conquering his fear, he rides without military escort to face King Rother exclusively in the company of women: his wife, his daughter and eighty lovely ladies of the court. One must also acknowledge, however, that these women, two of whom enjoy a special connection to and favor with Rother, do represent a kind of insurance policy against any untoward and precipitous action on Rother’s part. It is as yet unclear whether Constantin plans to perform a ritual act of submission to Rother in their presence or is, as one might say, simply hiding behind their skirts. Once again the narrator extols the “flame-like” beauty of Rother’s wife, the fabled beauty that Luppolt praised before the bridal quest began, and that shows no traces of the suffering she has endured as a result of her father’s treachery: bi deme reit die koningin unde die lieve tohter sin. . . . dar luchte daz Rotheres wif vor andren wiven over lant als ein bernender iachant.6 (lines 4597–4612) [At his (=Constantin’s) side rode the queen and his beloved daughter. . . . There Rother’s wife outshone all other women in the land like a fiery sapphire.]

It is, indeed, the presence of these ladies that ensures Constantin’s safety among the Romans, for although Asprian, always a potential source of violence, suggests that Constantin be dealt a blow that would raise a bump (bolslach, line 4628), Berchter advises that one should honor the ladies by receiving him with dignity, lest the Romans disgrace themselves in their

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presence by demonstrating a lack of mercy for one who seeks forgiveness (lines 4636–40). This seconds Erwin’s advice, that custom and Rother’s own princely honor demand that Constantin not be publicly humiliated, for he was also a knight; moreover, he is bringing Rother’s wife with him (lines 4615–26). Rother, as a good king should, follows their sage advice and instructs his men to receive Constantin and his embassy of women. Berchter and his sons, Luppolt and Erwin, receive the queen, while Rother greets his wife with a kiss, and kisses her mother as well; Wolfrat von Tengelingen, who had led the Roman forces to victory against Constantin’s infidel allies, greets Constantin. The hierarchical significance is clear: the king and his closest advisors greet the women first and with the greater show of affection, while Constantin is given a poignant reminder, as if he needed it, of the state of affairs among the men. As king, Constantin is demeaned not only by the fact that his consort is greeted before he is, but also by the greater insult that his fellow king, Rother, does not greet him at all. If his redemption as king can be effected, only his wife and daughter can bring it about, for as of now, he is politically and militarily impotent. He has as yet made no move on his own behalf, perhaps in the hope that Rother’s fondness for his daughter and wife will allow him to avoid the final humiliation of public submission to the victor. This would typically take the form of falling on his knees before Rother and pleading for his life, thus acknowledging the latter’s superior status before as large a number of witnesses as possible (Althoff 1997, 238, 236). Since Constantin is accompanied only by women, with none of his vassals present, the men of the court would not witness his public humiliation. As Berchter and Erwin had advised Rother to offer reconciliation to Constantin, so it is the queen who advises “mighty” Constantin to submit to Rother, employing the barely veiled threat that Witold is still eager for him to make a false move, so that he can take his vengeance. She rightly understands that it is not out of respect for Constantin but for Rother’s sake that Witold has thus far spared him: zo Constantino deme richen sprach si gezogenliche: “du solt vor Rothere stan! dort steit Asprianis man: sin gemote ist herte! . . . wene durch den koningis ere, dune bescowedis nimmer mere weder lute nocht lant: dich sloge der selve valant! (lines 4671–84) [To Constantin the mighty she spoke in seemly fashion, “You should present yourself before Rother! There stands Asprian’s liege man: he is in an angry mood! . . . If it were not for the king’s honor, you

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would never see either your people or land again: that selfsame devil would slay you!”]

Still Constantin remains silent and takes no action, so it is the queen who assumes the pater potestas, the right of the father to give his daughter in marriage. She has have every legal right to do so, since Constantin has heretofore shown himself, both through word — or silence — and deed, that he is not of sound mind, which, according to church and even Byzantine marriage law, would negate his consent as a necessary prerequisite to his daughter’s marriage (M. Schulz 2005, 53). The queen publicly places her daughter’s hand in Rother’s: “Rother, herre min, diz ist die echone din! die nim in dine gewalt, swie du gebudist, helet balt. got lone dir maniger eren unde allin disin heren, die si zu mir hant getan.” (lines 4689–95) [“Rother, my lord, this is your wedded wife! Take her under your legal authority, however you see fit, bold hero. May God reward you and all these, your men, for the many gestures of esteem you have shown me.”]

Shown me, not Constantin. She then goes on to extol Berchter for his exemplary loyalty to Rother and his devotion to God — an epic foreshadowing — praising not the father who begat him, but the mother who carried him in her womb. He has demonstrated his exemplary understanding by advising Rother to spare Constantin, though the latter has done him so much personal harm, a reminder that Constantin was responsible for Berchter’s near-execution, as well as the unjust imprisonment of his sons while they were serving as Rother’s bridal messengers. By praising his mother, the queen seems to be underscoring the idea that in the violent world of men it is women who must be the agents of mercy and reconciliation, as she herself is now. This formal presentation of the bride to her husband in the presence of witnesses from both parties is a ritual enactment of a legal proceeding, the legitimatio per subsequens matrimonium (legitimation of a marriage after the fact), which is meant to remove any lingering doubt that Rother’s marriage is legitimate as a result of the elopement (M. Schulz 2005, 52– 53). This also explains why the narrator allows the queen her otherwise somewhat unexpected speech praising Berchter. In this proper Muntehe, a public union of two families and two dynasties, he is the stand-in for Rother’s deceased father, a relationship twice acknowledged by Rother

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himself: “sint mir der vater starf / und ich der [=Berchter] bevolen wart” (after my father died, and I was placed in your care, lines 4484–85) and “du zugis mich alse din kint” (you reared me as your child, line 4490). Establishing the legality of their union, the public presentation of the bride by her father and her public acceptance by the groom and his liegemen, is especially critical in this text, where the bridal quest has been imbued with dynastic implications that affect the future of Europe. If the question of the legality of their union were to continue to remain unresolved, the honor of their descendants — Pippin and Charlemagne — might suffer the lingering taint of illegitimacy. While the attitude of the queen toward Rother and the marriage is perfectly clear, and has been so from the beginning, when all she knew of Rother was his reputation, Constantin’s position is somewhat murkier. True, in the subsequent speech where he asks Rother to summon Count Arnolt, that he might reward him with the crown of Grecia (Greece) for his service in defending Constantinople against the infidels, Constantin addresses Rother as “live herre min” (my dear lord, line 4712), a phrase implying that Constantin is now Rother’s vassal. Given also Constantin’s previous miserliness toward Arnolt and the exiles, this would seem to confirm his transformation from an iniquitous king into a generous and, therefore, good king. The narrator also assures the reader that Constantin accepts the marriage between his daughter and Rother: “in ne rou sin tohter nicht, / Rotheres ere was im lief” (He did not rue [the loss of] his daughter, for Rother’s honor was dear to him, lines 4755–56). In the conflict between his public honor and that of Rother, Constantin seems to be acknowledging the latter’s victory in the representation of kingship (Meves 1976, 40). It is strange, however, that Constantin makes no further public gesture of atonement than rewarding Arnolt and speaks no words of reconciliation to Rother to echo those of the queen. He simply seems to change sides, like a man with no principles, who can support one day that which he opposed the day before (Szklenar 1966, 139). One could, on the other hand, argue that Constantin has not changed at all, but the circumstances have. He now has all the proof he needs that Rother is of sufficient status and power to marry his daughter, for he has witnessed the size and effectiveness of Rother’s army, whereas he heretofore only had the evidence of prejudiced testimony: Rother’s bridal messengers and “Dietrich.” This would mean that there was no inner transformation of his character at all, and that none was necessary; rather, he has come to an objective recognition of an observable truth, that his conditions for his daughter’s marriage have been fulfilled. Viewed from this perspective, the reconciliation between Rother and Constantin is the reciprocal acknowledgment of their mutual equality of status that leads to an alliance between two equals (Zimmermann 1993, 219). Now the two mightiest Christian kings, rulers of Rome and Constantinople, can unite

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in a strong familial and military alliance against the infidels to protect the faithful of both Christian rites, the Roman and the Orthodox, something neither could do alone. Even Rother’s superior army required the active assistance of Duke Arnolt’s exiles to accomplish the victory over Ymelot (Zimmermann 1993, 206–8). This would mean that Constantin has experienced no diminishment of his kingship at all but has actually enhanced it through his daughter’s marriage to Rother. It does not lie in Rother’s interest to have his father-in-law endure public humiliation; that would also besmirch the honor of his wife and, through her, his own and that of his heirs. By his very presence before him Constantin indicates to Rother that he has erred in his assessment of Rother’s status and suitability to seek his daughter’s hand, and he now accepts the marriage. Though he does not himself place her hand in Rother’s, the queen is clearly acting as his surrogate: he had asked her to do what she could to save his life and his kingship, and she does so. In private contemplation, however, he also acknowledged his treachery in actively encouraging Rother’s execution by his infidel allies. (One wishes he had also acknowledged the treachery he demonstrated when he offered his daughter to Basilistium to save his own skin; but this does not happen.) His earlier promise to the queen, that his future rule in Constantinople will redound to his and to Rother’s credit, seems to indicate an awareness of his past failings as king and a determination to become a just ruler. This attitude is surely the indication of an inner transformation, albeit a somewhat grudging one, that would likely not have occurred, had his authority not been challenged by Rother; the queen’s constant and scornful prodding was of no avail. He has been delivered from his overmot, his Luciferian pride, not by heeding the queen’s “kingly” wisdom, but by the reality imposed upon him through Rother’s military might. Proper order has been restored to the upside-down world of Constantinople, and Constantin is able to take up his own proper role as king. The queen is no longer required to function as a pseudo-king to cover for his ineptitude, but can once again become his consort. In a final gesture of royal dignity, she honors each of Rother’s liegemen with a kiss, then ceases her active role in the narration. With the reconciliation between Rother and Constantin complete (S.-C. §C.2.f.i),7 the former returns to Bari with his wife (§C.2.g), bringing the doubled quest to a happy close that benefits both wooer and father of the bride.

Notes 1

The text states here simply Constantinis moder (Constantin’s mother, line 4402), which could imply that Rother’s father-in-law was, in fact, Constantine the Great, the son of St. Helena, although that seems unlikely in the context. See above, chap. 4, n. 6.

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2

For an interpretation of Asprian’s reasoning as well as relevant bibliography, see König Rother: Mittelhochdeutscher Text und neuhochdeutsche Übersetzung, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz, Beatrix Kroll, and Ruth Weichselbaumer, trans. Peter K. Stein, Universal-Bibliothek 18047 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), 454–55, n. to 4406–10. 3

See Psalm 7:15; for citations in contemporary texts, see König Rother, ed. Bennewitz et al., 457, n. to 4527–28. 4

The phrase, “good queen,” usually refers to Constantin’s wife, but since he is speaking directly to her here, it could possibly refer to his daughter, who is Rother’s good queen. In either case, however, Constantin makes it clear that only Christ and a good woman can help him now. 5

George Lussky’s assertion that religion plays only a superficial role in the conduct of the women in the text is an exaggeration; Lussky, “Die Frauen in der mittelhochdeutschen Spielmannsdichtung,” in Studies in German Literature in Honor of Alexander R. Hohlfeld by His Students and Colleagues, University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 22 (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1925), 125. 6

Günter Karhof notes a similarity between these verses and lines 73–74, where Luppolt first praised her beauty “siu luchtit vor anderen wiben / so daz golt von der siden” (she outshines other women, like gold against silk); Karhof, Der Abschnitt als Vortragsform in Handschriften frühmittelhochdeutscher Dichtungen: Seine strukturbildende Funktion und Bedeutung für die Chronologie (PhD diss., Münster University, 1968), 157. 7

Christian Schmid-Cadalbert’s assertion that the doubled quest manifests a public reconciliation between the wooer (now husband) and the bride’s father is based solely on König Rother; Schmid-Cadalbert, Der Ortnit AW als Brautwerbungsdichtung: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis mittelhochdeutscher Schemaliteratur, Bibliotheca Germanica 28 (Bern: Francke, 1985). In Salman und Morolf, the only other minstrel epic with a doubled quest, the circumstances are very different, as has been noted above. There is no reconcilitation between husband and adulterous wooer, and the recaptured bride is punished by death.

11: Eternal Quest

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in the bridal quest structure, the rewarding of those who helped the wooer win his bride (S.-C. §C.2.h), takes on particular significance in König Rother. Rother not only grants great fiefs to his chief vassals — men and giants — to recompense them directly for their aid in his quest, but also provides them with a living guarantee that their futures will be secure for the long term. The depth of Rother’s gratitude to his men for their loyalty is underscored visually when he falls at their feet in the ritual gesture of supplication (line 4806), in order to persuade them not to depart the court before he has repaid their service with his generosity. In serving Rother they have both directly and indirectly served themselves and their heirs, for the second homecoming of the bride has accomplished that which the first (§C.1.d) did not: permanently resolving the dynastic crisis that first prompted Rother’s younger vassals to suggest that he find an appropriate wife and provide the Roman kingdom with a legitimate heir. On the very day of their return from Constantinople Rother’s wife bears him that longed-for heir, whose birth was foreshadowed in line 3483, when, at the low point of the narration, following the deceptive and fleeting success of the initial bridal quest, the narrator indicated that Rother’s second quest, to retrieve his abducted pregnant wife from her father (§C.2.c), would indeed succeed. It is not insignificant that although their son, Pippin, was conceived during their first voyage across the sea, that third narrative space that both separates and now unites Bari and Constantinople, he is born on his father’s native Roman soil. The narrator now pointedly reiterates the connection of his birth to the motivation of the original quest by having Luppolt, chief among those younger vassals and leader of the bridal messengers, bring Rother the happy news. The very improbability of such a scenario, that a vassal would know of this event before the father himself, draws attention to its significance in bringing the bridal-quest structure to its ultimate and permanently successful conclusion. The Knower of the bride becomes the Knower of the heir. The narrator also elaborates on the earlier foreshadowing of the births of the siblings, Pippin and St. Gertrude, by revealing the name of Pippin’s future wife, Bertha, who will bear him Charlemagne: HE FINAL ELEMENT

sint beslif it [=daz kindelin] Berten, eine vrowen vile gut,

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die sit Karlen getruch. von du ne sulit ir dit lit den andren gelichin nit, wandit so manich recht hat, danne ime die warheit in stat. (lines 4788–94) [Later he bedded Bertha, a most excellent woman, who afterward conceived Charlemagne. Because of that you should not compare this lay to the others, for it is correct in so many things, since it contains the truth.]

