German

German was not a single language in the Middle Ages. In the northern parts of today's Germany, the Low German (Saxon) language was spoken, while in the south, the High German language was used. For the early Middle Ages, the language is called Old High German, for the later Middle Ages the term Middle High German is used.

Language

Old High German and Middle High German

German belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Scholars do not agree on when and why the phonological developments that distinguished High German from other West Germanic languages started. The so-called Migration Period in the 4th and 5th centuries is regularly cited as the milieu in which the decisive second German consonant shift began, but the oldest surviving evidence of this shift dates from the 7th century, and written records of High German from the 8th century attest that it was still not fully completed then. The significant development is the radical change in the pronunciation of b, d, g, respectively, p, t, k, which took place in several phases during these centuries. Although it is possible to establish geographical boundaries for each phase, roughly dividing the German-speaking area into a northern, central, and southern part, such reconstructions must be treated with caution and do not represent the local diversity of historical reality.

Towards the end of this consonant shift, Old High German had emerged, and our oldest surviving Germanic narratives are written in this language. This period lasted until about 1050 and was characterized by a variety of dialects, as was the following period of Middle High German until about 1350, which was distinguished by further phonological developments. Middle High German was the written language of courtly culture in the German Middle Ages, but it should not be thought of as a uniform way of writing, rather it first had to establish itself after the dominance of Latin in the 10th and 11th centuries. From the 14th century, Middle High German then developed into Early New High German.

Old High German was spoken in what today is the south of Germany, parts of Austria, Switzerland, and Elsass. Old High German is separated from other dialects by the “Benrath Line”, which is located by Benrath near Düsseldorf. North of this geographical line the second sound shift did not happen, but south of the line it did. This second sound shift is one of the things that makes Old High German and following stages of German so unique. Germans speak of ‘Wasser’ instead of ‘water’, of ‘Schiff’ instead of ‘ship’ and of ‘wachen’ instead of ‘wake’. This sound shift can still be found in today’s German, but it cannot be explained by researchers, why it came to place. 

“German”?

The first proof of a name for the language is found in a letter from 786, in the Latin form ‘theodisce’, which meant “of the people”. The letter was written by Gregory of Ostia to Pope Hadrian I. and he writes about a synod in 786, in which the decisions were not only read in Latin, but also the language of the people, so everyone would be able to understand it. In this proof it is not used for German, but Old English, which is also another Germanic language. In other proofs from 788 and 801 it is used to refer to the different dialects of the German language.3 So, it can be said that the word “theodisce” is not perfectly defined and used for just one language, but rather to note the difference between Germanic languages to Latin or Romanic languages. In its Old High German form ‘diutisg’ can be found in the writings of Notker the German (950-1022), who is known for translating Latin literature into Old High German.

Script

Although runic writing had existed since late antiquity, which was made based on the Latin pattern of the phoneme system for the Germanic languages, this writing was never used for longer texts. Instead, the Latin alphabet was used for Old High German, which caused some problems since the languages have different sounds and some of them (e.g., “pf”, “ts”, “ch”, “sch”) could not be represented by letters in a suitable way. It should also be mentioned that some letters were redundant, since in Latin there is a distinction between "v" and "f", but in Old High German this was not the case.

Literature

Old High German literature

Due to the geographical closeness to Latin text production, the structures for producing professional manuscripts were already built and could be used for Old High German text production as well. But for the most part, texts in the regional language were only written down to better understand Latin texts. The following list of examples shows that most texts originated in a religious context.

Anonymous works

The most relevant examples are:

• Abrogans: The oldest surviving book in Old High German is a Latin – Old High German synonym dictionary, which was made in the 8th century. The oldest of the three surviving manuscripts is believed to be from 810 and is a direct copy of the archetype. Since the translations have some mistakes, some words have only been found in this glossary. But apart from this, it is an important source for linguistic research. It lists over 3600 Latin words and their Old High German equivalents. No manuscript from this period has survived, but the oldest fragments still date from as early as the beginning of the 9th century, and overall, we have evidence for a rich narrative culture in the vernacular during and following the reign of the Carolingian emperor Charlemagne around 800 AD.
• Song of Hildebrand: The song of Hildebrand is from the 9th century and therefore the oldest surviving example of this text category. Probably the most famous Old High German tale from the first half of the 9th century, it is the oldest surviving heroic poem in a Germanic language. It tells the story of how the supreme warrior Hildebrand meets his son Hadubrand as an enemy in battle. It is written in staff rhymes, which are usually parted into 68 long verses. The text was found on the first and last page of theological codex, which originally have been empty, and it is believed, that the song of Hildebrand was added during the 3rd or 4th decade of the 9th century. Because it was only added to the pages, the text is not written completely, as the space wasn’t enough. Therefore, research can only speculate about the intended ending of the text: Does the father kill his own son or is it the other way round? The narrative has been interpreted as a reminiscence of battles from the Migration Period, which has often been cast as a Heroic Age. 
• Magic spells of Merseburg - Merseburger Zaubersprüche: These magic spells were found in a theological manuscript from the first or second third of 10th century in the monastery of Merseburg, which is where their name originated. These two magical charms each preserve a short mythological story followed by the actual spell. Just like the song of Hildebrand, these spells are special in that they mention pre-Christian Germanic mythology like the gods Wodan and Freya. Only a few texts with this focus survived, as most of the Old High German texts were produced relating to Christian themes. Just as in the previous example, these spells were inserted into free space in another manuscript. The first of the spells is about the freeing of captives in a battle and the second is about curing a lame horse. One of the most puzzling questions about these sayings is why they are in a theological manuscript when the content is only superficially connected to Christianity.
• A rather theologically inspired epic poem from about the same time is Muspilli, which also exists only as a fragment. It deals with the end of the world, the battle between good and evil, God, Jesus Christ and the Devil.
• Similarly informed by biblical figures and stories is the Wessobrunner Gebet, preserved in a 9th-century manuscript but possibly older, and in any case the oldest extant Christian poem in any German language.

