Justice and the Social Context of Early Middle High German Literature

Early Middle High German religious literature, a substantial corpus of wide-ranging verse and prose works written between ca. 1050 and 1170, was long dismissed as derivative and overzealously ascetic. This book argues that far from preaching traditional, otherworldly ideals, the authors or these religious works were deeply engaged in the social, political, and spiritual issues that characterized the Holy Roman Empire at a time of radical transformation. The authors urged their listeners, especially men and women of the nobility, to pursue a justice responsive to the needs of their world.

Robert G. Sullivan teaches at the University of Massachusettes at Amherst.