From the perspective of the textualized culture of the book, a text with its origins in the oral tradition would be relegated to the category of the fabula (fiction), like the romances, and not a historia that can cite other written sources as proof of its veracity. Here the poet’s integration of King Rother into the official written chronology of Frankish rulers provides a narrative bridge from the oral tradition to a written history that can lay claim to historical truth, an assertion of veracity that allows him a means by which to reject any possible objections that his narrative is a fiction on the part of those who regard only the written record as truth (SchmidCadalbert 1985, 49–55). As has previously been noted, however, there are some serious defects in the narrator’s genealogy of the Byzantine and Carolingian dynasties, which can only be effective as proof of the text’s veracity if the poet is assuming his audience knows little or nothing about the true ancestry of Charlemagne (Kiening 1998, 240). The historical Bertha or Bertrada Greatfoot (ca. 720–83), Charlemagne’s mother, was the daughter of Charibert, count of Laon, and, most probably, Bertrada of Cologne. Godfrey of Viterbo (ca. 1120–96), however, offers quite a different ancestry for Bertha (Schnell 1982, 345–50), comparable to that of the Rother poet for Pippin. In his Speculum regum (Mirror of Kings, ca. 1183), a genealogical (pseudo-)history in verse of rulers from the sons of Noah to Charlemagne and dedicated to the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his son, Henry (VI), Godfrey asserts that it is the mother of Bertha — not, as here, the mother of Pippin — who is a Byzantine princess. Bertha is also given a similarly mixed ancestry in Konrad Fleck’s Flore und Blanscheflur, a German romance composed ca. 1220, based upon a lost French source by the otherwise unknown Ruprecht von Orbent. In this, one of the most beloved love stories of the Middle Ages, Flore, son of the infidel King of Spain, eventually marries — after much trial and tribulation — his destined lover, Blanscheflur, the daughter of a Christian slave. After Flore’s conversion to Christianity and thirty-five years of marriage, Blanscheflur bears him a daughter, Bertha (Berhte), the future mother of Charlemagne.1 Because these roughly contemporary texts share the common fiction that the ancestry of Charlemagne includes a strain of Byzantine

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blood on the distaff, it is unclear whether the Rother poet invented this element of the plot or was merely building upon a generally accepted but incorrect theory of Carolingian genealogy that would justify Carolingian claims to hegemony over the West as legitimate heirs of the Byzantine emperors. The ignorance — or intentional manipulation — of historical fact to serve a greater narrative purpose is not uncommon in medieval fiction with claims to historical accuracy. The Rother poet’s strategy of giving the text a certain credibility by the insertion of well-known historical personages, seen by some as an end in itself,2 might also be understood as serving a political agenda rooted in the concept of the translatio imperii (translation of the imperial dignity)3 that asserts a continuity from the Roman Empire via the Byzantines to the Carolingian emperors in the West. The assertion that Greek imperial authority had been translated or transferred to the Carolingians by the authority of the Apostolic See was laid out in May 1202, by Pope Innocent III in his decretal “Venerabilem,” which reserved the ultimate authority for confirming imperial dignity to the papacy. The rivalry between the Byzantines and the West over the right to imperial authority extended, as has been noted, over hundreds of years after Charlemagne began to style himself imperator Romanum gubernans imperium and truly ended only with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks on 29 May 1453. Given this larger political context, the poet may here be intentionally embellishing the bridal-quest structure with the theme of a translatio per nuptias (translation through marriage), in order to offer evidence in support of the Carolingian cause: a (fictional) Roman king marries the sole legitimate heiress (Erbtocher) to Byzantium — Constantin has no sons — and together they found the Carolingian dynasty (Gellinek 1968, 75–79). In doing so, the poet asserts the hegemony of Latin Christendom and the fusion of the Eastern and Western empires through marriage. Because a medieval husband had complete legal authority over the property of his wife, the poet can be viewed as making an unmistakable claim for the superiority of the Western emperors and the inferiority of subsequent Byzantine emperors (M. Schulz 2005, 27–28), whom one can, thus, regard as pretenders to the title. Though Pippin inherits the royal dignity of both realms, the European strain of his father predominates. In addition, portraying the antagonism between Rother and Constantin, inherent between wooer and father of the bride in the bridal-quest structure, as the rivalry between a just king and iniquitous king allows the poet to dismisses as unwarranted any Byzantine claims to moral, as well as military and hierarchical, superiority in comparison with Western kingship (Meves 1976, 54–62).4 This interpretation, which Meves (55), paraphrasing an Austrian slogan of the 1890s, cleverly summarizes as Los-von-Byzanz (away from Byzantium),

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is not accepted by all. Zimmermann (1993, 228) has argued that the translatio-controversy plays no role in the text, because Constantin loses nothing through the marriage of his daughter to Rother and the subsequent birth of his heir; rather, he only gains thereby in power and public honor. In her view Constantin’s kingship is enhanced by his connection to Rother, whose wealth and might can now legitimately be called upon to augment his own. History offers examples of various attempts to forge marital alliances between the Western emperors and the Byzantines in the years before the composition of König Rother. Charlemagne, while still only a Frankish king, negotiated the betrothal of his eldest daughter, Erythro/Rotrude (Hrotrud), to the Byzantine child-emperor Constantine VI (771–97) in 781, while both were still children; this engagement was broken off in 787 for reasons no longer quite discernible.5 Theophanes the Confessor claimed in his Chronographia6 that in 801/2 Charlemagne himself sought the hand of Constantine’s mother, the widowed Empress Irene, after he had been crowned emperor, “in order to unite East and West.” Irene had in the meantime (797) deposed and blinded her son and installed herself as ruler in her own right. Such an alliance would presumably have strengthened Charlemagne’s claim to the imperial dignity and legitimized Irene’s rule as the first female basileus; however, since this is only reported in Theophanes, there is considerable doubt as to whether it was ever seriously considered.7 The Wittelsbach emperor Otto I (r. 962– 73), as noted above, sent Bishop Liudprand of Cremona to the court of Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas to arrange a Byzantine marriage for Otto’s son, the future Otto II (r. 967–83), most probably to his step-daughter, Anna, the daughter of the deceased Emperor Romanos II and a true porphyrogenita. Nikephoros rejected the proposal,8 but Otto II did eventually marry another, lesser, Byzantine princess, Theophanu Skleraina, niece by marriage to Nikephoros’s successor, John I Tzimisces, in 972.9 Bertha von Sulzbach (†1158), sister-in-law and adoptive daughter of the Hohenstaufen emperor Konrad III (r. as Roman king, 1138–52), became the first wife of Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–80) in 1146 as part of a Byzantine strategy to forge an imperial alliance against Roger of Sicily. In 1148 Konrad’s half-brother, the Babenberg prince Henry Jasomirgott (1107–77), margrave of Austria and duke of Bavaria, married Manuel’s niece, Theodora Komnene (Gellinek 1968, 81–82; Meves 1976, 45–47).10 Konrad further attempted negotiations for the marriage of his son and presumptive heir, Henry Berengar (†1150), to a Byzantine princess (Panzer 1925/74, 56). One could easily interpret Rother’s rewarding of his loyal vassals as yet another assertion of the veracity of the narration, since the territories granted to them correspond to a political reality familiar to the contemporary reader. In doing so, however, he grants lands in fief that

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never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages, such as Scotland and Poland,11 and others which only Charlemagne, not his putative grandfather, Rother, sought to integrate into his kingdom through his military campaigns, namely, Saxony and northern Spain (Kiening 1998, 241). The extent of Rother’s domains is so great that it exceeds the number of named characters in the text, to which to grant them as fiefs. Scotland (scottelant, line 4833), is given to the group of ten lesser giants, while the two most important giants, Asprian and Grimme, receive fiefdoms independent of them. To Asprian go Reims and the March; just which March is meant is not clear (lines 4829–30). Grimme is granted a territory that, through probable scribal error, is also listed as Scotland (lines 4834). Four unnamed warriors are granted the northern duchies of Lothringen, Brabant, Friesland, and Holland (lines 4834–35); ten unnamed counts among Luppolt’s men are granted the eastern German territories of Saxony, Thuringia, Pleissenland — which lay between the Landgraviate of Thuringia and the March of Meissen — and the Sorbian March (lines 4846–49). Wolfrat von Tengelingen receives Austria, Bohemia, and Poland (lines 4868–70). Berchter’s sons are given especially rich fiefs, all lying outside the contemporary boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, warranted by the special role they played in the quest. Luppolt is elevated in status from count of Milan to king of France (Karlungin [from Carolingian!], line 4887), as Count Arnolt was elevated by Constantin to the kingship of Greece. In addition he is granted Meran, which has heretofore been held in fief by his father, as well as the southern Italian territories of Apulia and Sicily (lines 4888–89). (One could easily see here an oblique reference to Roger II [see chapter 2], who had united the duchy of Apulia and the county of Sicily in 1127; only in 1197 and well after the assumed date of the composition of König Rother was the kingdom of Sicily integrated into the Empire.) Erwin receives Spain (line 4845). As was noted above in chapter 2, these fiefs have also been variously regarded as evidence for the poet’s support of a political agenda that reflects the ambitions of either the Welf or the Hohenstaufen dynasties. Stock (2002, 236), however, has rightly observed that there is nothing specific in the text that indicates it is oriented toward either of these great rivals. Rother’s empire is simply meant to be understood as the Christian West under the rule of the German kings of Rome and emperors. With the distribution of fiefs and the birth of Pippin, the bridal quest comes to its proper structural conclusion. The vassals depart for home under the protection of the giants, and a period of peace and prosperity ensues under Rother’s aegis. Yet, the narrator does not close his tale, as he now looks to further cementing the relationship of Rother’s bridal quest to the future — and historical reality — by initiating the transference of Rother’s exemplary kingship to his son and, through him, to

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Charlemagne. In a kind of appendix or epilogue to the bridal quest (for example, Ehrismann 1922–35, 21:292), he assures the reader that the empire will continue to be held in hands as good and as blessed by God as Rother’s own. Rother’s happiness, once he has secured it, belongs to the fundamental qualities of his royal house and is manifested anew in every generation (Zimmermann 1993, 225), beginning with his son: Rothere saz dar heime — goth irliet in aller leide — und zoch Pippinin, den lieven sone sinin mit grozin erin, daz is war, vier unde zwenzic iar. . . . (lines 5001–6) [Rother resided there at his home — God spared him all suffering — and reared Pippin, his beloved son, with great public honor, this is true, for twenty-four years.]

Following this time compression of nearly a quarter-century, the significant participants in Rother’s bridal quest — Asprian, Witold, Grimme, Wolfrat von Tengelingen, Erwin, and Luppolt — reassemble with their own liegemen for a great court in the German city of Aachen (French: Aix-la-Chapelle),12 not Bari or Rome, it should be noted. This emphasis on Aachen is a transitional moment in the disassociation of Rother’s kingdom from Roman tradition and the beginning of a German empire of European dimension independent of Rome, corresponding to the historical development of the Carolingian empire (Neuendorff 1984, 50). That city held great significance for contemporaries as the seat of Charlemagne’s power, where most German emperors since Otto II (ca. 961) had first been crowned kings of the Romans. Here Pippin, who has meanwhile attained his majority, so that he might now be king (line 4996), is to receive his sword, not merely in the traditional sense of simply being knighted, a Schwertleite (for example, Ehrismann 1922–35, 301; Urbanek 1976, 137; Stock 2002, 274; Biesterfeldt 2004a, 44–45),13 but as a visible sign that Rother is passing on to him the right to rule his father’s dominion. The sword symbolizes both the power to judge and the charisma of kingship, since the main duty of a ruler was to pass legal judgment, and ruling is nearly synonymous with judging: Middle High German rihten means both to judge and to rule.14 It is not without significance that Pippin’s first act in his new position is to confirm the fiefs of his father’s vassals, those very men whose loyalty had ensured the success of the quest that resulted in his birth. That he has also inherited his father’s prudence and sagacity is made manifest in the qualification of that confirmation: it is given with the contingency that they will proclaim him emperor upon his father’s death:

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die bestundin alle samt von Rotheres sone daz lant, alse sin vatir sturve, daz Pippin keisir wurde. (lines 5061–64) [All together they were confirmed in their lands by Rother’s son, on the condition that, when his father should die, Pippin would become emperor.]

Here the immediate, genetic effect of the translatio imperii through the blood of his mother is made manifest in the very next generation: Pippin will not be merely a Roman king, like his father, but emperor. The vassals’ fears for the security of their future, which had originally prompted Rother’s bridal quest, are thus formally allayed for another generation, and Pippin’s future, as Rother’s legitimate successor, is equally secure. He is now designated “king” (konic, line 5071) by the narrator, meaning that he has been recognized as legal heir to and co-regent of the kingdom, and he sets about dispensing justice as a rex iustus like his father: “[er] rihte nach rechte / herrin unde knechten” (He judged nobles and commons according to customary law, lines 5075–76). Once Pippin’s succession has been confirmed by the acclamation of the chief vassals of the realm, however, the narrator must find a way for the “legendary” Rother of the bridal quest to exit the story gracefully, in order that his sovereignty might be translated through Pippin to the historical Carolingians (Ortmann and Ragotzky 1993, 332).15 Rather than diminish the exemplary status of Rother as king, in comparison to a son who will achieve even greater status as emperor, the narrator allows him to transcend the success of his worldly ambition in pursuit of a more enduring goal: the eternal bliss that surpasses all temporal glory. In what might be considered a second or doubled epilogue, this time with a spiritual focus, the poet once again structures the narrative, at least in the beginning, like a bridal quest. Rother again receives a call to action by a loyal vassal who is concerned for his welfare (S.-C. §A.2), but this time it is not Luppolt who speaks to the concern of the younger vassals, but his elderly father, Berchter, who speaks for himself alone. It is significant that Berchter, no longer gray but now a “snewizer wigant” (snow-white warrior, line 5080), did not take part in the acclamation of Pippin’s kingship. That was a matter for his sons, whose concerns pertain to the future. Berchter appears on the scene only after Pippin’s assumption of his royal duties, drawn by news of events taking place at Aachen (lines 5089–90), events in which he no longer plays a major part. For him, however, the importance of these events is not that Pippin is now exercising the role of king, but the fact that because Pippin is doing so, Rother can free himself from the worldly burden of kingship and look beyond public matters of state, which motivated his bridal quest,

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and pursue an exclusively personal goal. Rother’s undiminished respect for the old man is demonstrated publicly when he assumes the role of his groom: “selve intfinc he sin rosvert” (he personally steadied his horse [for the dismount], line 5103). Rother’s queen reappears in the narration to welcome the old “hero of Merania” with a kiss (line 5100). She has gone unmentioned during the festivities for her son — and indeed since his birth — which concern exclusively the affairs of men. In the first narrative space of the West, that is, the world most familiar to the recipients of the text, there is no place for the active role played by the royal women in the public life of the fictitious, fabulous Orient, to borrow Schneider’s phrase (1943, 244), of Constantinople. Berchter, who has apparently already undergone some sort of partial tonsure — “ime was daz edile har / bi den orin ava geschorin’ (His noble hair was shaved off at the ears, lines 5084–85) — informs Rother that he intends to enter a monastery.16 Biesterfeldt (2004a, 219–20) views Berchter’s tonsure as a structural link to the helmet he wore at the celebration following the successful conclusion of the bridal quest (lines 4951–58), a helmet crowned with the Claugestian, a magic stone that glows in the night. That magic stone, which she associates with the putative magic pebbles used to lure Rother’s wife onto the minstrel’s boat, symbolized the zenith of Berchter’s worldly success as he saw his son made king of France. So now the tonsure represents a different kind of “helmet” for quite a different kind of quest; he has no further use for the Claugestian. Reminding Rother of the loyalty he has always demonstrated, following his vow to the latter’s dying father to serve and protect him (lines 5133–38), Berchter urges him to follow his advice one last time, for the sake of his immortal soul, for Rother himself is now entering old age and turning gray: “nu volge mer, koninc gote, des mer is zo mote, unde helf der armin sele, daz ist tugint aller erin. du grawist, herre min, daz dinc nemac immir niht sin!” (lines 5117–22) [“Now follow me, excellent king, in that which I am of a mind to do, and help your poor soul, which is the highest of all honorable deeds. You grow gray, my lord; nothing can last forever.”]

