and women did not write guides addressed to the entire
world. Women did not write very much at all. When they
did, they wrote mainly things of a private nature, such
as letters, often addressed to other women, and that is
what Egeria did. Since her fellow nuns were not in a
position to emulate her adventure, it was appropriate to
justify and share such an uncommon deed by writing a
letter. Had Egeria been a man, perhaps she and her peers
would not have found her experience so remarkable, and
she would not have written her work. Her overwhelming
curiosity, scholarly abilities, social skills, and tremen-
dous vitality come through clearly in the Peregrinatio,
which was truly a woman’s adventure.
Further Reading
Campbell, M. B. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic Euro-
pean Travel Writing, 400 – 1600. Ithaca, N.Y., 1988.
Franceschini, E., and R. Weber, eds. Itinerarium Egeriae. Corpus
Christianarum, Series Latina, 175. Turhout, 1965.
Gingras, G. E., ed. Egeria: Diary of a Pilgrimage. New York,
- Snyder, J. M. The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers
in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale: Ill., 1989.
Cristina González
EIKE VON REPGOW (fl. 1210–1235)
Beginning about 1150 we have records of a family
living in Saxony between the rivers Saale and Mulde
who called itself after the village of Reppichau near
the city of Dessau. Eike von Repgow (also Eike von
Reppichowe) probably belonged to this family of min-
isterials eligible to serve in the judiciary as Schöffe,
that is, one of a group who determines judgments in
a lawsuit. He is probably the person who appears as a
witness in charters from 1209 to 1233. Although these
charters place him in contact with Count Heinrich of
Anhalt, Margrave Dietrich of Meißen, and Landgrave
Ludwig of Thuringia and it is certain that he was liege-
man to Count Hoyer of Falkenstein in Quedlinburg,
we know little of the events in his life and cannot even
be sure he was a Schöffe. What we do know is that he
wrote arguably the most signifi cant text of the German
Middle Ages: the Sachsenspiegel (The Saxon Mirror, ca.
1225–1235). This is a compendium of the customary
laws of thirteenth-century Saxony. Eike’s text reveals an
education in the seven liberal arts (possibly Halberstadt
or Magdeburg), for he had learned Latin and was highly
familiar with the Bible and canon law.
The reception of Eike’s book was vast. Not only was
it appropriated by the rest of Germany within forty years,
including High German translations—Deutschenspiegel
(Germans’ Mirror), Schwabenspiegel (Swabians’ Mir-
ror), but as the four hundred extant manuscript versions
demonstrate, it was frequently consulted and much of
it remained in force for over three hundred years, thus
confi rming his contribution to German jurisprudence
and culture. Authorship of the Sächsische Weltchronik
(Saxon World Chronicle, 1260–1275), a lengthy sum-
mary of world history and catalog of Roman kings up
to Eike’s own age, is no longer attributed to Eike.Further Reading
Dobozy, Maria, trans. The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the
Fourteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1999.
Eckhardt, Karl August. Sachsenspiegel Landrecht. Monumenta
Germaniae historica. Fontes juris Germanici antiqui, n.s. 1/1.
Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1955, rpt. 1973.
——. Sachsenspiegel Lehnrecht. Monumenta Germaniae his-
torica. Fontes juris Germanici antiqui, n.s. 1/2. Göttingen:
Musterschmidt, 1956, rpt. 1973.
Herkommer, Hubert. “Eike von Repgows Sachsenspiegel und
die Sächsische Weltchronik.” Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch 100
(1977): 7–42.
Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth, and Dagmar Hüpper, eds. Der Sach-
senspiegel als Buch. New York: Lang, 1991.
Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth, “Eike von Repgow,” in Die deutsche
Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et
al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980, vol. 2, cols. 400–409.
Schott, Clausdieter, ed. Der Sachsenspiegel Eikes von Repgow,
trans. Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand [Landrecht] and Clausdieter
Schott [Lehnrecht]. Zürich: Manesse, 1984.
Weiland, L. Sächsische Weltchronik. Monumenta Germaniae
historica. Deutsche Chroniken 2. Hannover: Hahn, 1877, rpt.
1971, pp. 1–384.
Maria DobozyEILHART VON OBERG (fl. 1170–1190)
The history of Middle High German Tristan versions
begins with Eilhart von Oberg’s Tristrant, composed
sometime between 1170 and 1190. In contrast to Gott-
fried von Straßburg’s Tristan (ca. 1210), the older poem
seems to have borrowed directly from a Celtic source,
although a French intermediary story (estoire) is also
possible. Hardly anything is known about the author
except that he was a member of the noble family of
Oberg who lived in the vicinity of Brunswick and were
in the service of the bishops of Hildesheim and the
Welf family. It seems highly likely that Eilhart created
his Tristrant at the Brunswick court of his patroness,
duchess Mechthild of England, who was married to
Henry the Lion. Mechthild had been raised in London
in a highly literate Anglo-Norman world where the Old
French Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland) enjoyed
considerable popularity. It can be assumed that she com-
missioned the translation of the latter into Middle High
German (Rolandslied), and also promoted the creation
of the goliardic epic Herzog Ernst, based on the Chanson
d’Aspremont, and fi nally the composition of the Tris-
trant romance. Eilhart’s text has been preserved in three
fragmentary twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts
that contain altogether more than a thousand verses.EGERIA