area of Bavaria/Salzburg, which he was forced to leave
for some unknown reason—possibly due to losing his
patron and/or audience, as can perhaps be discerned in
changes in his literary style. There are no defi nite clues
that Neidhart might have belonged to the Wittelsbach
court of Ludwig I the Kelheimer. On the other hand,
Winter Song No. 37 directly addresses Archbishop
Eberhard II of Salzburg. Later on Neidhart sang in the
vicinity of the Babenberg court of Friedrich II the Val-
iant (der Streitbare) in Vienna. This may also have been
the setting for a literary argument with Walter von der
Vogelweide and his concept of Minnesang (see Song L
64,31). The writers of subsequent generations (Rubin,
Der Marner, Hermann Damen) regarded Neidhart as
a good example and “master.” The special form of his
poetry developed into a separate lyrical genre in the late
Middle Ages, while the content partly underwent strong
changes. These later poems were passed on under the
name ain nithart (a Neidhart) in the manuscripts (these
songs, regarded largely as imitations following the
nineteenth-century scholar Moritz Haupt, have come to
be put under the term “pseudo-Neidhart” by research-
ers). During the last stage of this reception Neidhart
became the hero of the Schwankroman Neidhart Fuchs
Schwankerzählungen und Lieder (Neidhart Fox’s
Comical Tales and Songs, published 1491/1497, 1537,
und 1566), and many Neidhart plays, which belong to
the oldest existing secular plays written in German.
Altogether the numerous manuscripts (from the end of
the thirteenth to the fi fteenth century) record about 140
songs under the name of Neidhart, of which, however,
only 66 are considered to be authentic. In the fi eld of
Minnesang, well-preserved songs form the major excep-
tion, even though they were recorded mostly only at a
later period (about 68 tunes in all).
As far as form and content are concerned, Neidhart’s
songs, often described as “rustic/rural poetry” (dör-
perlich), can be divided into Summer Songs and Winter
Songs (according to the varying introductory natural set-
tings) and Schwanklieder (comic songs). The Summer
Songs, divided into scenes, render simple verse forms
that have been worked out in detail (raien), while their
content forms a clear contrast to traditional Minnesang.
The plot is shifted from the courtly to the rural realm,
the “Knight,” or Ritter von Riuwental, is exposed to the
unconcealed sexual desires of the farmer’s daughters
and wives. Whereas the mother, who is the represen-
tative of socially accepted moral conventions, warns
her daughter of the consequences of having an affair
with the impoverished knight—in the so-called Songs
of the Aged (Altenlieder) the positions of mother and
daughter are reverse—the girl struggles to participate
in the summer dance and thus also to gain the oppor-
tunity of a rendezvous. In the Sommer Songs, thought
by some to be later, there are frequently statements on
the unsatisfactory position of the singer and the loss of
vreude (happiness) in courtly society (demonstrated
via the theme of Engelmar’s mirror theft). The Winter
Songs, structured by stollen, require an intimate ac-
quaintance with form and content of “classical” Min-
nesang to be understood, since the patterns of content
and representation in Minnesang are constantly referred
to in quotations and opposed to the so-called dörper,
or farmer-stanzas. They portray the threat posed to
the singer by rural upstarts, who arrogate aristocratic
clothing and lifestyles to themselves, and, even though
they adopt only the superfi cial forms of courtly culture,
but not its actual contents, alienate the singer from his
vrouwe “lady” (who turns out to be a “farmer’s daugh-
ter” or, in the so-called werlt-süeze, or “wordly delight”
songs, “Hure Welt”/Whore World). In the Schwanklieder
the knight Neidhart is promoted to the role of ever-
victorious enemy of the physically and intellectually
inferior peasants. According to massive tradition as well
as extraliterary evidence, the Neidhart-Lieder (songs)
with their transformations of content enjoyed sustained
popularity from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.
Only in recent times has research begun to refrain from
continuing the debate about authenticity and to accept
instead the genre of the “Neidharts” in the fullness of
its tradition and history.
See also Wolfram von EschenbachFurther Reading
Bennewitz, Ingrid. Original und Rezeption. Funktionsund über-
lieferungsgeschichtliche Studien zur Neidhart-Sammlung R.
Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1987.
Beyschlag, Siegfried, ed. Die Lieder Neidharts. Darmstadt: Wis-
senschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975.
Fritz, Gerd, ed. Abbildungen zur Neidhart-Überlieferung I. Die
Berliner Neidhart-Hs. R und die Pergament-Fragmente Cb,
K, O und M. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1973.
Haupt, Moriz, ed. Neidhart von Reuenthal. Leipzig, 1864. 2d ed.
Edmund Wießner. Leipzig 1923; rpt. ed. Ingrid Bennewitz, Ul-
rich Müller, and Franz V. Spechtler. Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1986.
Herr Neidhart diesen Reihen sang. Die Texte und Melodien der
Neidhartlieder mit ‘Ubersetzungen und Kommentaren, ed.
Siegfried Beyschlag and Horst Brunner. Göppingen: Küm-
merle, 1968.
Holznagel, Franz-Josef. Wege in die Schriftlichkeit. Untersuc-
hungen und Materialien zur Überlieferung der mittelhoch-
deutschen Lyrik. Tübingen: Francke, 1995.
Jöst, Erhard, ed. Die Historien des Neithart Fuchs. Nach dem
Frankfurter Druck von 1566. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1980.
Margetts, John, ed. Neidhartspiele. Graz: Akademische Druck-
und Verlagsanstalt, 1982.
Schweikle, Günther. Neidhart. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1990.
Simon, Eckehard. Neidhart v. Reuental. Geschichte der Forsc-
hung und Bibliographie. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
Wenzel.Edith, ed. Abbildungen zur Neidhart-Überlieferung II.
Die Berliner Neidhart-Hs. c (mgf779). Göppingen: Küm-
merle, 1975.
Ingrid BennewitzNEIDHART