For this greater, spiritual quest Berchter is both the Knower of truth and its Namer. The evocation of Berchter’s fatherly role toward Rother, himself now the father of a grown man, gives his advice additional generational significance, as the cycle of life continues. Berchter’s wise counsel guided his fosterson through his kingship, as Rother’s has nurtured Pippin to it. Now Berchter advises Rother to prepare for his eternal life, the glory of

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which transcends all worldly honor and power. Though the transformation of this redoubtable and battle-lusty warrior to a more contemplative sage who is contemptuous of the world17 may at first surprise, it has been prepared for thematically in the text at several points: the true pilgrim’s recounting of his life story to Rother, who is only disguised as a pilgrim (lines 3719–3825); by Berchter’s prophecy that God would deliver them from death at the hands of Ymelot and Basilistium (lines 3935–44), as He had delivered the Israelites (Biesterfeldt 2004, 49n21, 51); and by the queen of Constantinople’s praise of his piety: “du . . . irkennis och unsin trechtin!” (You also demonstrate your faith in our Lord God, line 4699). Many earlier critics took a dim view of this turn of events, which seemed to them to function as a kind of extraneous religious epilogue meant to justify the worldly, even carnal goal of the bridal quest. De Vries (1922/74, lxiii) believed it to be the silly (albern) interpolation of a cleric, to whom he ascribes many other interventions in the text. De Boor (1949/79, 1:244) famously labeled it “das asketische Schwänzchen” (the ascetic little tail) of the epic. In fact, monachization, entering a monastery, is not an uncommon motif, and other protagonists associated with the minstrel epic — Orendel and wife Bride, and Wolfdietrich (in version D) — also enter the religious life after completing their tasks in the world.18 One can indeed claim that because the value system of European medieval civilization as a whole is based upon Christian theological principles, these must be regarded as inherent in this text, as well; even if they do not dominate its rather more worldly subject matter, they are still fundamental to it (Kokott 1978, 107). Basic to the Augustinian view of the world, as represented in the Civitas Dei, is the belief that it is the goal of every human being to seek citizenship in God’s eternal kingdom (Sandrock 1931, 3). One must not necessarily, however, understand the idea of monachization in König Rother as the subjugation of the temporal to the spiritual in the text, but as its completion: the spiritual ending corresponds to the worldly beginning in the sense of promise and fulfillment, in which the transitoriness of the situation at the end of the initial bridal quest is contrasted with the definitiveness of the results of the doubled quest (Meves 1976, 41–42). All success and power in the world is granted by God, and must also, in the end, be returned to Him (Schröder 1955/77, 337). That Rother should give up temporal power at the height of his worldly success, passing on the kingdom to his son, who with his heirs will govern justly the future generations of his vassals, signifies the triumph of the Christian belief that all things of this world are transitory (Schwietering 1931/57, 110; Curschmann 1968, 76n347). For Siegmund (1959, 114–15) Rother’s monachization marks the successful completion of the career of an archetypal prince and is a direct and conscious allusion to Charlemagne, the rex christianissimus (most Christian majesty).19

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At first Rother, heretofore always ready with a clever word to engage in his cunning subterfuges, makes no response to this suggestion: “Rother swigete do” (Rother said nothing then, line 5145). In point of fact Rother himself is never again directly quoted in the text; Berchter’s main interlocutor becomes Rother’s queen, while the king’s own words are conveyed through indirect discourse.20 His falling into silence parallels the ceasing of the narration: as Rother begins to disappear from the narrative world, so the narrative world itself comes to an end (Kiening 1998, 229). Having no response from the king, Berchter must then reiterate his proposal in a second speech, equal in length to his first, in which he further elucidates his reasons for abandoning the world: all earthly things are transitory; the soul needs God’s grace to enter heaven; and the way to God’s grace is monachization (Biesterfeldt 2004a, 59): “nu volge mir, trut herre min, unde ze wir hin zo walde! swer genesen wolde, der mochte dar gerne broder sin. wir munichin uns, trut herre min, wir sulin der armin sele wegen: daz ist ein unstade leven!” (lines 5168–74) [“Now follow me, dear lord mine, and let us withdraw to the forest! Whosoever wishes to save himself should become a brother there. We will become monks, dear lord mine; we must prepare the way for our poor souls: this life lacks constancy.”]

In this speech praising the monastic life, however, Berchter is not negating Rother’s kingship or his temporal achievements, in which Berchter himself played no small role. Rather, his argument is this: Rother has achieved as much as he can in this world and perhaps another — one is meant to think of Charlemagne — will achieve even more (lines 5163– 67). Temporal considerations are insignificant in the greater scheme of things; Rother must think of his soul and turn his thoughts to the eternal. One must not forget that the renunciation of the things of this world, possessions and power, is not only consistent with the biblical injunction, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast . . .” (Matthew 19:21), but reflects the practical realization, based on experience by even the earliest monks, “that attachment to things could compromise the freedom from care which the solitary life promised them; that possessions could inflame desires to the point where they became all-consuming . . . that immoderate concern for possessions could ultimately consume the soul” (BurtonChristie 1993, 215). As the father of monasticism, St. Anthony, is quoted as saying: “Renounce this life, so that you may be alive in God.”21 In Berchter’s speech the narrator is juxtaposing two competing theological

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concepts, without forcing their uni-dimensional resolution: the Old Testament ideal of temporal kingship, exercised according to the king’s best ability and secured for the next generation, against the New Testament’s emphasis on the afterlife, the individual’s concern for the eternal salvation of the soul, something that surpasses all things that can be attained through human striving.22 Berchter’s elaborate exposition of the contrasting themes of worldly power and salvation functions as the motivation for a decision that must exclusively be Rother’s own. As the king has so often done in the past, he listens to and follows the advice of his wise counselor. This concludes their intimate consilium familiare of three, and there is no need for a consilium publicum to follow, no need for Rother’s loyal vassals to offer their aid in this new quest (S.-C. §A.3), for this is an issue that does not and indeed cannot concern them. The bridal-quest structure, with its collective, dynastic goal, can no longer serve him, for salvation is a personal and individual matter. Rother’s exact response to Berchter is not quoted; one is merely told by the narrator that he is prepared to do as Berchter has counseled. He then takes the hand of his queen, a gesture that reinforces our understanding of their intimate and enduring bond, and shares his decision only with her: Rother bi der hant nam die vrowen also lossam unde sagete ir sin gemote. da sprach die vrowe gote: “iz ist der bezziste rat den Berker getan hat! nu volge uns, koninc edele, iz ne kumit uns nicht ubele!”(lines 5177–85) [Rother took by the hand that lady, so lovely, and told her what he intended. Then the excellent lady said, “That is the best counsel that Berchter has ever given! Now follow us, noble king; it will not be to our discredit!”]

When Rother’s queen states that this is the best piece of advice that Berchter has ever given, she is, at the same time, diminishing the importance of the bridal quest, when compared to the quest for eternal life. Her admonition that Rother should follow “us” is significant, for it implies that the queen and Berchter are of one mind, and that it is Rother who is hesitating to abandon the world for the cloistered life. One must not forget, however, that he is the one among them who has the most to sacrifice, for he has achieved a success in that world greater than theirs. It is a marvelous thematic device, however, to allow the queen to motivate Rother’s decision to abandon that success, since it was she, or rather the

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rumor of her excellence, that motivated him to seek her hand through a bridal quest. The greatness he has achieved, the acknowledgment of his excellence in the Roman, as well as the Byzantine worlds, stems from that successful quest; the future of his realm is guaranteed through her son. It may well be that the queen’s eagerness to follow Berchter’s advice and enter the cloistered life, as opposed to Rother’s initial silence on the subject, is part of a much older literary tradition. As Ross Kraemer has observed, Christian asceticism held great appeal for women of the GrecoRoman world, particularly in the Eastern provinces, and he speculates that they may have been greatly influenced in this by accounts of the conversion of women in the texts of the very popular Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. These conversion stories all evidence a similar structure: Each relates the conversion of a woman whose husband, fiancé, lord, or father, is of relatively high social status in a community which an apostle has recently entered. Persuaded by the apostle’s teachings to accept Jesus, the woman adopts a sexually continent way of life, which is the principle feature of her conversion. If already married, she withdraws from her husband. (Kraemer 1980, 298–99)

In these texts Christianity is defined in terms of the ascetic life and demands both celibacy and the breaking of family ties. It should be noted, however, that in most of these stories the male involved does not convert and often does violence to the apostle; that is clearly not the case in König Rother, but this could theoretically account for Rother’s initial hesitancy to accept Berchter’s righteous advice. As the queen played an essential role in eliminating the flaw in his public honor (his lack of an heir) and making it complete, she has once again found her voice in the narration and literally has the last word on the future of both their immortal souls. One can also see here a parallel to the last important speech of her mother, whose scolding of Constantin is motivated, not by her concern for the prestige of his kingship, but by her concern for his eternal soul and her fear of his damnation through his Luciferian pride and arrogance. While the advice of Rother’s queen is certainly no scolding, she, too, is no longer motivated by temporal goals, worthy though they may be, but by the higher standards of the Christian ethic (Böckenholt 1971, 53). Rother and Berchter will lead the religious life in the forest (or in the Benedictine monastery at Fulda23), while the queen is inspired by God to enter a convent. Although they achieved so much together, the lovers of the bridal quest separate at last to seek their individual salvation as equals.24 The convent offers the queen an alternate world of action inside the otherwise restrictive narrative space of the West. The ascetic or cloistered life allowed women a degree of personal freedom and respect — even admiration — that society did not accord those who were relegated to the traditional female

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roles of wife and mother. Even the generally misogynistic St. Augustine (†430), although questioning the intellectual capacity of women, was able to concur with Greek theologians like the Cappadocian Fathers — St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian, †389), St. Basil of Caesarea (the Great, †379), St. Gregory of Nyssa (†395) — on the spiritual equality of men and women,25 and a no less illustrious Doctor of the Church than St. Jerome (†420), who urged his own female followers to asceticism, believed that women ascetics were not just equal to men, but became, in a spiritual sense, men themselves.26 Jerome believed men could and should learn from their pious spouses, as is clear from his letter to Rusticus, written ca. 408, who was hesitant to follow his wife on a pilgrimage she had undertaken to Palestine because the couple broke their vow of marital chastity: Imitate her whose teacher you ought to have been. For shame! The weaker vessel overcomes the world, and yet the stronger is overcome by it! A woman leadeth in the high emprise (Virgil [Æneid, I.364]) and yet you will not follow her when her salvation leads you to the threshold of the faith!27

In this final decision to leave the world, then, the queen is her husband’s equal in spirit as she was, previously, in status and in the art of subterfuge. Their hard-fought, exemplary courtship and exemplary marriage ends in their separation to prepare for eternity, where those things will no longer matter. Their success in this world is at the same time validated by the fact that the future of the kingdom and of Western Civilization is secure in the hands of their equally exemplary descendants: Pippin and Charlemagne: do clusete sich de konigin, got der gaf ir den sin. do stunden de romischen riche harte uredeliche, wente Pippin irstarf unde Karl daz riche irwarf. der leuete sit scone unde richte wol de krone. (Fragment A, 1va, lines 3–10 [=5188–95]) [Then the queen retired to a cloister cell, as God had instructed her. Then the Roman realm endured in great peace until Pippin died, and Charlemagne acquired the empire. He lived thereafter in splendid fashion and wielded well the authority of the crown.]

Notes 1

Konrad Fleck, Flore und Blanscheflur, in Tristan und Isolde und Flore und Blanscheflur, ed. Wolfgang Golther, Deutsche National-Litteratur: Historisch kritische

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Ausgabe 4, Abth. 3, 2 vols. (Berlin and Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1888–89), lines 307–18, 7865–80. It is also interesting to note that in this text Berhte’s father, Flore, is the ruler, among other places, of Greece (Kriechen das lant, lines 234– 35). Like Rother, Flore rescues his beloved from a forced marriage to an infidel, the emir in Baghdad. 2

For example, Klaus Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung im “König Rother”: Versuch einer Neudatierung, PSuQ 3 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1959), 103; Uwe Pörksen, Der Erzähler im mittelhochdeutschen Epos: Formen seines Hervortretens bei Lamprecht, Konrad, Hartmann, in Wolframs Willehalm und in den Spielmannsepen, PSuQ 58 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1971), 77–78, 205; Uwe Meves, Studien zu König Rother, Herzog Ernst und Grauer Rock (Orendel), Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 181 (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: P. Lang, 1976), 59–60; Ferdinand Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene im König Rother, PsuQ 71 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1976), 60n3, 183–84; Karl-Ernst Geith, Carolus Magnus: Studien zur Darstellung Karls des Großen in der deutschen Literatur des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Bibliotheca Germanica 19 (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1977), 128n1; and Rüdiger Schnell, “Zur Karl-Rezeption im König Rother und in Ottes Eraclius,” PBB 104 (1982): 346–47. 3

For a summary of the issues regarding the translatio imperii, see the classic studies by Werner Ohnsorge, Das Zweikaiserproblem im früheren Mittelalter: Die Bedeutung des byzantinischen Reiches für die Entwicklung der Staatsidee in Europa (Hildesheim: A. Lax, 1947); Werner Goez, Translatio imperii: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Geschichtsdenkens und der politischen Theorien im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen: Mohr, 1958); and P. A. van den Baar, Die kirchliche Lehre der Translatio Imperii Romani: Bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts, Analecta Gregoriana 78 (Rome: Universitatis Gregorianae, 1956). Schnell summarizes the theological arguments from the Western point of view (“Zur Karl-Rezeption,” 351–57).

4 Similarly, Ingo Reiffenstein, “Die Erzählervorausdeutungen in der frühmittelhoch-

deutschen Dichtung: Zur Geschichte und Funktion einer poetischen Formel,” in Festschrift für Hans Eggers zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Herbert Backes, Sonderheft, PBB 94 (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1972), 562; Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 230–32; and Dagmar Neuendorff, “Kaiser und Könige, Grafen und Herzöge im Epos von König Rother,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 85 (1984): 48–50. 5

Josef Fleckenstein suggests that it was the religious differences between the Orthodox and Roman rites, codified in the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, to which Charlemagne as the temporal leader of Western Christians was not invited, that prompted him to dissolve the engagement; Fleckenstein, Karl der Große, Persönlichkeit und Geschichte 28 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1962), 31, 57–58. Adelbert Davids, on the other hand, claims the marriage was broken off by the Council, which forced Constantine into a marriage against his will with Maria from Amnia in the Armeniakon; Davids, “Marriage Negotiations between Byzantium and the West and the Name of Theophano in Byzantium (Eighth to Tenth Centuries),” in The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium, ed. Davids (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1995), 104.

