Pre-1500

Race in Medieval German-Speaking Europe 

Medieval European and especially German-speaking culture has a history of being coopted for racist and white supremacist ends in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and North America. Medieval scholars, though, have shown that German-speaking Europe has long been extremely diverse. Although race itself is a modern concept, medieval literature and art show how structures of oppression were justified through cultural or ethnic difference before ‘race’ itself was mobilised as a hierarchical system.

Primary Sources

• Eschenbach, Wolfram von, Parzival (c. 1200/1210) [MHG | DE | EN]
• Eschenbach, Wolfram von, Willehalm (early 13th century) [MHG | DE | EN]
• Moriaen, unknown author (13th century) [MNL | EN]

See primary resources in English and German from Black Central Europe on the period 1000-1500, including on Black and mixed-race figures represented in medieval writing, art and politics.

Scholarship on Race in Medieval German-Speaking Europe

• Gaunt, Simon, ‘Can the Middle Ages Be Postcolonial?’, Comparative Literature, vol. 61, no. 2, 2009, 160–176
• Heng, Geraldine, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)
• Hsy, Jonathan, and Julia Orlemanski, ‘Race and Medieval Studies: A Partial Bibliography’, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 8 (2017), 500–531

See also the scholarship and resources by members of the RaceB4Race network working across language areas on the medieval world.

Bodies and Disability 

Many medieval writers explored the boundaries of the body, its unruly materiality and its erotic potential. Work in Disability Studies also highlights how medieval writing deals prominently with disability and impairment and ideas of disease, illness and health.

Primary Sources

• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival (c. 1200/1210) [MHG | DE | EN]
• Herzog Ernst, unknown author (c. 1180) [MHG | DE | EN]

Scholarship on Bodies and Disability in Medieval Central Europe

• Bildhauer, Bettina, Medieval Blood (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006)
• Chinca, Mark, ‘The Body in Some Middle High German Mären: Taming and Maiming’, in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 187-210
• Dillig, Janina, ‘”Some Have It from Birth, Some by Disposition”: Foolishness in Medieval German Literature’, in Intellectual Disability: A Conceptual History, 1200-1900, ed. by Patrick McDonagh, C. F. Goodey and Tim Stainton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 64-75
• Metzler, Irina, ‘Disability in the Middle Ages: Impairment at the Intersection of Historical Inquiry and Disability Studies’, History Compass, 9.1 (2011), 45-60

Constructions of Authorship 

Decolonising our teaching is also about challenging how we conceive of knowledge production, focusing on medieval constructions of authorship, collective production, exchange and complex networks of translation and transmission. Medieval texts can teach students to reassess modern ideas of authorship and authority. Fragments, intermedial texts, exegesis of ephemeral visions or events and evolving versions all challenge assumptions about authors and their works.

Primary Sources

• Elisabeth von Schönau, Werke (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006) [DE] (original ML)
• Lanczkowski, Johanna (ed.), Mystische Texte des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999) [DE] (originals ML, MHG, MLG)
• Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2008) [MHG | DE] (original MLG lost)
• Oswald von Wolkenstein, Lieder (early 15th century) [MHG | DE | EN]
• Die Winsbeckin, unknown author (early 13th century) [MHG]

Diverse Medievalisms 

Medieval cultures, thought and mysticism have often inspired modern writers, artists and filmmakers working in German, and German medieval culture has also been taken up by writers and artists and outside the German-speaking world. Many such modern works explore diversity and difference in dialogue with medieval culture and medievalism. 

Primary Works

• Du Bois, W. E. B., Dark Princess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) [EN]
• Karpat, Berkan, and Zafer Şenocak, futuristen – epilog – poeme (Babel, 2008) [DE]

Secondary Works

• Davies, Mererid Puw, The Tale of Bluebeard in German Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001)
• Dinshaw, Carolyn, How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012)

See also articles on race and medievalism(s), mostly in an Anglophone context, listed in: Hsy, Jonathan, and Julia Orlemanski, ‘Race and Medieval Studies: A Partial Bibliography’, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 8 (2017), 500–531.

German in Transcultural Contexts 

Queer and Trans Representations 

Medieval scholarship within and beyond German Studies has pioneered work in queer theory, and recent work explores queer and trans history in the medieval world by looking at the representations of queer and trans people in both canonical and lesser-known medieval texts.

