The Camden House History of German Literature Volume 2 German Literature of the Early Middle Ages The Camden House History of German Literature Volume 2 The Camden House History of German Literature Edited by James Hardin Vol. 1: Early Germanic Literature and Culture Edited by Brian Murdoch and Malcolm Read, University of Stirling, UK Vol. 2: German Literature of the Early Middle Ages Edited by Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling, UK Vol. 3: German Literature of the High Middle Ages Edited by Will Hasty, University of Florida Vol. 4: Early Modern German Literature Edited by Max Reinhart, University of Georgia Vol. 5: Literature of the German Enlightenment and Sentimentality Edited by Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Ohio State University Vol. 6: Literature of the Sturm und Drang Edited by David Hill, University of Birmingham, UK Vol. 7: The Literature of Weimar Classicism Edited by Simon Richter, University of Pennsylvania Vol. 8: The Literature of German Romanticism Edited by Dennis Mahoney, University of Vermont Vol. 9: German Literature of the Nineteenth Century, 1830–1899 Edited by Clayton Koelb and Eric Downing, University of North Carolina Vol. 10: German Literature of the Twentieth Century: From Aestheticism to Postmodernism Ingo R. Stoehr, Kilgore College, Texas German Literature of the Early Middle Ages Edited by Brian Murdoch CAMDEN HOUSE Copyright © 2004 by the Editor and Contributors 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 2004 by Camden House Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Ave., Rochester, NY 14620 USA www.camden-house.com and of Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydell.co.uk ISBN: 1–57113–240–6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data German literature of the Early Middle Ages / edited by Brian Murdoch. p. cm. — (Camden House history of German literature; v. 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–57113–240–6 (alk. paper) 1. German literature — Old High German, 750–1050 — History and crticism. 2. German literature — Middle High German, 1050–1500 — History and criticism. I. Murdoch, Brian, 1944– II. Title. III. Series: Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture (Unnumbered) PT175.G45 2004 830.9'001—dc22 2003017148 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. Contents List of Illustrations vii Preface ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 Brian Murdoch Into German: The Language of the Earliest German Literature 35 Jonathan West Charms, Recipes, and Prayers 57 Brian Murdoch Latin Prose: Latin Writing in the Frankish World, 700–1100 73 Linda Archibald Latin Verse 87 Stephen Penn Heroic Verse 121 Brian Murdoch Otfrid of Weissenburg 139 Linda Archibald The Shorter German Verse Texts 157 Christopher Wells vi (cid:117) CONTENTS Historical Writing in and after the Old High German Period 201 R. Graeme Dunphy Late Old High German Prose 227 Jonathan West Bibliography 247 Primary Literature 247 Secondary Literature 255 Notes on the Contributors 273 Index 275 Illustrations Charlemagne’s palace chapel, Aachen Cathedral xiv A coin of Charlemagne in the style of Roman imperial coinage 8 Latin manuscript with Old High German glosses — 27 a ninth-century interlinear Benedictine Rule from St. Gallen The abbey church at Corvey in Westphalia 34 The Hildebrandlied 120 Otfrid’s Gospel book (the Freising text, beginning of book II) 150 The Strasbourg manuscript version of Ezzo’s Gesang 191 Preface TO HAVE A VOLUME that is concerned primarily with Old High Ger- man as the second, rather than the first volume in a literary history of German may at first glance seem surprising. The first volume of this liter- ary history, however, is intended to give an overview of the pre-literary situation and of the movement toward literacy in the context of the Germanic peoples. It also considers Germanic literature on a broader scale, looking at Old English, Old Norse and Gothic, as well as giving a brief sketch of Old High German, a sketch which is developed and given flesh in the present volume. The first volume also contains a detailed dis- cussion of the important early work in Old Low German, the Old Saxon Heliand, which might equally well have been included in this volume. Although this volume contains discussions of the literature of Germany (which includes literature in Latin) during what is known generally as the Old High German period, from the beginnings of writing in German in the eighth century down to the middle of the eleventh, of course some of the chapters look forward to the Middle High German period. Breaks determined by language change do not usually coincide neatly with liter- ary developments. The point of the present volume is to give an idea of the first stage of literature in German, and this requires examination also of literature as such written in the dominant language of the period, namely Latin, as the background against which those first beginnings of German emerged; there is so much material there that contributors have had to be especially selective, particularly as it is not always easy to deter- mine which Latin writings “belong” in a German literary history. Alcuin was an Englishman who wrote much of his verse in what is now France, but was a major figure at Charlemagne’s court; Gottschalk and Walahfrid Strabo were both German. Sometimes we can only guess that the author of a work was German (the Latin writer of Waltharius, whoever he was, uses a pun on a name which only works in German, for example). On the other hand, when we turn to writings in High German, one must con- sider material not usually considered literary in the modern sense at all, but which does show the emergence of German as a literary language in its earliest stage. With regard to what is considered “high” literature, there is precious little; but there is a variety, and all beginnings are im-