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6

Theophanes the Confessor, The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of “anni mundi” 6095–6305 (A.D. 602–813), trans. Harry Turtledove, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982), 157–58. 7

Jean Favier, Charlemagne (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1999), 569–71. On the background for Theophanes’ statement, see Paul Speck, Kaiser Konstantin VI.: Die Legitimation einer fremden und der Versuch einer eigenen Herrschaft; quellenkritische Darstellung von 25 Jahren byzantinischer Geschichte nach dem ersten Ikonoklasmus (Munich: W. Fink, 1978), 326–33. 8

Anna was subsequently married to Vladimir I “the Great” of Kiev in 988; his conversion and that of Kievan Rus to (orthodox) Christianity was a prerequisite for the marriage. She became the first porphyrogenita in Byzantine history to marry a barbarian. 9

Although the marriage charter names Theophanu Skleraina as the niece of the emperor, later Western sources mistakenly describe her as his daughter. Concerning Theophanu’s identity and true position among the Byzantine royals, see most notably Gunther Wolf, “Nochmals zur Frage: Wer war Theophano?” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 81 (1988): 272–83, and Otto Kresten, “Byzantinische Epilegomena zur Frage: Wer war Theophano?” in Kaiserin Theophanu: Begegnung des Ostens und Westens um die Wende des ersten Jahrtausends; Gedenkschrift des Kölner Schnütgen-Museums zum 1000. Todesjahr der Kaiserin, ed. Anton von Euw, Peter Schreiner, and Gudrun Sporbeck, 2 vols. (Cologne: Das Museum, 1991), 2:403–10. 10

On Henry’s wedding to Theodora see the classic essay by Konrad Josef Heilig, “Ostrom und das Deutsche Reich um die Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts: Die Erhebung Österreichs zum Herzogtum 1156 und das Bündnis zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen,” in Kaisertum und Herzogsgewalt im Zeitalter Friedrichs I.: Studien zur politischen und Verfassungsgeschichte des hohen Mittelalters, ed. Theodor Mayer, Konrad Josef Heilig, and Carl Erdmann, Schriften des Reichsinstituts für Ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde (MGH) 9 (Leipzig: K. W. Hiersemann, 1944, 1958), esp. 162–75, 229–71. 11

Siegmund, Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 21–22, proposes, rather unconvincingly, that his identification of Rother with Henry VI explains the presence of Scotland in this list: during Henry’s imprisonment of Richard the Lionheart (1192–94), he compelled the latter to acknowledge him as his liege lord. This would have given Henry claim to Scotland. Siegmund also makes a similar claim for the presence of Spain among Rother’s territories: Barbarossa and Henry both hoped to incorporate Spain into the empire. With regard to the Norman territories in southern Italy, Henry was also the first emperor who claimed the title of king of Sicily, through his wife, Constanza, the daughter of Roger II. 12

Jan de Vries ponders whether or not this detail is an allusion to a contemporary event: Frederick Barbarossa had his son, Henry VI, crowned Roman king at Aachen in 1169; de Vries, ed., Rother, Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt.: Untersuchungen und Texte 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922, repr., 1974), lxxviii. Siegmund notes further that Henry was twenty-four when he succeeded his father (Zeitgeschichte und Dichtung, 19).

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13

A discussion of literary and historical details of the schwertleite may be found in Rosemarie Marquardt, Das höfische Fest im Spiegel der mittelhochdeutschen Dichtung, 1140–1240, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 449 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1985), 52–62. 14

Karl-Bernhard Knappe, Repräsentation und Herrschaftszeichen: Zur Herrscherdarstellung in der vorhöfischen Epik, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik- und Renaissanceforschung 17 (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1974), 130: “Im Richten erfüllt sich mittelalterlich der eigentliche Auftrag des Herrschens, ja Herrschen ist nahezu identisch mit Richten; das Schwert verweist auf diese Sinnerfüllung mittelalterlichen Herrschertums; es repräsentiert so mit der Macht zu richten auch das Charisma der Herrschens.” 15

Peter K. Stein offers a somewhat different interpretation: in order to avoid a father-son conflict between the two rulers, Rother and Pippin, and to retain Rother’s image as the ideal king, he must be removed from any possible competition with his son; Stein, “Do newistich weiz hette getan. Ich wolde sie alle ir slagen hanc’: Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zum König Rother,” in Festschrift für Ingo Reiffenstein zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Stein, Gerold Hayer, Renate Hausner, Ulrich Müller, and Franz V. Spechtler (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1988), 331–32. Such father-son conflicts would not have been unknown to a twelfthcentury audience. Corinna Biesterfeld rightly rejects Stein’s interpretation, noting that Rother’s desire to share his temporal power with his son is never called into question; Biesterfeldt, Moniage — Der Rückzug aus der Welt als Erzählschluß: Untersuchungen zu “Kaiserchronik,” “König Rother,” “Orendel,” “Barlaam und Josaphat,” “Prosa-Lancelot” (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 2004), 58. 16

Urbanek, however, argues against the idea that Berchter is tonsured, suggesting that the mention of his apparently outlandish haircut is an allusion to a real person known to the intended contemporary audience of the text (Urbanek, Kaiser, Grafen und Mäzene, 121). 17

For a brief summary of the theme of contemptus mundi in Christian thought, see Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th– 18th Centuries, trans. Eric Nicholson (New York: St. Martin’s P, 1990), 9–17. 18

In the contemporary pseudo-historical Kaiserchronik four emperors or imperial couples surrender their worldly power and enter the monastery: the fictitious Faustinian and Mähthilt, Dietrich and Crescentia, as well as the historical Lothar (who did indeed spend his last six days in the monastery of Prüm) — no mention is made of his wife — and Charles the Fat and Richgard (St. Richardis, who spent the last months of her life in Andlau Abbey, in the Alsace, which she had founded). See Biesterfeldt, Moniage, 15–41. Even in the romance, where religion normally plays only a nominal role, monachization is not unknown. In Marie de France’s lai Eliduc (1170s), the eponymous hero and both his wives, Guildelüec and Guilliadon, end their days in the monastery and convent he founded. Marie de France, Die Lais der Marie de France, ed. Karl Warnke, Bibliotheca normannica 3 (Halle/Saale: M. Niemeyer, 1885; repr., Geneva: Slatkine, 1974), 186–224; in English, The Lais of Marie de France, ed. and trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (New York: Penguin, 1986), 111–26.

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19

On this title, which since the early Middle Ages was associated with the Frankish kings, then the kings of France, see Philippe Contamine, “Rex christianissimus,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. Liselotte Lutz et al., 10 vols. (Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1977–99), 7:776–77. 20

Biesterfeldt, Moniage, 61n57, is rightly prudent when she urges caution here. Ms. H breaks off after line 5185, and there is no proof that a gap does not exist between the lines transmitted in H and the rest of the poem as transmitted in fragment A, in which Rother might have been quoted directly. 21

“Renuntiate huic vitæ, ut Deo vivatis,” quoted in the anonymous “Apophthegmata patrum,” in Patrologiæ cursus completus, seu bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, œconomica, omnium SS. patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum . . . series græca prima, ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. in 167 (Paris: Migne, 1857–66), 65: col. 86, §31. 22

Biesterfeldt, Moniage, 59: “ . . . das alttestamentliche irdische Ideal der nach bestem Vermögen, im Falle Rothers wahrhaft exemplarischer Vollkommenheit ausgeübten und für die nächste Generation klug gesicherten Herrschaft auf der einen Seite und die neutestamentliche, auf die jenseitige, göttlich bestimmte Ewigkeitsdauer ausgerichtete Sorge des Einzelnen für sein Seelenheil, die das allein aus menschlichem Streben heraus Erreichbare übersteigt, auf der anderen werden in der Schlußszene nebeneinandergestellt, ohne daß sie sich in eine eindimensionale Wertung zwingen ließen.” 23

Fragment A reads for line 5169: vnde uare wir hin tzo Uuolde (and let us journey to Fulda[?]), which Anton Edzardi interpreted to mean that Rother means to retire to the Fulda monastery, since the reading in Ms. H, walde (forest), made no sense to him: life as a hermit is not the same as monachization; Edzardi, “Untersuchungen zum König Rother,” Germania, 18 (1873): 451–52. De Vries, Rother, xvii, however, rejects the reading Uolde in fragment A as a later attempt to correct the impure rhyme walde:wolde in ms. H. As Biesterfeldt (Moniage, 59n53) observes, Edzardi’s reservation regarding walde ignores the special meaning of the forest as a wilderness, particularly in its connection to the traditional topos of the founding of European monasteries in the phrase fundatio in deserto (founded in the desert). The influence of the desert monks of fourth-century Egypt, home to the first monasteries in Christendom, and the legacy of desert literature endured for centuries in both East and West: “During every monastic revival in the Middle Ages in the Carolingian period, in the eleventh century at Monte Cassino, Cluny, Camaldoli, and in the twelfth century at Cîteaux — the desert ideal of Egypt, and in particular the example of Antony, would be recalled.” Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), 7. 24

That several members of a family would take monastic vows at the same time was not uncommon in the Middle Byzantine period (843–1204), according to Carolyn L. Connor in her Women of Byzantium (New Haven: Yale UP, 2004), 171; this allowd them to maintain “some sense of family unity even in their respective retreats.” See also Janice Racine Norris, “Nuns and Other Religious: Women and Christianity in the Middle Ages,” in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, ed. Linda E. Mitchell (New York: Garland, 1999), 277–94, esp. 278–80. For members of the imperial families, however, Byzantine monachization also had

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a darker side. Entering the monastery could provide a failed rival for the imperial throne with the only way of saving his life and that of his family. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Michael I Rhangabe (†844) and his consort, Prokopia, daughter of Nikephoros I. When Michael was forced to abdicate in favor of Leo the Armenian in 813, Leo permitted the former emperor and empress, as well as their four (known) children, to enter separate monasteries on the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara. Leo’s generosity, however, should not be overestimated: the two sons, Theophylaktos and Niketas, were castrated, as well as tonsured. Niketas, who took the name Ignatios, later left the monastery to become twice the Patriarch of Constantinople and was later declared a saint. 25

Graham Gould, “Women in the Writings of the Fathers: Language, Belief, and Reality,” in Women in the Church: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 7. A brief summary of the church fathers’ views on women may be found, for example, in Elizabeth A. Clark, “Devil’s Gateway and Bride of Christ: Women in the Early Christian World,” in her Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity, Studies in Women and Religion 20 (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen, 1986), 23–60. 26

To Lucianus of Bætica, who had made a vow of continence with his wife, Theodora, Jerome wrote in AD 398: “Habes tecum prius in carne, nunc in spiritu sociam; de conjuge germanam, de femina virum, de subjecta parem: quæ sub eodem jugo ad cœlestia simul regna festinat” (You have with you one who was once your partner in the flesh but is now your partner in the spirit; once your wife but now your sister; once a woman but now a man; once an inferior but now an equal. Under the same yoke as you she hastens toward the same heavenly kingdom; Jerome of Stridon, “Epistola LXXI. Ad Lucinium,” in Migne, PL, 22: col. 670, 71.3). In a subsequent letter of comfort to the recently widowed Theodora (AD 399), Jerome took up this theme again: “Et si adhuc in carne positi, et renati in Christo, non sumus Græcus et Barbarus, servus et liber, masculus et femina; sed omnes in eo unum sumus: quanto magis cum corruptivum hoc induerit incorruptionem, et mortale hoc induerit immortalitem.” (And since even in the flesh, if we are born again in Christ, we are no longer Greek and barbarian, bond and free, male and female, but are all one in Him, how much more true will this be when this corruptible has put on incorruption and when this mortal has put on immortality; Jerome of Stridon, “Epistola LXXV. Ad Theodoram viduam,” PL, 22: col. 686, 75.2); in English, The Principle Works of St. Jerome, trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martley, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd ser., 6 (New York: Christian Literature Co.; Oxford Parker & Co., 1893); repr. in vol. 6 of Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Select Library of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., 14 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1952; second repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 153, 155, resp. 27

“Imitare eam, quam docere debueras. Proh pudor, fragilior sexus vincit sæculum, et robustior superatur a sæculo. Tanti dux femina facti est (ex Virgil.): et non sequeris eam, in cujus salute candidatus es fidei?” “Epistola CXXII: Ad Rusticus,” in Migne, PL 22: col. 1046, 122.4; Fremantle, Lewis, and Martley, The Principle Works of St. Jerome, 229.

12: Conclusion

T

HE CENTRAL CONFLICT of the perilous bridal quest is the rivalry in status between the wooer and the father of the intended bride, with the latter’s realm representing a negative narrative space associated with his negative role in the wooer-father dynamic. The wooer holds the focus of the narration, which is structured according to his progress in the quest; this leads the recipients of the text to view the quest exclusively from the wooer’s perspective. The wooer achieves his goal through cunning ruses that deceive the father and lead to an elopement with the consent of the bride. The narrator of König Rother, however, not only employs the quest structure to narrate the entire wooer’s quest, but recycles and varies its elements in a number of sub-structures that support the greater narrative scheme. King Rother is a worthy wooer of sufficient status to merit the princess of Constantinople. He possesses great temporal might: his dominion extends beyond the territory of the Holy Roman emperors of contemporary history and beyond the territory ruled by the emblematic emperor of the West, Charlemagne. On an ethical level, he is a paragon of Christian virtue — like Charlemagne, a defender of the church — and a model of just kingship. The purpose of Rother’s bridal quest is to remove the single blot on his public honor: he has no wife and thus no legitimate heir. The future of his realm is at stake. The eventual success of this bridal quest has both historical and religious significance: the union of Rother and his bride produces Pippin, father of Charlemagne, and St. Gertrude of Nivelles, the most celebrated saint among the Carolingians and, at the time of the composition of the epic, the most popular saint in northwestern Germany. The bridal-quest situation demands that Constantin, as father of the bride, represent a foil to Rother’s excellence. His portrayal conforms to the image of the unjust king and tyrant, as advanced in contemporary mirrors for princes. Though a Christian, he embodies the negative traits normally reserved for infidels in Western literature of the period and for infidel fathers and guardians in the German bridal quest. Constantin’s arrogant refusal to acknowledge Rother’s worthiness to marry his daughter also exploits contemporary stereotypes of the Byzantines. The long conflict of the Langobard and Frankish kings with Constantinople over hegemony on the Italian peninsula, the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, unpleasant encounters during the first two Crusades,

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and polemical works by diplomats and chroniclers resulted in the Western view of the Byzantine emperors as deceitful, cunning, mendacious, avaricious, and vainglorious. Constantin’s self-defined superiority in status to Rother is belied by his comparative political — and military — weakness: he possesses among his vassals only sixteen dukes and thirty counts, compared with Rother’s seventy-two kings. When his kingdom is threatened by the infidel forces of Ymelot of Desert Babylon, his throne is only saved through Rother’s ingenuity and the bravery of the latter’s vassals. Rother’s equal in temporal power is not Constantin, but Ymelot, whose military power and desire to impose his rule on the Christian West represents a threat to both Constantin and Rother. Though the necessary rivalry in temporal power and excellence in kingship between wooer and father of the bride is clearly set up to predict the proper success of Rother’s quest, the poet does not and cannot go too far in his negative portrayal of Constantin, lest he be so denigrated that his daughter become a bride unworthy of Rother. The female characters in König Rother represent an active positive force within the father’s negative space. While thematically the bride is obviously the most significant female figure in the bridal quest, the poet also assigns a significant role to her mother. The presence of the bride’s mother is not an obligatory element in the bridal quest, but when she does appear, she acts as a biased mediator between the wooer and her husband, in that she regards the wooer’s suit as legitimate and acts in his favor. Not only is Constantin’s queen Rother’s chief advocate in Constantinople, but she also, like Rother, serves as his foil in kingship: it is against her exemplary conduct that Constantin’s flaws are measured, both as king and as father of the bride. She voices direct criticism of his political cowardice and lapses in judgment, particularly in the matter of Rother’s quest. Because the narrator himself offers no critical commentary on Constantin’s behavior, she becomes, in effect, the narrator’s mouthpiece. The queen’s very gender is an indictment of Constantin’s kingship and fitness to rule, because she, a (mere) woman, must herself exercise the royal authority in public, in order to mitigate his flawed kingship and conceal it from both his own vassals, who suffer from his unwillingness to defend them or to demonstrate the generosity demanded by the feudal bond, and from those who represent the excellence of his rival in status, King Rother. This reversal of stereotypical gender roles in the royal spouses is richly exploited for its humor. Symbolic of her positive role in the negative space of the bride’s father is her triumphant laughter at Constantin’s failure, when she learns that Rother’s ruses have been successful and their daughter will indeed become Rother’s bride. It is typical of the perilous bridal quest that the bride take no active part in the plot until the pivotal scene, when she meets her wooer in secret and agrees to an elopement. In this respect Constantin’s daughter is very

