18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

[cahn]

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

Comments

Re: Hildebrandslied

[selenak]

Literary footnote: now, in the nineteenth century, all the rediscovery of medieval epics (in the case of this one by the Brothers Grimm, btw, who wrote the first modern commentary on it) was a big thing. But someone like Peter H., Germarn mercanary living in the 17th century, could not have read it a version of this epic. He must have learned the story via oral tradition. It's also fascinating that he's so sure that Hildebrand and Hadubrand fought in Mantua and that this is why the two statues he sees are depicting them. Because Hildebrand's boss and protegé, Dietrich von Bern (that's the name under which he shows up both in the Hildebrandlied and in the Nibelungenlied), commonly gets identified with Theoderich, the Goth King ruling most of Italy for a while. Peter Hagendorf doesn't say, but I'm assuming he, too, makes that identification when staying Mantua is where the Hildebrand/Hadubrand fight took place.

Re: Hildebrandslied

[mildred_of_midgard]

Dietrich von Bern (that's the name under which he shows up both in the Hildebrandlied and in the Nibelungenlied), commonly gets identified with Theoderich, the Goth King ruling most of Italy for a while.

Where "Bern" is not the better-known Bern of Switzerland, but Verona.

It's also fascinating that he's so sure that Hildebrand and Hadubrand fought in Mantua

Yes!

Re: Hildebrandslied

[cahn]

Oh, huhhhh! That's interesting, thanks!