Volume 137, Issue 2

An interesting fact about Old Saxon is that certain verbs of motion can occur with a dative pronoun which shows certain properties often considered to be indicative of subject status, making these verbs part of the dative subject construction. The dative marked argument is always animate and usually human. Punctuality and telicity are also often overtly marked in the clause. The dative occurs with verbs of motion in Old Saxon when the participant is salient in the discourse. In some instances, a nominative subject earlier in the discourse can trigger verb agreement, but very often a nominative simply is not present. Additionally, the dative pronoun is in subject position next to the finite verb. Thus the dative with verbs of motion exhibits the subject properties of linear subject position, topicality, animacy, definiteness and discourse salience. Semantic subject properties include volitionality, initiation of action, telicity and punctuality. Our analysis concludes that the dative argument with verbs of motion is related, but not identical, to other non-nominative subjects attested in Old Saxon.

The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) conceived remembrance as a product of ›collective memory‹ and explained this idea in his book on ›La Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre sainte‹ (1941) showing that the topography of the Holy Land was predominantly an imaginary landscape construed by Christian communities. Following this concept, this article studies the ›Palästinalied‹, a text describing the arrival of a pilgrim in the Holy Land in the time of the crusades, abundantly transmitted under the name of Walther von der Vogelweide. The high degree of textual variance in the diverse manuscripts testifies the acting of ›collective memory‹ in the medieval poetic tradition. Of special interest in this context are the strophic arrangements, the variation of deictic markers, the reworking of melodic models documented in the manuscript transmission and the diatopic opposition existing between the emphasis of ›distant love‹ expressed in Jaufré Rudel’s Occitan song ›Lanqand li jorn son lonc en mai‹ (one of the named models) and the attitude of proximity prevailing in the ›Palästinalied‹.

We know that Hermann I., the Landgrave of Thuringia, was one of Wolfram’s patrons. But when exactly and how long did the author stay at his court? In my paper, I present an overlooked allusion which Wolfram makes in his dawn song, ›Ez ist nu tac‹. Wolfram describes the intimacy between the lovers by saying, even if the sun were threefold the three suns could not divide the couple. This is not just a metaphor but a historical reference to a halo phenomenon seen over Gelnhausen on January 30 th 1207. One of the eyewitnesses was Hermann of Thuringia. Hence, Wolfram wrote his dawn song in 1207 at the court of the Landgrave, while he was working there on his ›Parzival‹.

This article presents a manuscript that significantly enriches the textual corpus of ›Helfta Mysticism‹ with a series of hitherto unknown writings. Aside from this, it contains what is by some distance the oldest copy of the ›Legatus divinae pietatis‹, in the form of a ›special edition‹ that consists of excerpts from the known text as well as new material. This is preceded by a prologue and a florilegium which is marked in an epilogue as Gertrude’s own work. We argue that the epilogue of the florilegium, the prologue and the ›special edition‹ itself were probably composed by ›Sister N of Helfta‹ herself. The article provides a full description of the manuscript (Ms 827), a breakdown of the new ›special edition‹ of the ›Legatus‹-text, and an edition, translation, and close reading of the prologue.

The fourth volume of ›Germania Litteraria Mediaevalis Francigena‹, edited by G. H. M. Claassens, F. P. Knapp and H. Kugler, is devoted to historical and religious narrative ›matières‹ and genres. The individual chaptersʼ valuation establishes a basis for a wider view of the new understanding the project in its entirety and this issue in particular brings to German and Dutch literature of French and Occitan origins in the 12 th and 13 th centuries. The individual profile of German and Dutch reception receives special attention, especially in light of discrepancies and asynchronicities between them. The scholarship also does not shy away from discussion of the ›resistence‹ of the francigene, which proved an unavoidable thorn in the side of every author undertaking an adaptation.