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different. She is no passive bride: she herself seizes the initiative to play a significant role in her own wooing. It is she who is able to bring about their necessary clandestine meeting, when all of Rother’s clever ruses are unable to do so. She shares with him an active concern for matters of public honor and status, and a similar ability to employ cunning ruses, proof that they are destined for each other. Her portrayal at the onset of Rother’s bridal quest, however, obeys the conventions; it is he, as wooer, who is the focus of narrative attention. Nothing is revealed of her true character beyond the stereotypical qualifications of appropriate status and rumored beauty — love from afar — until Rother himself undertakes the wooer’s journey, after his bridal messengers have failed to gain Constantin’s consent to their marriage. She makes no appearance in the text when the messengers arrive in Constantinople to plead his cause. Neither she nor her mother is consulted regarding the merits of the messenger’s proposal. Neither is complicit in Constantin’s dishonorable treatment of them. The development of the princess’s character coincides with Rother’s arrival in Constantinople disguised as Dietrich, the putative enemy of Rother. The narration of her actions is structured as a variation on the wooer’s quest, although its specifics reflect the restrictions imposed upon a female character by the rules of decorum and her confined sphere of action within her father’s negative narrative space. This is illustrated by the following outline derived from Schmid-Cadalbert’s structure of the bridal quest in the minstrel epic: Rother’s quest A Initiation and preparation of the wooing 1 Description of Rother and his kingdom 2 Council scene (doubled) a colloquium familiare with young vassals: Luppolt is Namer and Knower a1 colloquium familiare with wise old vassals 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers a colloquium publicum: Luppolt appointed as one of twelve messengers B Wooing journey 1 Messengers’ journey to Constantinople c Luppolt and other messengers are imprisoned by Constantin 2 Wooer’s journey to Constantinople b Rother, disguised as Dietrich, outwits Constantin i Rother meets in secret with the princess ii Rother unveils his disguise as Dietrich to the bride C Return with the bride and subsequent wedding

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Doubled structure a Rother returns to Bari with Constantin’s daughter b Wedding i No public wedding ceremony: marriage by mutual consent c (Re)abduction of the bride

Princess’s quest A Initiation and preparation of the wooing 1 Description of Constantin’s kingdom 2 Council scenes (doubled) a colloquium publicum: court ladies are “Dietrich”’s Namers and Knowers a1 colloquium familiare with Herlint 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers (a) No colloquium publicum: princess designated as Wooer B Wooing journey (doubled) 2 Wooer’s journey to Constantin’s chamber b Princess outwits Constantin in proposing Pentecost banquet 21 Wooer’s journey to Pentecost banquet x Unsuccessful quest: princess fails to meet “Dietrich” in public A1 Initiation and preparation of the wooing (doubled) 2 Council scene a colloquium publicum: courtiers praise “Dietrich”’s generosity as Knowers 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers a colloquium familiare with Herlint: Herlint designated as Messenger B1 Wooing journey (doubled) 1 Messenger’s journey to Rother’s chamber (doubled) x Unsuccessful quest: Herlint fails to lure Rother to meet the princess i Herlint returns with mismatched shoes: Rother outwits the princess a Herlint successfully lures Rother to meet the princess i “Dietrich” will bring the princess the matching shoes 2 Wooer’s journey (in reverse: decorum requires Rother come to the princess) b Princess outwits Constantin i Princess meets in secret with Rother ii Princess unveils her secret love for Rother

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22 Wooer’s journey to Constantin’s chamber (doubled from B.2) b Princess conspires with Rother to outwit Constantin i Princess proposes to leave Constantinople ii Princess meets in public with Rother (Dietrich) iii Princess receives confirmation of Rother’s true identity Return with the groom and subsequent wedding 2 Doubled structure a Princess returns to Bari with Rother b Wedding i No public wedding ceremony: marriage by mutual consent c (Re)abduction of the bride

The structure of the princess’s quest, with its various doublings, reveals itself to be more intricate than that of Rother. As Rother learned of her virtues through Luppolt, so she hears the public praise of “Dietrich” from the ladies of the court. In a colloquium familiare with Herlint as her sole counselor — there can be no colloquium publicum, because her active role must remain secret — she resolves to undertake a wooer’s journey to her father. Like her mother, she is acutely aware of her father’s character flaws; she plays upon his vanity and manipulates him into hosting a Pentecost banquet in order to demonstrate his prestige and status to Dietrich. Her ruse succeeds, and she undertakes a doubled wooer’s journey to her father’s banquet hall. This journey, however, is unsuccessful: she fails to meet Dietrich (Rother), the object of her quest. This must be so, for such a public encounter would violate the tradition of the bridal quest, in which the first words between of the lovers are exchanged outside the sphere of public honor dominated by her father. In a doubling of the colloquium familiare Herlint is designated as messenger. Her messenger’s journey is also doubled, and the first is unsuccessful: she goes to Dietrich’s quarters, but is unable to lure him to meet with the princess in private. On the contrary, Rother outwits Herlint and the princess by means of the mismatched shoes, which serve as a counter-lure to the princess. Herlint’s second journey to Dietrich, this time to collect the proper matches to the shoes, is successful: she persuades Rother to meet in private with the princess. Decorum forbids the princess’s going to Rother’s quarters, for she cannot afford a diminution of her public honor. This would bring into question her suitability as Rother’s spouse. He, therefore, must undertake this variation of the wooer’s journey in her stead. In accomplishing her clandestine meeting with Rother, the princess successfully outwits her father by circumventing his watchers, just as Rother has successfully outwitted him through his disguise as Dietrich. This meeting within her

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father’s negative sphere but outside his influence affords them the opportunity to acknowledge their desire to marry each other. The princess’s loyalty is transferred from her father to Rother; their separate quests for each other merge, and they subsequently act with a single purpose. The princess’s desire to meet Dietrich does not indicate, as some have suggested, that she loves him and considers him, not Rother, a possible candidate for marriage. That would presume that she is willing to settle for an inferior wooer, since Rother is acknowledged by all as Dietrich’s superior in status. Nor does the text adequately support the theory that she believes or hopes that Dietrich is Rother’s bridal messenger or, in fact, Rother himself. Her purpose in meeting with Dietrich is to assure herself of Rother’s superiority and worthiness as a wooer through a direct comparison with an excellent man who admits his own inferiority to the wooer rejected by her father. This is confirmed by her announcement to Dietrich that she can marry only Rother. The symbolic meaning of the mismatched shoes is problematic. It was a medieval custom for a suitor to make a gift of shoes to his prospective bride as part of the engagement ritual, and her acceptance of this gift signified submission to his authority. The writer of Þiðreks saga also seems to understand the gift of shoes as a meaningful ritual act of some intimacy, since Ósantrix additionally takes Oda onto his lap when he places the shoes on her foot, a Nordic ritual gesture indicating the acceptance of someone (usually a newborn or foster-child) into the family. This has led some to suggest that Rother intended the shoes to signify a marriage proposal, and that the princess’s desire to meet with “Dietrich” represents an acceptance of that proposal. The shoes, however, were part of Rother’s messenger’s fee to Herlint, and he cannot have known for certain — although this is certainly the purpose of his ruse — that the princess would bargain with her for them. The mismatched shoes fulfill their purpose in bringing the future spouses together, but they also represent a test of the princess’s worthiness — is she more like her flawed father than her excellent mother? — and the true purpose behind and intensity of her interest in him. The “shoeing” of the bride is usually understood as a reference to the ancient custom of bridal submission to the authority of her betrothed; however, the visual cues in the gesture by which Rother places the properly matched shoes upon the princess’s feet is problematic in this regard. At the princess’s suggestion — again, she furthers the action — Dietrich kneels before her, and she places her foot upon his thigh. Aside from the obviously erotic element in this particular gesture, the placing of a foot upon another person is a traditional gesture of dominance. As the princess understands the situation, Dietrich is her own and Rother’s inferior in status; placing her foot upon the kneeling Dietrich is a visual representation of this truth. The interpretation of her gesture as one of dominance is supported by the princess’s

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reaction when she learns that it is Rother himself who kneels before her: she quickly removes her foot from his lap, a symbolic retraction of her gesture in recognition of Rother’s equality. It is this moment, when the princess realizes that she is in the presence of the only man worthy of her hand, rather than her acceptance of the shoes or the shoeing itself, that initiates a valid marriage by mutual consent (Friedelehe). When they seal their mutual commitment with a kiss, it is she, the active bride, who kisses him, and not the reverse. Because the princess is cautious where matters of her honor and status are concerned, her consent to marry him is a contingent or conditional consent, contingent in so far as he must adequately prove his identity. Although she and Rother now join in a common conspiracy to deceive the entire court in pursuit of this goal, it is once again she who advances the action by employing another successful “wooer’s” ruse against her father. She feigns divine revelation through a dream and threatens to go on a pilgrimage and leave him forever, unless he allow her to tend Rother’s imprisoned bridal messengers. As with the Pentecost banquet, she again advocates a public action that serves a private purpose. Her public act of kindness toward the prisoners enables Rother to prove his identity to her and thus fulfill the condition of her contingent consent to marry him. At the same time, it represents her first act as Rother’s secret bride, in that she carries out her feudal obligation toward her future subjects and thereby demonstrates to them her ethical worthiness to be their queen. Once Rother’s identity has been established to her satisfaction, the marriage by contingent consent becomes valid. The consummation of the marriage takes place upon Rother’s ship, in the neutral narrative space between East and West, and there she conceives their son and heir, Pippin. This is also symbolic of Pippin’s legitimate claim to hegemony over the homelands of both his parents, that is, the whole of the Christian world. Pippin’s conception also fulfills the purpose of Rother’s quest, whose public honor is now seemingly complete. There are, nevertheless, certain difficulties, which a doubling of the wooer’s quest allows permanently to be resolved. The Friedelehe is a personal union that is easily dissolvable, not a Muntehe that contractually unites two families in perpetuity. Although the marriage has the consent of Constantin’s queen, it has not received the public approval of her father, who possesses full legal authority over her. This raises questions as to the validity of the marriage and to the legitimacy of Rother’s heirs. Constantin’s perceived diminishment of status through Rother’s elopement with his daughter motivates the doubling of the wooer’s quest. In seeking her return, Constantin is asserting his legal right as her guardian to rescue her from an abductor. As was true of the princess’s counter-quest, the narration of Constantin’s re-abduction of the bride also incorporates individual elements from the structure of the wooer’s quest, with negative variations appropriate to the circumstances:

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(Re)abduction of the bride A Initiation and preparation of the abduction 2 Council scene a colloquium familiare with minstrel: Constantin is Namer and Knower 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers (a) No colloquium publicum: minstrel designated as messenger B Wooing journey 1 Messenger’s journey to Bari (doubled) x Unsuccessful quest: disguised minstrel fails to outwit Rother’s queen i Fails to lure her onto his ship with fancy wares b Disguised minstrel outwits Rother’s queen (and Luppolt) i Lures her onto his ship to cure crippled children (2) No wooer’s journey Possible transferring of the bride to a rival suitor i Rother’s queen betrothed to Basilistium

Unlike Rother’s quest, Constantin’s counter-quest is not motivated by reasons of state; his plot is devised in secret, without the knowledge or consent of his vassals. He consults instead with an ignoble minstrel, whom he designates as his anti-wooing messenger. That the minstrel’s initial ruse of luring Rother’s queen on board his vessel with the promise of exotic merchandise at bargain prices fails is a testament to her character: he can attract the townswomen with his wares, but not the queen. It is only by playing upon her conscientiousness as loyal liege lady, and perhaps her incipient motherhood, that his plan succeeds: she boards the ship in the hope of healing the crippled children of one of Rother’s important knights by means of magic stones kept there. Although she is forcibly returned to the negative narrative space of her father, the princess continues to identify with her status as Rother’s wife, and the narrator consistently refers to her as such. She demonstrates her commitment to the success of Rother’s bridal quest by remaining resolutely silent in the face of her father’s obvious joy — and her mother’s obvious distress — at his seemingly successful negation of it. Her narrative silence, however, is not a return to the status quo ante, the passive role she played at the onset of Rother’s quest. Her silence is active and the only way of resisting the legal and absolute power her father and Ymelot hold over her.

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The success of Rother’s bridal quest has not been and cannot be reversed by Constantin’s successful re-abduction of his bride, for she carries in her womb the tangible proof of their enduring union. When Rother sets out to retrieve his wife (and unborn heir) from her father, the narrator again embeds elements of the wooer’s quest into the larger structure of the doubled quest: C

2

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g h

Wooer’s journey and arrival in the bride’s homeland A Initiation and preparation of the wooing 2 Council scene b colloquium publicum: Luppolt is Knower 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers a colloquium publicum: Berchter proposes military campaign a1 colloquium publicum in Rome to assemble an army B Wooing journey (1) No messengers journey 2 Wooer’s journey to Constantinople x Rother fails to outwit Constantin (and Ymelot) i Rother, disguised as pilgrim, meets with his wife in public ii Rother unveils his disguise as pilgrim to his wife (and her mother) x Rother is betrayed by his wife’s public laughter iii Rother unveils his disguise as pilgrim in public b Rother outwits Constantin (and Ymelot) Decisive battle x Combined Christian forces defeat Ymelot’s army i Reconciliation with the bride’s father ii Possible slaying of the rival suitor α Basilistium is hanged Return with the bride Court celebration: rewarding of the loyal followers

The princess finally breaks her silence when she responds to the bragging of the infidel kings, who threaten to kill Rother, should he appear in Constantinople to rescue her. Her words of support for the disguised Rother hearten him and reassure him that he still commands her loyalty and love. When he reveals his presence to her, sitting at her feet upon a footstool, he recreates in public the visual image of their first, private meeting. As the golden shoes were the means by which he revealed himself as her true

