bavarikon4UThe Nibelungenlied-Manuscripts at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
The Nibelungenlied/Song of the Niebelungs was composed in ca. 1200 by an anonymous poet in Passau on the basis of older legends and is one of the literary great achievements in the world. With the manuscripts A (Cgm 34) and D (Cgm 31) the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek/Bavarian State Library owns two of the most important textual testimonials of the epic. Manuscript A has been listed since July 2009 among the world documentary heritage of UNESCO "Memory of the World".
Based on (often only locally important) people and events of the great migration period that can to a large extent no longer be identified, a whole series of legendary cycles were formed during the middle ages through oral traditions, embellishments and by piecing together previously unconnected narratives. Stories surrounding the hero Siegfried and the kings Etzel (Attila) and Dietrich von Bern (Theoderich the Great) as well as about the fall of the Burgundians are part of this cycle.
Based on this rich, today hardly reconstructable oral tradition, in ca. 1200 originated through an anonymous author the Song of the Niebelungs as it is known to us today. The Passau court of Bishop Wolfger von Erla (ca. 1140 – 1218) is mostly considered by research as the place of creation because of linguistic and contentual considerations. In 39 aventures ("adventures" = chapters) and ca. 2,400 stanzas life and death of the hero Siegfried as well as Kriemhild’s vengeance on the Burgundians are extolled.
As a stand-alone text after the Song of the Niebelungs follows in nearly all preserved manuscripts the lament, in which more than 4,000 verses tell the history after the fall of the Burgundians and interpret them in a Christian key.
With 35 manuscripts and fragments, the Song of the Niebelungs belongs to the best-preserved texts of the German-language middle ages – a proof for its great popularity. Even after the end of the mediaeval period knowledge of this material never entirely disappeared – as song of the giant Seyfried, as a theatre play by Hans Sachs or finally as a book of folk tales, it always enjoyed a certain popularity.
After the discovery of the manuscript C of the Song of the Niebelungs in the Schlossbibliothek von Hohenems / castle library of Hohenems by Jacob Hermann Obereit (1755) starts the rediscovery of the mediaeval epic. From the first print by Christoph Heinrich Myller as part of a larger collection (1782) over the first scientific edition by Karl Lachmann (1826/1878) and by the widely disseminated translation by Karl Simrock (1827) led to this day a continuous engagement with the Song of the Niebelungs and its continuing popularity, which nonetheless until 1945 was often enough influenced by a one-sided nationalist interpretation.
Because of its importance as an extraordinary example of mediaeval epic, UNESCO included the Song of the Niebelungs in July 2009 into the registry of “Memory of the World”. For this inclusion, the three most important textual testimonials were selected:
Manuscript A (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 34)
Manuscript B (Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, Cod. Sang. 857)
Manuscript C (Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, Cod. K 2037).
Works in this selection
Further collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek on the subject in bavarikon
>> This collection is part of the holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library).
To the collections by topic of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek