_triuwe_, unswerving personal loyalty and devotion, which manifests
itself above all in the characters of Kriemhild and Hagen. Kriemhild's
husband Siegfried is treacherously slain: her sorrow and revenge are the
motives of the drama. Hagen's mistress has, though with no evil intent on
Siegfried's part, received an insult to her honor: to avenge that insult
is Hagen's absorbing duty, which he fulfils with an utter disregard of
consequences. Over this their fundamental character the various persons
of the story have received a gloss of outward conduct in keeping with the
close of the twelfth century. The poet is at pains to picture them as
models of courtly bearing, excelling in _hofscheit_, _zuht_, _tugent_.
Great attention is paid to dress, and the preparation of fitting apparel
for court festivities is described and re-described with wearisome
prolixity. A cardinal virtue is _milte_, liberality in the bestowal of
gifts. Courtesy toward women is observed with the careful formality of
the age of the minnesingers. It was above all Siegfried, the light-hero
of the original myth, whose character lent itself to an idealization of
knighthood. Ruediger holds a like place in the latter part of the poem.
In the evident pleasure with which the minstrel-knight Volker of the
sword-fiddlebow is depicted, as well doubtless as in occasional gleams of
broader humor, the hand of the minstrels who wrought on the story in its
earlier ballad stages may be seen. And the whole poem, in keeping with
its form in an age strongly under church influence, has been tinged with
the ideals of Christianity. Not only does the ordinary conversation of
all the characters, including even the heathen Etzel, contain a great
number of formal imprecations of God, but Christian institutions and
Christian ethics come frequently into play. Mass is sung in the minster,
baptism, marriage, burial are celebrated in Christian fashion, the devil
is mentioned according to the Christian conception, we hear of priest,
chaplain, and bishop, Christians are contrasted with heathen, and
Kriemhild, in marrying Etzel, has a hope of turning him to Christianity.