Research Description:

The German Courtly Epic: A Blueprint for Conducting Warfare

The German Empire of the High-Middle Ages (c. 1060-1250) was plagued by the wide-scale spread of violence throughout. This hostility was, for the most part, carried out by members of the retinues of ministeriales, which were maintained by the aristocratic and ecclesiastic households. These knights, who were a landowning class, asserted their right to feud and protect their possessions, as their lords.

Aware of the social unrest, attempts were made to control and focus this aggression by royalty and clergy, in a manner appropriate to their respective political agendas. The German emperors passed what was referred to as Landfrieden, an adaptation of the English “King’s Peace” which was a method of keeping the peace through threat of arms. For the royal household, aggression was reserved for the expansion of the empire and defense of the crown from opponents at home. St. Bernard’s Liber ad milites Templi: De laude novae militae, condemning the use of violence against fellow Christians, was one of the better-known clerical attempts to curb the violence. This treatise provided an exemplar for knighthood that resembled a priest as much as a knight, living a life of chastity and poverty, and serving as the model for crusading knights.

The knights themselves provided a third voice, which was present at this debate. This point of view is found in the body of chivalric literature known as the courtly chivalric romance. These texts may be seen as vehicles used to promote change within the ranks of knighthood. Authors such as Wolfram von Eschenbach and Hartmann von Aue, who belonged to the class of ministeriales, noted the problem of violence as they saw it, and provided examples of their ideal for knighthood. Not only did these romances serve as blueprints for the appropriate uses of aggression, these models also promoted a philosophy of prowess as an integral part of the knight’s spiritual life, as portrayed in Wolfram’s Parzival, or Hartmann’s Gregorious.