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Song of the Nibelungs, a heroic poem from medieval Europe

Inscribed 2009

What is it

The Nibelungenlied, or The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic heroic poem written in Middle High German. Based on older oral tradition, it was transcribed around AD 1200. Three separate manuscript copies on vellum are listed.

Why was it inscribed

The Nibelungenlied is a rare example of heroic poetry in German literature and is important in world terms, ranking alongside Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland.

Where is it

Codex A: Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany; Codex B: Monastic Library of St Gallen, Switzerland; Codex C: Regional Library of the State of Baden, Karlsruhe, Germany

The Nibelungenlied tells the story of dragon-slayer Siegfried from his childhood and later marriage to Kriemhild, to his murder and the subsequent story of Kriemhild’s revenge. It culminates in the extinction of the Burgundians or Nibelungs at the court of the Huns. The story takes place in Central Europe along the Rhine and the Danube, corresponding to modern Germany, