Early Middle High German literature

Along with the Kaiserchronik and other minor texts, the Vorauer Handschrift (the most prominent poetic miscellany of Early Middle High German book production), contains an epic on Alexander the Great. This Austrian poem has been aknowledged as a version of Lambrecht’s Alexanderlied (also transmitted in the Straßburger and Basler Handschrift). Historical and literary details have traditionally been matched to determine the poem’s birthplace(s) – conjecturally posited in the Middle Rhine, in Cologne or Trier – and Mundartforschung has been employed to validate philological hypotheses. The scripta of the codex, however, is hard to classify in grammatical terms and no univocal dialectal identity emerges from its analysis. Textual peculiarities that are claimed to evidence traces of the Middle German original appear inextricably interlaced with Austrian features and scribal oddities, so that the rationale behind editors’ choices is not always apparent. Straßburger Alexander, by contrast, though partially displaying similar script peculiarities, amends old-fashioned irregular words and couplets, in order to normalise its Mischsprache in compliance with the usages of regularised rhyme.
This paper will test the usefulness of the editions as repositories of linguistic data, considering current dialectal interpretations against scribal hallmarks of both Vorauer and Straßburger Alexander. Renewed attention will be devoted to the calligraphic late Caroline hand of the Vorau codex, as well as to its inconsistent spellings, variable regionalisms and obscure features (such as the reversibility of diphthongs and consonant clusters), which prevent a unique and indisputable regional attribution. The rationale of editorial decisions will be reappraised through the consideration of specific questionable features (involving superscripts, consonant usage, verbal morphology and rhyme). This examination has the eventual aim of highlighting the hybrid linguistic character and erratic vernacular orthography of the whole Vorau poem, evidencing methodical difficulties in its normalisation.

Throughout the development of Middle High German literature, historical writings show a high degree of textual variability: old poetic corpora circulated within historical prose collections, and they were chronologically and typologically arranged
in compliance with conceptual patterns, such as the translatio imperii and the alleged legendary descent of European ruling groups from Trojan refugees or Alexander’s soldiers. This analysis will address the re-use of poetic works in a prosimetrical historical setting, that is Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, Codex E VI 26 (fifteenth century). This manuscript is ultimately focused on the very destiny of the city where it
was produced, on the fringe between courtly Middle High German and Early Modern literature and society. Though being a witness of the prose Sächsische Weltchronik, the Basel manuscript opens on a mishmash of poetic spoils, such as Rudolf von Ems’s and Jans von Wien’s Weltchroniken, an anonymous Troy liet (Basler Trojanerkrieg),
and the Basel redaction of Lambrecht’s Alexanderlied (Basler Alexander). This latter compiles the torso of Lambrecht’s poem with excerpts from Jans von Wien’s account of Alexander’s fantastic journeys and vernacular rendition(s) of the Historia de preliis. Through a textual analysis of both Troy and Alexander poems, this study aims
at envisaging the purpose of the composition of this German prosimetrum in the light of current categories of genres.

The dawn of Middle High Ger- man literary Überlieferung is characterized by a relatively limited making of vernacular books, and by extremely mov- able texts (as each survived manuscript often represents the testis unicus of an autonomous Fassung).
This paper aims at reassessing the ecdotic issues posited by the tradition of Alexanderlied and the editorial treatments of the text, also envisaging the advan- tages that digital edition and ap- paratus might produce for the interpretation of the poem and of its multi-lingual recensio.