The Poet Knight

Hartmann von Aue (born c.1160) started as a member of the lower nobility in Swabia. We don't know precisely where he was born; the "von Aue" tacked onto his name is because he became a knight in the service of the Lords of Aue (Obernau by the River Neckar).

He was educated at a monastery school and became a minor minister at the Swabian court. Whether at the monastery or later we don't know, but besides German he had knowledge of French and Latin. He participated in a Crusade, either the Third Crusade in 1189 or its followup in 1197 (called the "Emperor's Crusade"), when Hohenstaufen Emperor Henry VI tried to redeem the efforts of his father, Emperor Frederick I "Barbarossa," during the Third.

Outside of his knightly duties he was a poet and songwriter. He is considered one of the three great epic poets of Middle High German, along with Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strasburg.

Four narrative poems came from Hartmann's pen, two of which, Erec and Iwein, are part of the Arthurian cycle and help to introducer that subject into German epic poetry. They are based, respectively, on Eric and Enide and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes.

The other two are Gregorius, adapted from a French epic, and Der arme Heinrich, which tells the story of a leper cured by a young girl.

The date of his death is unknown, but von Strasburg, writing in his "Tristan" c.1210 mentions that Hartmann is still living, while Heinrich von dem Türlin, in his Arthurian poem "Krone" ("The Crown"; c.1215-1220) says Hartmann is deceased.

Gregorius is quite unusual, and a summary here would make this post very long, so I think I'll save it for tomorrow.