in general, but direct written record of it is almost completely wanting.


3. Character of the Poem

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed far-reaching changes in
the social and intellectual life of the German lands, the leading feature
of which is the high development of all that is included under the name
of chivalry. It is marked, too, by a revival of the native literature
such as had not been known before, a revival which is due almost entirely
to its cultivation by the nobility. From emperor down to the simple
knight they were patrons of poetry and, what is most striking, nearly all
the poets themselves belong to the knightly class. The drama has not yet
begun, but in the field of epic and lyric there appear about the year
1200 poets who are among the greatest that German literature even down to
the present time has to show. The epic poetry of that period, though
written almost entirely by the knights, is of two distinct kinds
according to its subject: on the one hand what is called the Court Epic,
on the other hand the National, or Popular, Epic. The Court Epic follows
for the most part French models and deals chiefly with the life of
chivalry, whose ideals were embodied in king Arthur and his circle of
knights; the National Epic drew its subjects from the national German
saga, its two great products being the Nibelungenlied and the poem of
Gudrun. Court Epic and National Epic are further distinct in form, the
Court Epic being written in the rhymed couplets popularized in modern
times in English by Sir Walter Scott, while the National Epic is composed
in four-lined strophes.

Though we know the name and more or less of the life of the authors of
the many court epics of the period, the name of the poet who gave the