page_title: Heldenbuch
section_title: Manuscripts
hierarchical_section_title: Heldenbuch / Manuscripts
caption_attribution_description: English: The Dresden Heldenbuch, folios 264v &amp; 265r: the first pages of "Herzog Ernst"
context_page_description: Heldenbücher is the conventional title under which a group of German manuscripts and prints of the 15th and 16th centuries has come down to us. Each Heldenbuch contains a collection of primarily epic poetry, typically including material from the Theodoric cycle, and the cycle of Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit.
  The Heldenbuch texts are thus based on medieval German literature, but adapted to the tastes of the Renaissance.
context_section_description: The earliest surviving Heldenbuch is a parchment manuscript dating from the first half of the 14th century, which survived only in five fragments (two are now missing). It is variously referred to as the Rheinfränkisches Heldenbuch ("Rhine Franconian Heldenbuch") from its dialect or the Berlin-Wolfenbüttel Heldenbuch from the location of two of the fragments, and preserves parts of the Eckenlied (E₃), Virginal (V₃), Ortnit (C) and Wolfdietrich (C), though the fragments do not give any indication of the original order. The large format and luxurious quality of the manuscript indicate the status of the heroic epic in the 14th century. 
  After this, four complete Heldenbuch manuscripts are known:
  The Dresden Heldenbuch of Kaspar von der Rhön (Saxon State and University Library Dresden, Mscr.Dresd.M.201) dates from 1472. Written in an East Franconian dialect, probably in Nuremberg, it was compiled by Kaspar and written by him and another unnamed scribe, it includes Ortnit (k), Wolfdietrich (k), Eckenlied (E₃), Rosengarten zu Worms, Meerwunder, Sigenot, Der Wunderer, Herzog Ernst, Laurin, Virginal (V₁₁) and the Jüngeres Hildebrandslied. It therefore includes all the "fantastic" Dietrich epics apart from Goldemar. Each poem is preceded by a full-page illustration. Many of the poems have been deliberately shortened, sometime drastically, by the scribes in order to make them short enough to be read in a single sitting, as they explicitly remark. The manuscript, previously in private hands, was purchased by the Electoral Library of Saxony (precursor of the current State Library), in 1793. Already showing considerable damage by the start of the 20th century, during the Second World War, the manuscript was stored in a bomb-proof vault, but it suffered extensive water damage in the aftermath of the allied bombing in February 1945. This severely damaged the illustrations and made some pages impossible to read. However, four transcriptions made in the 18th and 19th centuries provide assistance with reading the text.
  The Johanniter-Heldenbuch dates from 1476. It was lost in the bombardment of the municipal library (located in the Temple Neuf) by German artillery during the August 1870 Siege of Strassburg, but the contents are known from earlier transcriptions. It contained Wolfdietrich (D), Rosengarten zu Worms, Salman und Morolf and Ortnit (D). It was first recorded in Johann Jakob Witter's 1746 catalogue of the library of the Order of St John (German Johanniter) in Strasbourg, by which time the codex had been unbound and reassembled, putting the texts in a different order from other Heldenbücher.
  The Strassburg Heldenbuch of Diebolt von Hanowe from around 1480 was also lost in the Siege of Strassburg — it, too, was stored in the Temple Neuf — and is likewise known only from transcriptions. It contained Ortnit (D), Wolfdietrich (D), Rosengarten zu Worms, Laurin, Sigenot, der Stricker's Pfaffe Amis, Salomon und Markolf and Die undankbare Wiedererweckte. The manuscript text is based on a lost Heldenbuch manuscript which also served as the source for the earliest printed Heldenbuch of 1479. In addition to the poems, both the codex and printed book contain a prose essay, now called the Heldenbuch-Prosa ("Heldenbuch Prose"), which provides a "history" of all the heroes in the Nibelungenlied and Dietrich cycles. In the manuscript it forms the introduction, in the print version, an appendix.
  Lienhart Scheubels Heldenbuch, (Austrian National Library, Cod. 15478), named after its first owner, was written in an Austro-Bavarian dialect. It was compiled in sections, which may initially have circulated separately, with the earliest parts written around 1480 and the last around 1490. It contains Virginal (V₁₂), Antelan,  Ortnit (D), Wolfdietrich (D), the Nibelungenlied and Lorengel. It was discovered in 1856 by Julius Feifalik in the Piarist College of St Joseph in Vienna, and for this reason it is also sometimes referred to as the Wiener Piaristenhandschrift.
  The Ambraser Heldenbuch, in spite of the name, is not a Heldenbuch in the same sense as th
caption: The Dresden Heldenbuch, folios 264v & 265r: the first pages of "Herzog Ernst"
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