• Old High German Tatian: This is a translation from around 830, in which the gospel harmony of Tatian from the 2nd century is translated from Latin to Old High German. It is a Bilingue, which means, that both languages are in the manuscript, but only one surviving manuscript proves this. Because it is a word-by-word translation, the sentence structure and sequence of words are the same as in Latin, which can be used as evidence, that the Latin text was seen as more important.
• Yet another type of narrative is the Ludwigslied from the late 9th century, a praise poem that focuses on the historical king Ludwig III of France, who defeated a Viking invasion in Western Francia in 881 AD.

Authors

While most of the just presented literature is without a known author, as some of the texts were just inserted into other manuscripts or we only know, when and where it was produced, but can’t identify the writer, we do know about some authors who influenced the development and spread of Old High German texts.

• Otfrid of Weißenburg (790-875) is said to be the first Old High German author, as he was not only translating the texts, but also bringing a certain rhyme scheme into them and writing his own texts. His most important work is the ‘Liber evangeliorum’, which consists of five books and follows a complex rhyme scheme and is written in Frankish dialect. It was Otfrids goal to establish the used language as a commonly used language for literature, just as Hebrew, Latin or Greek. Otfrid is believed to be the first, who writes a text in the regional language and he complains in a letter of dedication, about the problems this brings (e.g. such as missing role models that he can follow.10
• Notker the German ( 950-1022) was another important author. He was a monk in St. Gallen. He translated many Latin texts into Old High German and invented a system for the use of certain letters. He also worked as a scholar and by this could spread knowledge and skills in his times. But not only back then he was an important figure because his work is still important for researchers today. His translations and glosses have transported a lot of knowledge about the languages at that time, even though strictly speaking he is not an author like Otfrid, as he didn’t write his own texts.

Middle High German Literature

The 10th and 11th centuries, by comparison, saw little significant German-language literature. From the 12th century onwards, courtly literature in Middle High German, influenced by Old French verse novels, became dominant and introduced new literary themes from the world of the nobility: The poems of this period and up to the second half of the 13th century deal with the struggle for worldly power, with love and the relationship between men and women, and they draw on suitable motifs and figures from various narrative traditions throughout Europe. In many cases we know the supposed poet. Early examples of this type of literature include the so-called Alexander Romance, a poem about the life and deeds of Alexander the Great based on the French poem by Albéric of Pisançon, or the Eneit by Heinrich von Veldeke (before 1150–after 1184) from the late 12th century, an adaptation of the classical Aeneid. Other poems, such as Erec or Iwein by Hartmann von Aue from around the same time, draw on famous characters from Old French romances, but develop their own narrative style.

At the same time, a second type of literature emerged in Middle High German, the so-called Minnesang, a highly stylized form of sung love poetry, most likely influenced by the Occitanian troubadour tradition. While the exact development of this type of poetry is highly debated, common features can be easily identified: Minnesang is a kind of lyrical ritual performed by a knight of the high nobility, who sings about (unfulfilled) love and the beloved, but also asks the audience to follow certain ethical rules or to reflect on socio-political conditions. The most famous poet of Minnesang is Walter von der Vogelweide (ca. 1170–1230), and the most famous medieval manuscript containing Minnesang poems that has come down to us is the Codex Manesse, compiled shortly after 1300 AD. It contains a representative selection of some 140 poems from the 12th to the early 14th centuries, and is particularly known for its many colorful full-page illustrations. The codex has been inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register since 2023.

Despite this new focus of many Middle High German tales, motifs and characters familiar from the heroic tradition remained popular. A peak of this narrative tradition was reached shortly after 1200 AD with the Nibelungenlied, an epic heroic poem of some 2400 stanzas, divided into several dozen so-called Âventiure, quests and situations that the heroes must deal with. The Nibelungenlied is one of the most widely studied medieval narratives, and has generated a wealth of interpretations about the poem’s place between heroic traditions and medieval society. The second epic heroic poem in Middle High German is Kudrun, probably written around 1240, which seems to allude to the somewhat older Nibelungenlied, but casts the complex female character Kudrun as the protagonist, and has even been interpreted as a deliberate counter-draft to the Nibelungenlied. However, the possible relationship between the two poems (and even, for example, protagonists from Old Norse mythology) is still debated, and both stories are open to a number of different interpretations.

External resources

• Chronologie der deutschen Literatur (Bibliotheca Augustana)