nevertheless reveals Walter’s considerable interest in the
East. By contrast to the Alexander romance, the Alexan-
dreis follows Curtius’s more “realistic” depiction of the
East. Alexander does not confront any of the monstrous
races or exotic peoples described in the romance. For
example, rather than encountering the Brahmans, the
legendary inhabitants of India famed for their ascetic life
and philosophy, Walter’s Alexander meets the Scythians.
His Scythians, however, presented as idealized primi-
tives living in accordance with Nature’s dictates, have
much in common with the Brahmans of the romance.
Walter’s Alexander seems to be a paradigm for cru-
saders—in particular for crusading kings such as Philip
Augustus (r. 1180–1223). Critics have argued that he
serves, on the one hand, as a positive model of prowess
to be imitated and as a negative warning against pursu-
ing the wrong things in the Holy Land: wealth and fame
rather than the salvation of his soul.
A catalogue of the lands of Asia in Book 1 and a
description of a map carved on the inside of the dome
of the tomb of the Persian emperor Darius in Book 7
defi ne the natural limitations of the world. This map is a
typical medieval mappamundi of the tripartite type: the
orbis terrarum has a circular form and is oriented to the
East, with Asia fi lling the top half of the circle, Europe
and Africa the two quarters on the bottom. The world
is ringed by a surrounding Ocean. Like contemporary
mappamundi, Walter’s includes places and peoples of
signifi cance from all periods in biblical, ancient, and me-
dieval history. Walter presents as unnatural Alexander’s
ambition to cross the Ocean, to see the regions of the
extreme East, and to conquer the peoples of the Antipo-
des. When Alexander begins to fulfi ll this ambition by
invading the Ocean, the goddess Nature intervenes and
arranges his death. Although Walter’s Alexandreis was
widely known during the Middle Ages—it survives in
some 200 manuscripts and was familiar to such promi-
nent vernacular poets as Dante and Chaucer (whose
Wife of Bath alludes casually to Darius’s tomb in her
“Prologue” [ll. 497–499])—the poem has been largely
(and undeservedly) forgotten.
See also Chaucer, Geoffrey; Dante Alighieri;
Godfrey of Viterbo; Philip II Augustus
Further Reading
Kratz, Dennis. Mocking Epic: Waltharius, Alexandreis, and the
Problem of Christian Heroism. Madrid: José Porrúa Turan-
zas, 1980.
Lafferty, Maura K. “Mapping Human Limitations: The Tomb
Ecphrases in Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis.” Journal of
Medieval Latin 4 (1994): 64–81.
Ratkowitsch, Christine. Descriptio Picturae: Die literarische
Funktion der Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der latein-
ischen Grossdichtung des 12. Jahrhunderts. Vienna: Verlag
der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1991.
Walter of Chatillon. Alexandreis. Ed. Marvin L. Colker. Padova,
Italy: Antenore, 1978.
——. Alexandreis. Trans. R. Telfryn Pritchard. Toronto: Pontifi cal
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1986.
——. Alexandreis. Trans. David Townsend. Philadelphia: U of
Pennsylvania P, 1997.
Maura K. LaffertyWALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE
(ca. 1170–ca. 1230)
In service largely at the Hohenstaufen courts, Walther is
considered the greatest of the German courtly singers of
the High Middle Ages. Some would argue for his poetic
primacy among European singers in any language. Inter-
nal evidence in his songs suggests he was active between
the early 1190s and the late 1220s. His Minnesang (love
singing), in which he sang the painful joy of unrequited
love for a woman of high station (hôhe minne), shows
infl uences of fashionable German courtly singers such as
Heinrich von Morungen and Reinmar der Alte. Walther
also sang of the so-called nidere minne (down-to-earth
love), an amorous relationship both physical and mutual
that has close parallels in Latin secular love songs. His
political, personal, didactic, and religious songs (Sang-
spruch) refl ect the vicissitudes of his career as well as
the turbulent political events of the sacrum imperium,
known later as the Holy Roman Empire.
Extant today are over six hundred stanzas in some
three dozen manuscripts. Walther’s music has been
entirely lost save for five melodies, two of them
fragmentary and another two from manuscripts writ-
ten three centuries later. Accordingly, readers must
use their imaginations to re-create the conditions of
performance and the effect of the melodies and their
accompaniments.
Walther’s name appears only once in nonliterary
documents of his lifetime, a 1203 entry in the travel
accounts of Bishop of Passau directing that fi ve shil-
lings be given the singer (cantor) for a fur coat. But
other thirteenth-century singers and romanciers provide
ample encomia, or formal praise, for this towering fi gure
of German lyric singing. Gottfried of Straßburg in his
Tristan (ll. 4751–4820) calls him the nightingale car-
rying the banner of Minnesang, praising Walther’s high
(tenor?) voice and his dexterity in the polyphonic style
of the day (organum). His artistry is also celebrated by,
among others, Reinmar von Zweter, Bruder Werner,
and Rudolf von Ems. In the waning Middle Ages he is
enthroned by the Meistersinger as one of the Twelve
Old Masters. Only one contemporary provides negative
criticism: Thomasin von Zerklaere castigates him as a
slanderer of Pope Innocent III and a deceiver of men
(Der welsche Gast, 11. 11091–11268).
The songs classifi ed as Minnesang—the sequence
can only be surmised—are normally categorized in theWALTER OF CHÂTILLON