Primary Sources

• Hartmann von Aue, Erec (c. 1180-1190) and Iwein (c. 1200) [MHG/MHG | EN]
• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival (c. 1200/1210) [MHG | DE | EN]

Secondary Work on Queer and Trans Representations

• Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, Medieval Identity Machines (Minnesota and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003)
• Evans, Ruth (ed.), A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Middle Ages (London: Bloomsbury, 2011)
• Hollywood, Amy, ‘Sexual Desire, Divine Desire; Or, Queering the Beguines’, Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline, ed. by Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 119-133
• Kraß, Andreas, ‘Verdrängtes Begehren. Homosexualität in der höfischen Dichtung des deutschen Mittelalters’, Homosexualität am Hof: Praktiken und Diskurse vom Mittelalter bis heute, ed. by Norman Domeier and Christian Mühlung (Frankfurt and New York: Campus, 2020), 231-242
• Mills, Robert, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015)
• Spencer-Hall, Alicia, and Blake Gutt, Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021)

See also resources provided by the Gender and Medieval Studies group.

Religious Diversity 

Medieval Europe was a centre for religious innovation and exchange, influenced especially by many forms of Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought and culture. This diversity also meant conflict and contestation, with different religions bound up asymmetrically with political power.

Primary Sources

• Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim, Dulcitius; Abraham (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005) [ML, DE/DE, EN] (original ML)
• Lanczkowski, Johanna (ed.), Mystische Texte des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999) [DE] (originals ML, MHG, MLG)
• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Willehalm (early 13th century) [MHG | DE | EN]

Secondary Writing on Religious Diversity

• Hollywood, Amy, ‘Sexual Desire, Divine Desire; Or, Queering the Beguines’, Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline, ed. by Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 119-133
• Hsy, Jonathan, and Julia Orlemanski, ‘Race and Medieval Studies: A Partial Bibliography’, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 8 (2017), 500–531

See also primary resources in English and German from Black Central Europe from the period 1000-1500 on Black saints and on religious conflicts.

Women, Writing and the Arts 

Women were involved at all stages of the artistic process, especially through their work in religious orders. Major writers and composers include Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hildegard of Bingen, while women also worked as scribes and artists like Guda in the Rhineland in the twelfth century. Writers of all genders used female lyric speakers and explored women’s experience in Medieval Central Europe.

Writing by Women 

• Borchers, Elisabeth (ed.), Gedichte berühmter Frauen (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1996) [DE]
• Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken, Herzog Herpin (early 15^th century) [MHG | DE]
• Elisabeth von Schönau, Werke (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006) [DE] (original ML)
• Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim, Dulcitius; Abraham (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005) [ML, DE/DE, EN] (original ML)
• Kasten, Ingrid (ed.), Frauenlieder des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990) [MHG | ML | OF | OP | DE]
• Lanczkowski, Johanna (ed.), Mystische Texte des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999) [DE] (originals ML, MHG, MLG)
• Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2008) [MHG | DE] (original MLG lost)

Writing featuring Women (Lyric) Speakers

• Die Winsbeckin, unknown author (early 13th century) [MHG]
• Kasten, Ingrid (ed.), Frauenlieder des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990) [MHG | ML | OF | OP | DE]

Works about women’s experiences 

• Hartmann von Aue, Erec (c. 1180-1190) and Iwein (c. 1200) [MHG/MHG | EN]
• Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim, Dulcitius; Abraham (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005) [ML, DE/DE, EN] (original ML)
• Die Winsbeckin, unknown author (early 13th century) [MHG]

Secondary works

• Classen, Albrecht, The Power of a Woman’s Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures: New Approaches to German and European Women Writers and to Violence against Women in Premodern Times (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007)
• Dinshaw, Carolyn and David Wallace (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Hollywood, Amy, The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995)
• Oehme, Annegret, “He should have listened to his wife!”: The Construction of Women’s Roles in German and Yiddish Pre-modern Wigalois Adaptations (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020)
• Rasmussen, Ann Marie, Mothers and Daughters in Medieval German Literature (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997)

See also resources provided by the Gender and Medieval Studies group.