Der Sommerteil

The prose legendry "Lives of the Saints" produced by the Dominican monastery in Nuremberg around 1400 was the most widely disseminated vernacular legendry of the European Middle Ages. It has been handed down in just under 200 manuscripts and 33 Upper German and 8 Low German printed editions and was disseminated all over German-speaking Europe and in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The work is a major exception among German legendries in that it does not derive from Latin sources but almost exclusively from German verse and prose legends ("Passional", "Märterbuch", Hartmann von Aue's "Gregorius", Ebernand von Erfurt's "Heinrich und Kunigunde", Reinbot von Durne's "Georg" etc.). Its status was that of the major vernacular hagiographic source (for the Mastersingers, Jakob Mennel etc.) and its popularity made it a target for one of Luther's lampoons in 1535. This historical edition is based on the oldest and most reliable manuscript source, the Summer Part Manuscript, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Laud. 443.