Heinrich von Veldeke

Summary

TWO CLOSELY CONNECTED MYTHS deeply influenced medieval concepts about the origins of the medieval world and its cultural identity. The first myth dealt with the history of ancient Troy and its defeat at the hands of the Greeks, originally described in Homer's Iliad, parts of which were later handed down in the sixth century Historia de excidio Trojae attributed to the Latin author Dares Phrygius and in the fifth century Ephemeris belli Trojani attributed to Dictys Cretensis, which in turn goes back to a Greek source from the first century. The second myth concerned Aeneas and his successful escape from the defeated city. After landing on numerous European shores, according to ancient tradition, Aeneas eventually became the founder of Rome, as Virgil (70–19 B.C.) reported in his Aeneid (29–19 B.C.). Aeneas was thus an integral part of the medieval conception of the transferal of imperial authority and glory from the eastern Mediterranean to Western Europe (the translatio imperii). The story of Aeneas was reiterated, for instance, in the eleventh-century Middle High German Annolied and in the fourteenth-century Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but many other poets and chroniclers also dealt with this fascinating figure from classical antiquity. One of the most extensive accounts was the Old French Roman d'Eneas (more than 10,000 verses), written before 1160, which in turn became the source for the Middle High German Eneit by Heinrich von Veldeke.