Heinrich von Freiberg

Heinrich von Freiberg, a Middle High German poet, was a commoner, whose home was at Freiberg near Meißen. In the late 13th c. he was in the service of noblemen at the Bohemian court of Wenzel II. About 1290. Heinrich completed Gottfried von Straßburg's Tristan. His stylistically competent continuation gives the story a religious significance, setting the love of God above the human love of Tristan and Isolde. To Heinrich are also commonly attributed two poems of moderate length, a verse legend, Die Legende vom Kreuzesholz, and the rhymed accounts of a journey in Paris, in which a Bohemian knight distinguishes himself (Die Ritterfahrt des Johann von Michelsberg); some scholars, however, consider that the two poems are by different authors.

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