Konrad von Würzburg

Konrad von Würzburg (Würzburg, c.1230-87, Basel), a Middle High German poet of great versatility and formal mastery, was a commoner by birth and spent his life as a professional poet, writing for wealthy patrons in Strasburg and then in Basel, which became his second home. The clergy, the city patricians, and the newly risen merchant class commissioned or encouraged his poetry, and he mentions several of these patrons by name.

The bulk of Konrad's poetry is considerable and he was active in almost all the forms current in his day. His 23 Minnelieder, in which nature plays a conspicuous part, comprise summer and winter songs and Tagelieder (see Tagelied), and are distinguished chiefly for their smooth rhythms and the virtuosity of their rhyme schemes. His Sprüche (see Spruch) are largely conventional, dealing mainly with moral and religious matters; politics seem to have had little interest for him. His outstanding lyrical poems are a religious Leich and a Minneleich (see Leich), which are remarkable for the rich elaboration of their style. Die Klage der Kunst, a poem on a larger scale with 32 eight-line stanzas, is an allegory, in the form of a court of law, in which false generosity, which rewards others than the true artists, is condemned. In its stylistic intricacy it is a striking example of the style which Konrad terms ‘geblümte Rede’ (‘flowered speech’).

Konrad's best work is probably to be found in his shorter verse romances, which range in length from less than 300 to more than 1, 300 lines. They comprise Das Herzemaere, Der Welt Lohn, Heinrich von Kempten, and Der Schwanritter; the last-named is a version of the story of Lohengrin. Similar in style and scope is a verse account of an imaginary tournament, which includes much heraldic description of remarkable virtuosity ( Das Turnier von Nantes). Konrad also wrote three verse legends of saints: Silvester, written (probably before 1274) for Liutold von Roeteln, later bishop of Basel, which recounts a legend of Pope Silvester; Der heilige Alexius, written in Basel; and Pantaleon, the story of a Roman physician and Christian martyr, the latest of the three, and stylistically the most mature. Die goldene Schmiede, an exalted hymn to the Virgin Mary, in which the abundant stylistic detail suggests the art of the goldsmith, was the most widely read of Konrad's religious poems. It is believed to have been commissioned by Konrad von Lichtenberg, Bishop of Strasburg.

Of three long verse romances, Engelhard, Partonopier und Meliur, and Der Trojanerkrieg, the last was interrupted, probably by Konrad's death in 1287, and was finished by another hand. The expansiveness of these poems no doubt suited the taste of the age, but the stylistic skill appears an inadequate compensation for the longueurs resulting from the poet's failure to maintain the thread and movement of his story.

Konrad was one of the most influential poets of an age which valued the skill of the master craftsman rather than originality. He is a virtuoso of rhyme and a master of mellifluous verse, of the ‘geblümte Rede’ which he also terms, in Die goldene Schmiede ‘der süezen rede bluot’ (der süßen Rede Blüte). Die Goldene Schmiede, ed. E. Schröder, appeared in 1969; Heinrich von Kempten. Der Welt Lohn. Das Herzmaere, ed. with translation by H. Rölleke, in 1968; Kleinere Dichtungen (3 vols.), ed. E. Schröder with postscript by L. Wolff (3rd edn.) 1959 ff.; Pantaleon, ed. W. Woesler, in 1974.

Portrait of Konrad von Würzburg from the Codex Manesse (folio 383r).

Konrad von Würzburg (died August 31, 1287) was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century.

As little is known of his life as that of any other epic poet of the age. By birth probably a native of Würzburg, he seems to have spent part of his life in Strassburg and his later years in Basel, where he died. Like his master, Gottfried von Strassburg, Konrad did not belong to the nobility, from which most of the poets of the time sprang. His varied and voluminous literary work is comparatively free from the degeneration which set in so rapidly in Middle High German poetry during the 13th century.

His style, although occasionally diffuse, is dignified in tone; his metre is clearly influenced by Gottfried's tendency to relieve the monotony of the epic-metre with ingenious variations, but it is always correct; his narratives--if we except Die halbe Birn, of which the authorship is doubtful--are free from coarseness, to which the popular poets at this time were prone, and, although mysticism and allegory bulk largely in his works, they were not allowed, as in so many of his contemporaries, to usurp the place of poetry.

Konrad wrote a number of legends (Alexius, Silvester, Pantaleon) illustrating Christian virtues and dogma; Der Welt Lohn, a didactic allegory on the familiar theme of Frau Welt, the woman beautiful in front, unsightly and loathsome behind. Die goldene Schmiede is a panegyric of the Virgin Mary; the Klage der Kunst, an allegorical defence of poetry.

His most ambitious works are two enormously long epics, Der trojanische Krieg (of more than 40,000 verses and unfinished at that!) and Partenopier und Meliur, both of which are based on French originals. Konrad's powers are to be seen to best advantage in his shorter verse romances, such as Engelhart und Engeltrut, Kaiser Otto and Das Herzemaere; the last mentioned, the theme of which has been made familiar to modern readers by Uhland in his Kastellan von Coucy, is one of the best poems of its kind in Middle High German literature.

There is no uniform edition of Konrad's works. Some examples are:

• Der trojanische Krieg was edited by A von Keller for the Stuttgart Literarische Verein (1858)
• Partenopier und Meliur, by K Bartsch (1871)
• Die goldene Schniede and Silvester, by W Grimm (1840 and 1841)
• Alexius, by HF Massmann (1843) and R Haczynski (1898)
• Der Welt Lohn, by F Roth (1843)
• Engelhart und Engeltrut, by Moritz Haupt (1844, 2nd ed., 1890)
• Klage der Kunst, by E Joseph (1885).

The shorter poems, Otto and Herzemaere, will be found most conveniently in Erzählungen und Schwänke des Mittelalters, edited by H Lambel (2nd ed., 1883). Modern German translations of Konrad's most popular poems have been published by K Pannier and H Kruger in Reclams Universalbibliothek (1879-1891).

On Konrad see F Pfeiffer in Germania, iii (1867), and W Goither in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 44 (1898), s.v. Würzburg, Konrad von.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• A German translation of his text "Der Welt Lohn"
•  "Konrad of Würzburg". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Konrad_of_W%C3%BCrzburg. 

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