The Nibelungenlied: 12th century

The shared memories of the Nordic people, first written down in Iceland literature, have been recited and sung wherever Germanic tribes have settled - including the central lands of Germany itself. In the southeast of this region, in modern Austria, the legends about the fall of Burgundy to the Huns achieve their fullest and most influential expression in a version of the late 12th century.

This is the great German epic poem known as the Nibelungenlied ('Song of the Nibelungs'). The first half of the Nibelungenlied is essentially the story written down two centuries earlier in Iceland's Elder Edda, involving Siegfried and Brunhild as tragic hero and heroine. Additional elements, recorded also in the Icelandic Völsunga Saga, involve the dragon Fafnir, guardian of a golden treasure and a magic ring, and the eventual sinking of the treasure in the Rhine.

German courtly poets: 12th-13th centuries

The poetry recited or sung in German courts of the later Middle Ages closely follows the examples set by France. The influence of Chrétien de Troyes makes themes from Arthurian legend particularly popular. Tristant und Isolde, written by Eilhart von Oberge in about 1170, is an early example.

The best known of the German courtly epics is Wolfram von Eschenbach 's Parzifal (dating from about 1205). It tells the story of the gauche knight, Sir Percival, whose innocence enables him to succeed in the quest for the holy Grail.

The other important aspect of French courtly literature, the lyric poetry of the troubadours, has its direct German equivalent in the Minnesinger (those who sing of Minne, an old word for 'love'). Again Wolfram von Eschenbach is a leading practitioner, though Walter von der Vogelweide is considered a greater artist in this lyric form - which is used by the Minnesinger to deal with a range of subjects not restricted to love. Tannhäuser, a historical Minnesinger, becomes the central character of a legend competing against Walter and Wolfram in a singing contest which prefigures the traditions of the Meistersinger.

Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain: 14th century

Of these two great English alliterative poems, the second is entirely anonymous and the first virtually so. The narrator of Piers Plowman calls himself Will; occasional references in the text suggest that his name may be Langland. Nothing else, apart from this poem, is known of him. Piers Plowman exists in three versions, the longest amounting to more than 7000 lines. It is considered probable that all three are by the same author. If so he spends some twenty years, from about 1367, adjusting and refining his epic creation.

Piers the ploughman is one of a group of characters searching for Christian truth in the complex setting of a dream. Though mainly a spiritual quest, the work also has a political element. It contains sharply observed details of a corrupt and materialistic age (Wycliffe is among Langland's English contemporaries).

Where Piers Plowman is tough and gritty, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (dating from the same period) is more polished in its manner and more courtly in its content. The characters derive partly from Arthurian legend. mysterious green knight arrives one Christmas at the court of King Arthur. He invites any knight to strike him with an axe and to receive the blow back a year later. Gawain accepts the challenge. He cuts off the head of the green knight, who rides away with it.

The rest of the poem concerns Gawain, a year later, at the green knight's castle. In a tale of love (for the green knight's wife) and subsequent deceit, Gawain emerges with little honour. The green knight spares his life but sends him home to Arthur's court wearing the wife's girdle as a badge of shame.