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wooer, so now a golden ring, passed to her in secret, symbolizes their enduring marital bond. Her response to his presence is to laugh and share the news with her mother, Rother’s other great advocate in Constantinople. This laughter echoes that of her mother at the success of Rother’s first quest. The princess’s first expression of happiness since her return to her father has both negative and positive consequences for Rother and for the success of the doubled quest. It exposes his ruse to his enemies, who sentence him to death; at the same time, however, this verdict becomes the mechanism by which all is saved. Reports of what has happened spread throughout Constantinople to reach the ears of Count Arnolt, who with his men and Rother’s hidden army manages to prevent Rother’s death. In the ensuing military clash between Ymelot’s infidels and the Christian warriors the female characters play no part until the enemy forces have been defeated on the battlefield. The fear that Rother might execute Constantin moves the latter actively to solicit, for the first time in the text, the counsel of his queen. As fear for his life had motivated his bad decision to marry his daughter to Ymelot’s son, so it also motivates his good decision to rule justly and to acknowledge that Rother is of sufficient status to woo his daughter. He begs both wife and daughter to intercede for him with Rother, and it is the royal women who are the peacemakers. Only they can effect this reconciliation between wooer and father of the bride. In carrying out his ritual act of submission to Rother, Constantin is accompanied only by women. None of Constantin’s (male) vassals take part. Constantin’s queen is well received by Rother’s chief vassals, and Rother kisses both his wife and her mother, but does not greet Constantin. This is a poignant reminder of his now diminished status in the eyes of the Romans and the unresolved conflict between himself and Rother. The queen assumes in Constantin’s stead the right of the father to give his daughter in marriage by publicly placing her daughter’s hand in that of Rother, although the narrator also assures that Constantin, too, now approves of this union. His presence guarantees the validity of the queen’s consent. This gesture in the presence of family and witnesses is the public legitimation of Rother’s marriage: it is no longer a Friedelehe, but a Muntehe. With the final resolution of the perilous bridal quest, proper order is also restored to Constantinople: the queen ceases to exercise the royal power and disappears from the narrative. She no longer needs to function as king, because Rother’s bridal quest has concomitantly healed Constantin’s flawed kingship. Rother’s queen, too, disappears from the brief narrative epilogue that recounts the ensuing events of the next quarter century. The focus here is the education and development of Rother’s heir under the wise tutelage of his father. Her presence is not noted at Pippin’s knighting, during which he confirms the fiefdoms of his father’s vassals and secures

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the succession for himself upon Rother’s death. This is, however, not surprising, since matters of state conventionally belonged to the world of men. Following this epilogue, which illustrates the enduring success of Rother’s bridal quest, is a doubled epilogue, in which Rother’s bride once again assumes an active role in the narrative, more active than that of Rother himself. The textual integrity of the second epilogue, in which the royal spouses decide to forsake the world in pursuit of spiritual blessedness in the monastic life, has often been called into question, in that it seems an unnecessary appendage. Their monachization, however, can be viewed as the logical extension of the bridal quest. The quest enabled Rother to reach the pinnacle of worldly power and, with Pippin’s succession guaranteed, the spouses have completed their tasks in the temporal world. They can now look to the welfare of their immortal souls in eternity. It is, however, not only this thematic logic that integrates the epilogue into the bridal quest: the narration of its events also bears a resemblance to the initial stages of the bridal-quest structure. A

B

2

Council scene a colloquium familiare: Berchter is Namer and Knower 3 Enlistment and designation of messengers (a) No colloquium publicum Wooing journey 1–2 Messenger’s journey and wooer’s journey x Rother, Berchter, and Rother’s queen abandon the world

Berchter exercises for one last time his role as Rother’s wise counselor by extolling the eternal reward to be gained by abandoning the world in pursuit of a spiritual goal. He assumes the roles of Knower and Namer, which had twice been assigned to his son, when the goal was to make Rother’s worldly honor complete. Because the pursuit of eternal salvation is the personal aim of every Christian, and not a matter of state, there is no need for public discussion with Rother’s other vassals, and the similarly to the bridal quest ends with their colloquium familiare. They jointly resolve to embark upon their individual spiritual quests, a journey of equals in the eyes of God, in which each becomes a “wooer” of His eternal reward. In the course of these deliberations Rother remains an uncharacteristically silent figure, whereas up to now, as wooer, he has been the prime mover of the action. His decision to follow Berchter’s wise counsel is reported by the narrator, but Rother himself ceases to speak. The last words quoted in the text belong to Rother’s queen, who speaks for both spouses. This is a final testament to the important narrative function the Rother poet

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has assigned to the female characters in the conventionally male-oriented world of the bridal quest. The queen was the prize of Rother’s perilous quest, but that quest might not have been successful, had she not engaged in a counter-quest to woo him; nor would a reconciliation between Rother and Constantin have been possible without the mediation of their respective queens. Constantin’s re-abduction of the bride and the imminent death that threatens both Rother and Constantin during Rother’s doubled quest demonstrate that victory in the rivalry between wooer and father of the bride can be elusive. It requires the active intervention of the female characters to bring about a successful resolution to their conflict. In doing so the bride and her mother play the decisive role in creating a harmony between West and East that unites the whole of the Christian world against the threat of the infidels. As Rother’s bride was the means by which he was able to establish his superior status in the male world of the bridal quest, so it seems fitting that she voice their acceptance of a greater quest for a prize that transcends the transitoriness of all temporal victories. Through her son she has secured the future of Rother’s earthly kingdom, and she now leads the way to securing a place for Rother and herself, as equals, in the eternal bliss of God’s heavenly kingdom.

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Wegener, Wilhelm, ed. 1962–69. Genealogische Tafeln zur mitteleuropäischen Geschichte. Göttingen: Heinz Reise. Weigand, Rudolf. 1963. Die bedingte Eheschließung im kanonischen Recht. Münchener theologische Studien, Abt. 3, 16. Munich: Max Huebner. ———. 1981. “Liebe und Ehe bei den Dekretisten des 12. Jahrhunderts.” In Love and Marriage in the Twelfth Century, edited by Willy van Hoecke und Andries Welkenhuysen, 41–58. Leuven: Leuven UP. Weinhold, Karl. 1882. Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Vienna: C. Gerolds Sohn. Reprint, 2 vols. in 1, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1968. Wentzlaff-Eggebert, F. W. 1960. Kreuzzugsdichtung des Mittelalters: Studien zu ihrer Geschichtlichkeit und dichterischen Wirklichkeit. Berlin: W. de Gruyter. Wenzel, Horst. 1983. “Fernliebe und hohe Minne: Zur räumlichen und sozialen Distanz in der Minnethematik.” In Liebe als Literatur: Aufsätze zur erotischen Dichtung in Deutschland, edited by Rüdiger Krohn and Helmut Brackert, 187–208. Munich: C. H. Beck. Weston, Jessie L. Three Days’ Tournament. Grimm Library 15. London: D. Nutt, 1902. Reprint, New York: Haskell House, 1965. Wishard, Armin. 1972. “Formulaic Composition in the Spielmannsepik.” Papers on Language and Literature 8:243–51. Woelker, Eva-Maria. 1940/69. Menschengestaltung in vorhöfischen Epen des 12. Jahrhunderts: Chanson de Roland / Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad / König Rother. Germanische Studien 221. Berlin: Ebering. Reprint, Nedeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint. Wohlhaupter, Eugen. 1929. “Schuhe als Reichnis, besonders nach bayrischösterreichischen Quellen.” Die ostbairischen Grenzmarken 18:142–46. ———. 1930. “Nochmals Schuhe als Reichnis.” Die ostbairischen Grenzmarken 19:250–54. Wolf, Gunther. 1988. “Nochmals zur Frage: Wer war Theophano?” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 81:272–83. Wyss, Ulrich. 1980. “Struktur der Thidrekssaga.” Acta Germanica 13:69–86. Zak, Sabine. 1990. “Luter schal und süeze doene: Die Rolle der Musik in der Repräsentation.” In Höfische Repräsentation: Das Zeremoniell und Zeichen, edited by Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel, 133–48. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer. Zimmermann, Hans Dieter. 1979. Schema-Literatur: Ästhetische Norm und literarisches System. Urban-Taschenbücher 299. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer. Zimmermann, Rita, 1993. Herrschaft und Ehe: Die Logik der Brautwerbung im “König Rother.” Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1, 1422. Frankfurt am Main and New York: P. Lang. Zotz, Thomas. 1999. “Odysseus im Mittelalter? Zum Stellenwert von List und Listigkeit in der Kultur des Adels.” In Die List, edited by Harro von Senger, 212–40. Edition Suhrkamp 2039. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. zur Nieden, Karl. 1930. Über die Verfasser der mittelhochdeutschen Heldenepen. Bonn: L. Leopold.

Index Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), 66, 197, 206n12; textual references to, 198 abduction by force. See Brautraub Alexander the Great, 155–56n25. See also Lamprecht Alexander III (pope), on consent, 141 Alexios I Komnenos (Byzantine emperor), 66–67, 106n12 Althoff, Gerd, 52, 58n7, 60n17, 62n29, 104–5n3, 118n6, 118n8, 158, 184, 187 Amelger of Tengelingen, 90 Andarchius, wooer, 8 Andechs (dynasty), 35, 46, 58nn4–5, 61n21, 67 Andersson, Theodore M., 1, 8, 18n23, 19n29, 24 Anthony, Saint, 201 Anton, Hans Hubert, 69, 82nn14–15 “Apophthegmata patrum,” 208n21 Arjava, Antti, 151–52 Arnolt, 101, 106n13, 175–78, 189– 90, 196, 219 Arthurian romance, 21, 111, 119n12 Asprian (giant), 22, 24, 62n30, 90, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 106n9, 106n12, 112, 122, 126–27, 131, 177–78, 182, 186–87, 191n2, 196–97; Nordic parallel to, 24 Augustine of Hippo, Saint: on eternal life, 200; on kingship, 68–70; on women, 204 Authari (king of the Langobards), 18n27, 27–31, 45; wooer of Clodosinde, sister of Frankish king Childebert II, 18n27; wooer of Theudelinde, daughter of Garibald I of Bavaria, 27–29 authorship: of König Rother, 34, 129; of minstrel epics, 2–4

Baar, P. A. van den, 205n3 Babenberg (house of), 34–35, 195 Babylon (Egypt) (historical city), 156n31; home of Ymelot, 22, 57, 103, 145, 147–48, 169, 178, 185, 211 Bächtold-Stäubli, Hanns, on shoes, 154n15, 155n18 Bahr, Joachim, 2, 5, 7–8, 15n4, 17n18, 36 Bamberg, Ekbert, prince-bishop of, as patron, 35 Bari (historical city), 45, 80n5; Rother’s residence, 14, 22–23, 29, 45–46, 57, 65, 87, 90, 145, 150, 160, 162–63, 172, 190, 192, 197, 213–14, 217 Barker, John W., 80n5 Basilistium: historical model for, 157; origin of name, 179n4; as Rother’s rival, 22–23, 143, 169, 171–73, 175–76, 178, 190, 200, 217–18 Bäuml, Franz, 18n22 Bavaria, 21, 27–28, 33–35, 37n2, 43n43, 46–47, 61n21, 67, 134, 195 Beatrix of Swabia (sister of Emperor Henry VI), 180n7 Beaucamp, Joëlle, 83–84n24 Behr, Hans-Joachim, 15n4 Benath, Ingeborg, 38nn4–5, 38n9, 107, 117n2, 121, 150, 153n11, 179n2. See also Köppe-Benath Benezé, Emil, 179n5 Bennewitz, Ingrid, 58nn2–3, 156n30, 164, 180n10, 181n13, 191n2–3 Berchter of Meran: as counselor, 35, 46, 52, 55–56, 68, 88–90, 92, 99– 100, 122, 131, 165, 168, 172, 174, 176, 178, 179n3, 182, 186–89, 196, 198–203, 218, 220; as count, 62n27; historical model for, 61n21

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Bernheim, Ernst, 82n15 Bertau, Karl, 30, 35, 43n40, 58n4, 137 Bertha (Bertrada Greatfoot) (mother of Charlemagne), 192–93 Bertha of Sulzbach (the Empress Irene), 81n10, 85n34, 195; as historical model for Constantin’s queen, 67 Berthold IV (VI) of Andechs-Diessen (duke of Meran), 35, 46; as historical model for Berchter, 61n21 Beumann, Helmut, 78 Biesterfeldt, Corinna, 197, 199–201, 207n13, 207n18, 208n20, 208nn22–23 Blum, Wilhelm, 81n10 Böckenholt, Hans-Joachim, 7, 40n16, 42n33, 62n26, 96, 99, 108, 118n4, 119n10, 121, 138, 144, 154n13, 154n16, 162–63, 166n1, 174, 179n5, 185, 203 Boor, Helmut de, 3, 15n1, 25, 35, 36n1, 41n27, 42n34, 46, 200 Bornholdt, Claudia, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18n25, 18n27, 19n28, 19n31, 25, 33, 39–40nn13–15, 41n21, 43n39, 49, 55, 78, 91, 104n1, 119n11, 122, 132, 148, 150, 157n34, 159 Brandt, Rüdiger, 114 Bräuer, Rolf, 8, 16n11, 18n20, 37n3, 56, 62n27, 71, 88, 161 Brautraub, 8–10, 13, 26, 92, 150–51 bridal quest: in Iceland, 18n26; perilous, 9–10, 12–13, 21–22, 29, 51–52, 63, 85n33, 90–91, 96, 121, 132, 147, 150, 157n35, 159, 163, 175, 210–11, 219–20; role of bride, 6–14, 19n30, 21; role of mother, 72; role of wooer, 8–11, 13–14, 21, 23; simple, 9–12, 29– 30, 150, 159, 162 bride. See Rother’s bride Brundage, James A., 49, 141–42, 180–81n11 Bumke, Joachim, 34–35, 37n2, 43n40, 52, 62n28 Burghausen, counts of, 35, 47, 61n21

Burton-Christie, Douglas, 201, 208n23 Byzantine empresses, role of, 72–73, 78, 83n22, 84n25–27, 85–86n34 Byzantium: court rituals, 74–75; marital alliances, 195, 205n5; rivalry with West, 14, 27, 29–30, 32, 45–46, 57, 63, 65–66, 70, 78, 146, 194; as source of plot, 6, 8, 17n16, 36; Western view of, 63–64, 194–95, 210–11. See also Constantinople Cameron, Averil, 84n28 Charlemagne, 14, 30, 36, 37n2, 46, 48, 52, 65–66, 87, 144, 146, 164– 65, 173, 177, 180n8, 189, 192–97, 200–201, 204, 210; canonization of, 30, 48, 165 Chrétien de Troyes, 21, 25, 123 Christianity, 20n35, 32, 38n7, 48, 57, 62n30, 63, 68–70, 77–78, 95, 99– 100, 135, 144, 146, 165, 166n3, 169–70, 175–76, 178, 182–83, 185–86, 189–90, 196, 200, 203, 207n17, 210–11, 216, 220–21 Clark, Elizabeth A., 209n25 Classen, Peter, 80n7 Connor, Carolyn L., 208n24 consent, marriage by, 134–35, 141– 42, 150, 155n21, 156n27–28, 159, 169, 171, 216, 219. See also Friedelehe Constantin: historical models for, 66– 77; origin of name, 67–68; as rex iniquus, 68, 70, 78, 99, 194, 210; as rex iustus, 184–85 Constantine I (Byzantine emperor), 65, 80n6, 85n30, 150 Constantine VI (Byzantine emperor), 195, 205n5 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Byzantine emperor), 61n23, 74–75, 85n34 Constantinople (historical city), 31, 61n23, 63–64, 67, 72, 75, 79, 79–80n1, 81n10, 86n36, 183, 194, 208–9n25, 210; as narrative space, 14, 20n35, 22, 29, 45, 48, 53,

