Alexanderlied
Alexanderlied des Pfaffen Lamprecht, an Early High German poem recounting the life of Alexander the Great. It is avowedly a translation of a French poem by Albéric de Besançon (Alberich von Bisinzo), of which only a fragment is extant. After a brief introduction it portrays Alexander's youth and his wars against Darius and Porus, and then proceeds to his legendary adventures in the East and visit to Paradise. It ends with his death and a general exhortation to repentance and piety.
The Alexanderlied is composed of two barely compatible elements. On the one hand Alexander is portrayed as an admirable hero with knightly virtues, on the other his story serves as a demonstration of the futility of worldly ambition and the vanity of all things temporal. The explanation of this contradiction is to be found, at least in part, in the source of the story. The Macedonian king is portrayed in terms of the Greek story known as the Pseudo-Callisthenes, and the medieval poem reproduces unintentionally its humane values. The standpoint of the medieval ascetic is embodied in the introduction and in an episode at the conclusion, which is a ‘memento mori’. It is not impossible, however, that the clerical author was also influenced by the knightly ideals which were then in the making.
The history of the poem is complex. Pfaffe Lamprecht, believed to be a priest of Trier, wrote only one-fifth of the entire work, probably between 1130 and 1150. This part is included in the Vorauer Handschrift. The fullest version was contained in a MS. destroyed in the bombardment of Strasburg in 1870. It is believed that this represented adaptation and continuation by another hand. A third version at Basel is a crude abridgement, probably made in the 15th c. from a lost MS. of the 13th c. The Alexanderlied has little poetic value, but it is important as one of the earliest substantial medieval poems dealing with a worldly subject. It is available in an edition by F. Maurer, 1940, repr. 1964. All three texts were edited by K. Kinzel, 1884.
