Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/89042

In a research project supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) entitled ‘A Study of Text Flow in the Manuscript Tradition of Medieval German Literature: The Case of Dietrichʼs Epic’, we examine the ways in which late medieval editors approached their sources. The primary object of our investigation is the Neue Ee (New Testament) of the World Chronicle of Heinrich von München [Edition: Shaw/Fournier/Gärtner 2008]. The reason for this selection is the textual divergence in the World Chronicle manuscripts and the written evidence of the so called aventiurehafte (adventurous) Dietrich epics. Based on references noted in the above cited edition, we will analyze the editorʼs attitude of chapter 5 to addition, omission and blending. We try to clarify the basic ideas through a detailed comparison of various passages of the Neue Ee telling episodes prior to the Passion with respective sources such as Jesusʼ consolation of Mary, the miracle of the transformation of water into wine, the finding of coins in the fishʼs mouth by Peter, Jesusʼ healing of a sick woman, the plot to murder Jesus and the story of Caiaphas. The editor does not only use the main source (Bruder Philipp: Das Marienleben) but also several other sources (e. g. Konrad von Heimesfurt: Diu urstende, Heinrich von Hesler: Evangelium Nicodemi) and occasionally Gospels. In this way, he blends his own plot with these sources and attempts to correct alleged errors or weaknesses in the sources. We will compare this approach to written literary sources in narrative passages of the Neue Ee relevant to salvation history with passages in which heroic epic characters appear. The World Chronicle of Heinrich von München, for example, tells of Dietrich von Bern (corresponding with the Ostrogothic King Theodericus). Heinrich von München condemns Dietrich according to clerical-scholarly tradition. At the same time, two manuscripts cite Dietrichʼs genealogy from the Dietrich epic Dietrichs Flucht. This indicates that the heroic epic was considered a legitimate source of history. A final look at another late medieval text about Dietrich von Bern, the Heldenbuchprosa, demonstrates a very different perception of sources that usually cannot be identified with certainty. Due to this, it does not reveal the authorʼs working method. The Heldenbuchprosa thus stands for an alternative principle of source interpretation compared to the World Chronicle of Heinrich von München, even though it also contains elements of salvation history. What late medieval heroic poetry and the World Chronicle of Heinrich von München have in common is an unclear, elusive form of historicity, which in the case of the World Chronicle may have had a facilitating function in the formation of textual fluctuation.