INDEX 55–57, 62n30, 63, 65, 71, 74–75, 87, 89–93, 96–99, 102, 107–9, 114–15, 117, 121, 123, 125, 127, 130, 138, 143, 145–47, 149–50, 160–63, 165, 168, 170–71, 175, 177, 182–86, 189–90, 192, 199– 200, 210–12, 214, 218–19. See also Byzantium Constantin’s queen, 61n22, 71–76, 83n20, 93, 95–99, 101–4, 107–8, 114–16, 120, 146–50, 152, 157n35, 158–59, 162–63, 179n5, 182–90, 191n4, 200, 211, 216, 219, 221; compared to historical empresses, 72–73, 84n27; historical model for, 67–68 Constanza of Sicily (wife of Emperor Henry VI), 31, 206n11 Contamine, Philippe, 208n19 counsel, taking of, 26, 49, 52, 51–52, 55–56, 62n25, 88–90, 93, 99, 110, 160, 165, 172, 182–83, 199, 202, 220; by Contantin’s queen, 74, 96, 98–99, 185–86, 219; importance of, 31, 52, 69–71; by princess, 108–9, 122–23, 214; in structure, 10–11, 48–49, 88, 51, 56, 212–13, 217–18, 220 courtly love, 50, 55, 62n26, 118n4, 121, 134–35, 140, 153n5 Crusades, 29, 31, 45, 64, 67, 175–76, 178; as source of plot, 6, 73, 106n12, 210 Curschmann, Michael, 4–5, 7–8, 15n4, 17n19, 19n32, 25, 27, 30, 32, 36, 38–39n9, 40n16, 40n18, 41n23, 41n26, 41n28, 43n42–43, 57, 59n9, 62n26, 69, 71, 90, 116, 123, 160, 179n3, 200 Dachau, Counts of, 35, 37n2, 46, 104n2 Darius (king of Persia), as wooer, 18n27 Davids, Adelbert, 205n5 de Boor, Helmut. See Boor, Helmut de de Vries, Jan. See Vries, Jan de Decretalists, on marriage, 49, 54

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Delumeau, Jean, 207n17 Deutsch, Lorenz, 12, 17n13, 42n37 Diehl, Charles, 81n10 Diessen, counts of, 46–47, 61n21, 67, 157n37. See also Hademar of Diessen Dinser, Gudula, 37n3, 38–39n9, 41n31, 59n12, 61n22, 70, 97, 103, 110–11, 113, 152, 166n4, 169 disguises, 7–8, 19n29, 24, 26, 29, 85n30, 89–91, 119n11, 165–66, 173–74, 178n1, 200, 212, 214, 217–18; as merchant, 26, 161, 166n1; as pilgrim, 23, 26, 168, 174, 179n3, 200, 212 Dobozy, Maria, 59–60n12, 60n14–15, 66, 176 doubled quest, 11–12, 14, 21, 33, 42n37, 159, 163, 168–78, 190, 191n7, 200, 213–14, 218–19, 221 dreams, prophetic, 143–44, 170–71, 179–80nn5–6, 216 Duby, Georges, 60n18 Edzardi, Anton, 208n23 Ehrismann, Gustav, 6, 14n1, 18n24, 25, 29, 31–32, 36n1, 37n3, 38n5, 41n22, 43n43, 48, 50, 71, 73, 77, 86n36, 89, 106n12, 170, 197 Eis, Gerhard, 155n19 El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria, 75, 85n30 empresses: of Byzantium, 61–62n24, 67, 72–73, 78, 81n2, 84n25–27, 195, 208–9n24; of Holy Roman Empire, 72–73, 83n21 engagement ritual, 133–34, 140–41, 154n16, 155n19, 215 Erb, Ewald, 4, 6, 14–15n1, 16n10, 25, 40n19, 41n27, 46–48, 59n12, 71, 88, 161 Erwin, 87–88, 106n13, 178, 187, 196–97 Evans Grubbs, Judith, 151 exogamy, 13–14, 51, 54 Favier, Jean, 206n7 Ferdowsi (Hakīm Abu’l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī), works by: Shāhnāmeh, 81n12

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Fischer, Hubertus, 19, 97, 111, 113, 121, 146, 176 Fisher, Rodney, 17n14, 70, 111, 155– 56n24, 179n4 Fleck, Konrad, works by: Flore und Blanscheflur, 193 Fleckenstein, Josef, 205n5 folklore, motifs in, 9, 23, 25, 27, 29, 47, 77–78, 105n4, 106n12, 119n12, 134, 144, 166n1, 166n3, 168, 170–72 foot, symbolism of, 22, 24, 132–34, 139–40, 142, 154n15, 171, 215– 16, 218 Foss, Michael, 84n29 fostering ritual, 133–34, 215 Franconia, 19n31, 33–34, 36, 43n39, 46 Frappier, Jean, 86n37 Frederick I Barbarossa (Holy Roman Emperor), 30–31, 34–35, 39–40n15, 46, 48, 67, 80–81n8, 104n2, 156–57n31, 193, 206n11– 12 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 31, 35 Frings, Theodor, 7–9, 17n16–17, 18n23, 20n33, 30, 40n19, 42n34, 58n2, 199n11, 155n23 Friedelehe, 141–42, 150, 155n21, 156n26, 156n28, 169, 216, 219. See also consent, marriage by Fromm, Hans, 19n29, 33, 39n15, 105n5, 108–9, 116, 119n11, 121–22, 124, 132, 135, 139, 142, 153n3 Fuchs-Jolie, Stephan, 86n37, 91, 95, 97, 101, 106n9, 106n11, 112–15, 118n9 Garibald I (king of Bavaria), 27–28 Garland, Lynda, 84n25 Geissler, Friedmar, 9, 18n24, 18n26, 23, 77, 118n4, 170, 172 Geith, Karl-Ernst, 165, 205n2 Gellinek, Christian, 6, 14, 23, 31–33, 35–36, 37n3, 39n15, 40n19, 41n23, 41n28, 43n40, 59n12, 63,

65–66, 80n6, 81n12, 101, 117n1, 129, 135, 141–42, 144, 154n16, 155n21, 157n37, 160, 162, 164, 166–67nn5–6, 171, 173, 176, 178, 179n4, 180nn6–7, 181n13, 194–95 Gernentz, Hans Joachim, 161 Gertrude (sister of Charlemagne), 166–67n6 Gertrude of Nivelles, Saint, 80n6, 164–65, 166–67n6, 192, 210 Gervinus, Georg Gottfried, 2, 16n10 giants, 22, 24, 26, 90, 93–95, 108n5, 112–13, 122, 131, 145, 158, 168, 177–78, 182–83, 192, 196. See also Asprian; Grimme; Witold Gibbs, Marion E., 105n4 Giles, Saint (Ægidius), 173 Godfrey of Viterbo, works by: Speculum regum, 193 Goez, Werner, 205n3 Gould, Graham, 209n25 Graf, Klaus, 43–44n44 Gratian of Bologna, on marriage, 49–50, 69, 141–42, 169 Gregory of Tours, Saint, 8, 18n25, 18n27, 33, 133 Griese, Sabine, 40n20–21 Grimm, Jacob, 133–34 Grimm, Wilhelm, 1–2 Grimme (giant), 90, 161, 182, 196–97 Grosdidier de Matons, José, 83–84n24 Grubmüller, Klaus, 42n36 Habermas, Jürgen, 58n7, 111 Hademar of Diessen, 46, 152; historical models for, 157n37 Hannig, Jürgen, 60n16 harp signal, 22, 26, 57, 142, 144, 168 Haug, Walter, 4–5, 15n2, 21, 27, 32, 42n37, 57, 78, 103, 160 Haupt, Barbara, 32, 38–39n9, 44n46, 59n10, 90, 97, 105n7, 109, 111– 12, 114, 118n6, 122–23, 129, 134, 153n3 Haymes, Edward R., 18n22, 39n13– 14, 42n36

INDEX Heer, Friedrich, 48 Heilig, Konrad Josef, 206n10 Heinrich von Veldeke, works by: Eneide, 1, 119n13 Henry II (Holy Roman emperor), 66 Henry II Jasomirgott (duke of Austria, duke of Bavaria, margrave and duke of Austria), as patron, 35–36, 195 Henry IV (Holy Roman emperor), 66, 185 Henry V (Count Palatine of the Rhine), as historical model for Hademar, 157n37 Henry VI (Holy Roman emperor), 31, 61n22, 67, 193, 206n11–12; as historical model for Rother, 31, 67, 206n11 Henry Berengar (son of Emperor Konrad III), 195 Herlint, 22, 74, 153n7; as counselor, 108–10, 122, 213–14; as messenger, 122–31, 137–38, 153n7, 153n11–12, 213–15; origin of type, 118n4 Herman, 55–56 heroic poetry, 3–5, 9, 16n11, 31–32, 34, 77, 92, 160, 168 Herrin, Judith, 72, 83n22 Herrmann, Erwin, 46, 58n4 Herzog Ernst, 1, 3–4, 13, 105n8 Heusler, Andreas, 13 Hill, Barbara, 78, 83n22, 84n26–27, 85–86n34 Hoffmann, Werner, 4–5, 7, 16n12, 34, 39–40n15, 43n40 Hohenstaufen (dynasty), 32, 36, 48, 57, 157n37, 193, 195–96 Holy Roman Empire, 104n2; boundaries of, 47, 196; rivalry with Byzantium, 32, 63; women in the, 72 honor, 32, 59n10, 74, 78, 112–13, 116, 135, 151, 165, 179n3, 186, 214; of Constantin, 78, 100, 104, 109–10, 114, 145, 150, 160, 184, 212; of Rother, 47–48, 50, 62n26, 78, 88, 90, 100, 109, 132, 145, 148, 150, 152, 172, 178, 187, 189–90, 195, 199–200, 203, 210,

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216, 220; of Rother’s queen, 110, 123–25, 130, 132, 135, 137–38, 142, 170, 212, 214, 216 horn signal, 23, 26, 168, 177 Hübner, Gert, 91 humor, 7, 73, 90, 94, 106n10, 112, 116, 132, 164, 173, 211 Hünnerkopf, Richard, 39n15, 42n34 incest: as impediment to marriage, 13; as motif, 77, 157n35 infidels, 22, 25–27, 40n20, 45, 57, 59n9, 66, 70, 92, 101, 143, 145–8, 150, 155–6n24, 161, 168, 170–71, 173, 175–76, 178, 179n4, 180n9, 181n12–13, 182–83, 186–87, 189–90, 193, 204–5n2, 211, 218– 19, 221; in bridal quest, 77, 210; impediment to marriage for, 169 Innocent III (pope), on consanguinity, 13; on the imperial dignity, 194 Irene (Byzantium empress), 195 Irene (wife of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos). See Bertha of Sulzbach Irene Angelina of Byzantium (wife of Philipp of Swabia), as historical model for Rother’s bride, 61n22, 67 Irmscher, Johannes, 81n10 Isaak II Angelos (Byzantine emperor), 61n22, 67 Italy, 28–29, 31, 34, 36, 46, 105, 206n11; Byzantines in, 27, 29, 45, 65 Jackson, W. T. H., 13 James, Liz, 83n22, 84n26, 85–86n34 John I Tzimisces (Byzantine emperor), 66, 195 Johnson, Sidney M., 105n4 Jordanes, works by: De origine actibusque Getarum, 18n27 Kaiserchronik, 34, 155–56n24, 157n37, 207n18 Kalinke, Marianne E, 18n26, 19n29 Kantorowicz, Ernst H., 59n11 Karhof, Günter, 37n3, 38n9, 93, 108, 130, 139, 153n3, 153n9, 191n6

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Kern, Fritz, 60n16 Kiening, Christian, 13, 22, 25, 30, 33, 38–39n9, 42–43n37, 47, 51, 54, 62n30, 71, 77, 79, 85n33, 90, 94, 110, 137, 147, 153n7, 164, 174, 193, 196, 201 King Horn, 23 kingship: representation of, 32, 47–48, 58n7, 74, 87, 95, 97, 104, 109–12, 114–17, 120, 124, 137, 140, 150, 158, 189; theme of, 32, 48, 69–71, 72–73, 91, 95, 97, 99, 103–4, 111, 140, 144–45, 152, 159, 172, 185, 189–90, 194–99, 201–3, 210–11, 219; theories of, 52, 65, 69–70 kinship, as bar to marriage, 13–14 Klein, Thomas, 25, 30, 33, 56 Knappe, Karl-Bernhard, 47, 110–11, 207n14 Kocher, Gernot, 180n7 Kofler, Walter, 25, 27, 168, 176, 180n11 Kokott, Hartmut, 7, 34, 36–37n1, 38–39n9, 48, 50, 57, 59n10, 59– 60n12, 65, 74, 76, 92, 100, 137, 145–46, 175, 200 Kolb, Frank, 85n30 Komnenoi (Byzantine dynasty), 29, 36, 57, 66–67, 80–81n8, 81n10, 85–86n34, 104n2, 106n12, 195 Konrad I of Hall-Peilstein (patron), 35, 47 Konrad III (Holy Roman emperor), 30, 67, 80–81n8, 157n37, 195 Konrad der Pfaffe, works by: Rolandslied, 1, 34, 87, 144, 177, 180n11 Köppe-Benath, Ingeborg, 18n20, 34, 38n7, 38n9, 58n2, 70, 80n6, 129, 164, 179n2, 180n9. See also Benath, Ingeborg Kraemer, Ross, 203 Kramer, Günter, 38n5, 38n9, 42n33, 43n39, 52, 153n9 Kresten, Otto, 206n9 Krogmann, Willy, 43n38, 106n12 Kuhn, Hugo, 12, 121 Kuhnt, Joachim, 42n34, 58n2

Lamprecht, works by: Alexanderlied, 1, 105n8 Langobards, 18n27, 27–30, 45–46, 63, 65, 104n2, 180n7, 180n10, 210 Laurin, 15n3, 105n4 law, 68, 71, 78, 134, 198; Byzantine, 64, 73, 151, 159, 169, 188; canon, 13, 49, 54, 142, 151–52, 156n25, 156n27, 169; feudal, 48; Germanic, 134; Nordic, 133; Roman, 72, 141, 150–51, 174; Salic, 72 legitimacy: of marriage, 49, 121, 150– 51, 169, 188, 219; of Rother’s heir, 48, 72, 150, 152, 189, 192, 210, 216 Lichtenstein, Robert, 58n3 Liudprand of Cremona, 54, 61n23, 62n25, 63–64, 66, 70, 75, 86n36, 195 Loerzer, Eckart, 116–17 Lofmark, Carl, 42n36 Lord, Albert B., 5 Lothar III (Holy Roman emperor), 157n37, 207n18 love: in kingship, 69, 103, 116; in marriage, 54–55, 117n2, 138, 155n20–21, 162, 164, 218; as theme, 5, 29, 32, 49–50, 83n17, 116, 120–24, 131, 135, 137, 141, 213. See also courtly love; Minne love from afar, as motif, 55, 121, 124, 212 loyalty: feudal bond of, 32, 48, 69, 71, 76–78, 87, 92, 100–102, 104, 111–12, 134, 144, 176–77, 184, 211, 216; marital bond of, 32, 171–72, 215, 218; theme of, 5, 32, 48, 50–52, 57, 69, 87–88, 91, 102, 104, 107, 111, 124, 127, 138, 163–64, 164, 166, 178, 184, 188, 192, 197, 199 Luppolt, 22, 52–56, 74–76, 87–88, 90, 94, 108, 123–24, 131, 139, 152, 163, 165, 168, 172, 176–78, 179n3, 182, 186–87, 191n6, 192, 196–98, 212, 214, 217–18; historical model for, 61n20, 86n36

INDEX Lussky, George F., 117n3, 120, 164, 166n2, 191n5 Manuel I Komnenos (Byzantine emperor), 29–30, 36, 67, 80n5, 80–81n8, 85n34, 104n2, 195; as historical model for Rother, 67 manuscripts: of König Rother, 5, 21, 33, 40n21, 41n31, 122; of minstrel epics, 5, 7; of Salman und Morolf, 17, 25, 40n16, 40n21; of Þiðreks saga, 23 Marie de France, works by: Eliduc, 207n18 Marquardt, Rosemarie, 207n13 marriage: in canon law, 13, 49–50, 54, 142, 151–52, 159, 169, 188; in civil law, 141–42, 150–51, 159, 188. See also kinship Martínez Pizarro, Joaquín, 18n25 Maslev, Stojan, 61n24, 73, 84n25, 85n34 McCarthy, Conor, 141 McNamara, Jo-ann, 157n36 Merania (Meran), historical duchy of, 35, 37n2, 46, 196 Mestre Thomas, works by: King Horn, 23 Meves, Uwe, 15n4, 16n10, 35–36, 38n4, 38n7–8, 39–40n16, 41n24, 42n33, 43n40, 43n44, 47, 57, 58n6, 60n14–15, 65, 72, 83n18, 83n20, 94–95, 103, 112, 116, 117n1, 148, 150, 157n37, 158, 160, 164, 175, 183, 189, 194–95, 200, 205n2 Michael I Rhangabe (Byzantine emperor), 208–9n24 Mikat, Paul, 141–42, 150–51, 155n21, 156n25–26, 156n28 Minne, 150, 120–21, 124, 137, 141, 153n7. See also courtly love Minnesang, 55, 121, 153n5, 171 minstrel epic, 1–9, 14, 25, 33, 40n18, 55, 57, 77, 111, 160–61, 168, 180n9, 191n7, 200, 212 minstrels, 1–4, 32–34; as characters, 16n11, 22, 26, 104, 117, 127, 160–62, 166n3, 217

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mirrors for princes (specula), 52, 60n17, 69, 71, 82n14, 193, 210 Mißfeldt, Antje, 23, 41n30 Missiou, Dionyssia, 61–62n24 Mitterer, Max, 151 Moller, Herbert, 50 monachization, 81n10, 200–201, 207n18, 208n23–24, 220 Müller, Jan-Dirk, 49, 60n15, 1993 Muntehe, 141, 150, 169, 188, 216, 219 narrative space, 6, 14, 63, 192, 199, 203, 210–12, 216–17 Naumann, Hans, 1, 3, 20n34 Nelson, Charles G., 83n17, 90, 118n4, 154n14 Neuendorff, Dagmar, 32, 60n13–14, 65, 71–72, 83n20, 85n31, 87, 95, 100, 106n10, 106n14, 111, 113, 168, 173, 176, 183, 197, 205n4 Nibelungenlied, 2, 10, 77, 105n4, 124, 161, 179n5 Nieden, Karl zur, 3, 18n21, 40n19, 139, 154n15, 183 Nikephoros II Phokas (Byzantine emperor), 62n25, 63, 66, 75, 195, 208–9n24 Normans, 16n7, 23, 29, 31, 45, 63, 65, 67, 80n5, 206n11 Norris, Janice Racine, 208n24 Odo of Deuil, 64, 67, 70 Ohnsorge, Werner, 205n3 oral tradition, 1, 4–8, 12–13, 16n11, 17n17, 21–22, 25, 27, 29, 32–33, 41–42n31, 42n37, 43n43, 55, 107, 193 oral-formulaic theory, 7, 18n22 Orendel, 1, 3, 5–6, 14, 18n21, 19n30, 59n9, 62n31, 200 orient, as source, 6, 9, 41n23, 109, 199 Orthodox faith, 57, 68, 77, 178n1, 190, 205n5, 206n8, 210 Ortmann, Christa, 36, 48, 85n33, 88, 93, 146, 164, 170, 178, 183, 198 Ortnit, 4, 63, 157n34

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Ósantrix and Oda, 23–24, 39n13, 105n4, 107, 119n11, 133, 215 Otto I (Holy Roman emperor), 54, 62n25, 63, 66, 83n21, 195 Otto II (Holy Roman emperor), 54, 62n25, 63, 83n21, 195, 197 Otto III (Holy Roman emperor), 6, 83n21 Panzer, Friedrich, 23, 29, 34–35, 38n9, 41n27, 42n35, 58n6, 66–67, 106n11, 156n311, 195 patrons, of Rother poet, 34–36, 57, 61n20 Paulus Diaconus, 19, 27, 29, 180n10 Peilstein, counts of, 35, 47, 58n6, 61n20 Philipp (duke of Swabia), 61n22, 67 Pippin (son of Rother), 14, 23, 65–66, 81n9, 165, 189, 192–94, 196–99, 204, 207n15, 210, 216, 219–20; historical background of, 166n6 Plaien, counts of, 35, 47, 61n20 Pogatscher, Franz, 32, 34 Pörksen, Uwe, 33, 39n12, 205n2 Porphyrogenitus/a, 53–54, 62n25, 81, 195, 206n8 pride (superbia): among the Byzantines, 63, 68; in Constantin, 114, 139–40, 142, 155n24, 185–86, 190, 203; among the infidels, 179n4; in Rother’s bride, 140 proskynesis, 75, 85n30, 106n11, 155– 56n25 Pseudo-Cyprian, 52, 69–70, 82n15, 92, 103 Ragotzky, Hedda, 36, 48, 58n7, 85n33, 88, 93, 146, 164, 170, 178, 183, 198 Regensburg, place of composition, 34–35 Reiffenstein, Ingo, 22, 38n4, 38n7–8, 165, 205n4 Reynolds, Philip Lyndon, 133, 143, 151, 180n7 rings, 129, 153n6; arm-, 123, 129, 153n6; engagement, 129, 154n17,

180n7; magic, 19n30, 26; recognition through, 23, 171, 219 Robinson, Ian Stuart, 157n33 Rocher, Daniel, 64, 70 Roger II of Sicily, 29–31, 35, 67, 156n31, 195–96, 206n11; as historical model for Rother, 29–30, 45, 67 Roi Horn, Roman du, 23 Roland, 16n7, 177, 180n11. See also Konrad der Pfaffe Roman Catholicism, 27, 48, 57, 68, 82n16, 169, 178n1, 190, 205n5, 210 Rome, 53, 57, 62n25, 65–66, 68, 72, 78, 83n19, 85n30, 101, 107, 118n4, 127, 143, 145–46, 164, 173–74, 178n1, 180n7, 186–87, 189, 192, 194, 196–98, 203, 219; historical kings of, 31, 63, 67, 195, 197, 206n12; textual references to, 22, 45–46, 49, 52, 57, 90, 170–71, 174, 177–78, 204, 218 Rothari (king of the Langobards), 29–30, 45, 180n10 Rother: compared to Constantin, 68, 70–71, 194; extent of kingdom, 36, 46, 195–96; historical models for, 67; as rex iustus, 52, 68–70, 78, 165, 194, 198, 210 Rother’s bride: historical model for, 61n22; as porphyrogenita, 53; as princess, 22, 53–55, 71, 76, 78, 107–10, 112, 116–17, 119n10–11, 120–31, 133–50, 152, 158–60, 162–63, 210–11, 213, 216; as queen, 14, 26, 144–45, 162–65, 166n3, 169–72, 174–78, 179n5, 184–90, 191n4, 195, 199, 201–4, 216–17, 219–21 ruses (liste), 7, 19n29, 56–57, 91–92, 105n6, 160, 165; in the bridal quest, 8, 10, 91, 113, 146, 148, 160, 210; by Constantin, 95, 160; by minstrel, 161, 166n3, 217; by Rother, 57, 91–92, 94, 100–101, 107, 113, 125, 131, 135, 143, 145–46, 148, 160, 168, 173–74,

INDEX 177, 179n3, 201, 211–12, 215–16, 219; by Rother’s bride, 108, 123, 131, 137, 143–44, 170, 172, 204, 212, 214, 216 Salman und Morolf, 1, 3, 5–7, 19n30, 25–27, 40n21, 62n31, 63, 191n7 Sandrock, Lucie, 48, 52, 70, 82n15, 200 Sartori, Paul, 133–34, 154n15 Scherer, Wilhelm, 16n10, 34 Scheyern-Dachau (counts of), 46, 104n2 Schirmunski [Zhirmunskij], Viktor, 13, 17n16, 18n24, 51, 170 Schmid-Cadalbert, Christian, 1, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17n17, 18n24, 19n31, 22, 24, 39n10, 45, 52, 72, 77, 90, 107, 121, 159, 191n7, 193, 212 Schmitz, Silvia, 71, 88, 168 Schneider, Hermann, 6, 14–15n1, 16n10, 30, 33, 36n1, 199 Schnell, Rüdiger, 193, 205n2–3 Schramm, Percy Ernest, 59n11 Schreier-Hornung, Antonie, 7, 15– 16n5, 119n13, 161, 166n3, 170 Schröder, Edward, 156, 166–67n6 Schröder, Walter Johannes, 7, 15n4, 21, 30, 32, 36, 36n1, 38n4, 38n7, 39n15, 41n24, 41n29, 43n38, 43n41, 48, 55–56, 59n12, 60n14, 70, 77, 92, 94, 105n7, 120, 137, 145, 160, 172–73, 178n1, 183, 200 Schulte, Wolfgang, 61n19 Schulz, Monika, 12–13, 54, 77, 117n1, 126–28, 129, 134–35, 142, 151–52, 153n10, 154n16, 156n27, 159, 169, 171, 179n4, 188, 194 Schütz, Alois, 58n5 Schwietering, Julius, 3, 34, 36n1, 41n27, 59n12, 69, 71, 92, 183, 200 sea, as narrative space, 14, 20n35, 26, 45, 53, 57, 96, 98, 103, 136, 149, 158, 171, 192 Semmler, Hartmut, 105n6 seventy-two, as mythic number, 45, 47, 56, 59n9, 65–66, 92, 111, 145, 211

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shoes, 22, 24, 42n32, 126–35, 139, 141, 154n12, 154n15–17, 171–72, 213–16, 218 Siefken, Hinrich, 9–10, 13, 21, 26 Sieghardinger (dynasty), 43–44n44 Siegmund, Klaus, 25, 30–31, 35, 37n2, 38n7, 42n33, 42n35, 43n40–41, 44n46, 57n1, 59n9, 59n12, 61n21–22, 62n27, 66–68, 81n11, 83n20, 92, 108, 111, 114, 118n4, 156n31, 157n33, 165, 178, 200, 205n2, 206n11–12 Singer, Samuel, 40n17 Solomon, King, 25, 32, 41n23, 171 sources: of König Rother, 6, 21–33, 47, 73, 81n12, 107, 133, 176, 193; of the minstrel epic, 5, 7 Speck, Paul, 206 Stein, Peter K., 58n2–3, 156n30, 164, 172, 174, 176, 179n3, 180n10, 191n2, 207n15 Steinger, Hans, 34 Stock, Markus, 12, 20n35, 22, 29, 32, 36, 38n5–6, 42n33, 42–43n37, 48, 57, 91, 93, 105n8, 106n13, 121–22, 142, 150, 152, 164, 168, 170, 173–75, 196–97 St. Oswald, 1, 3, 5–6, 14, 18n21, 19n30, 63, 77–78 Störmer, Wilhelm, 43n44, 63, 86n36 structural divisions, 14, 23, 32, 37n3, 38n5 Szklenar, Hans, 36n1, 37n2, 43n40, 63, 66–67, 71, 73, 79–80n1, 83n19, 90, 94–95, 97, 104, 105n6, 106n10, 140, 143, 160–61, 176, 189 Tengling (dynasty), 35, 43n44, 58n6, 61n20–21 textualization, 4–5, 7–8, 12–13, 16n11, 22, 32, 42n37, 193 Theodora Komnena (duchess of Austria), 36, 195, 206n10 Theophanu (German empress), 66, 83n21, 195, 206n9 Þiðriks saga af Bern, 23, 25, 27, 39n13–14, 107, 129, 133, 157n34, 215

252

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Todt, Klaus-Peter, 73, 81n10 tournaments, 119n12 translatio, imperii, 194–95, 198, 205n3; per nuptias, 194 Treitinger, Otto, 61n23 Urban II (pope), 180n11 Urbanek, Ferdinand, 24, 29–32, 35–36, 36–37n2, 39n15, 42n33, 43n40, 43n42, 44n46, 47, 52, 56, 58n5–6, 61n20–21, 62n27, 67, 70, 83n20, 90, 101, 104n2, 106n13, 113, 118n4, 157n37, 166–67n6, 176, 197, 205n2, 205n4, 207n16 van den Baar, P. A. See Baar, P. A. van den vassal saga, 32, 50, 56, 86n36, 88 Vogelsang, Thilo, 83n23 Vogt, Friedrich, 40n18 Voigt, Helmut, 39n15, 107–8, 127, 129, 133–34, 154n12, 154n16, 155n22 Vollmann-Profe, Gisela, 6, 14–15n1, 17n15, 42n32 Vries, Jan de, 4, 8, 21, 25, 29–30, 34, 36n1, 38n5, 40n19, 41n25, 42n34, 43n43, 61n21, 77, 88, 106n12–13, 117n1, 127, 129, 153n5, 154n16, 155n19, 171, 175, 200, 206n12, 208n23 Wackernagel, Wilhelm, 2 Walshe, Maurice O’C., 2–3, 40n19 Walther von der Vogelweide, 87 Wareman, Piet, 2, 6, 15n4, 16n7 Wegener, Wilhelm, 43n44, 44n45, 46, 58n5–6 Weigand, Rudolf, 50, 54, 156n29 Weinhold, Karl, 155n18

Welf (dynasty), 34–36, 157n37, 196 Wemple, Suzanne F., 157n36 Wentzlaff-Eggebert, F. W., 176 Wenzel, Horst, 55, 58n7 Wishard, Armin, 18n22 Witold, giant, 22, 24, 90, 93, 96, 99, 112–13, 115, 178, 182, 186–87, 197 Woelker, Eva-Maria, 17n17, 34, 56, 71, 77, 83n20, 88–89, 91, 95–96, 100, 106n10, 108–9, 181n12 Wohlhaupter, Eugen, 134 Wolf, Gunther, 206n9 Wolfdietrich, 10, 15n3, 56, 86n36, 106n12, 200 Wolfrat of Tengelingen, 35, 90, 160, 178, 187, 196–97; historical model for, 58n6 women: church’s view of, 155n20, 203–4, 209n26–27; legal position of in Byzantium, 61–62n24, 72–73, 83n24 Ymelot, 22–23, 45, 59n9, 66, 70, 103–4, 140, 145–48, 155n24, 158–59, 164, 168–70, 172–76, 178–79, 183–84, 190, 200, 211, 217–19; historical models for, 156n31 Zak, Sabine, 188n5 Zimmermann, Hans Dieter, 8 Zimmermann, Rita, 38n4, 38–39n9, 50, 54, 72, 74, 76–79, 87, 89, 91–92, 95, 99–100, 103–4, 110, 112–13, 116, 120, 123, 136–37, 145, 154n16, 159–60, 168–69, 171, 177, 189–90, 195, 197 Zotz, Thomas, 105n6 zur Nieden, Karl. See Nieden, Karl zur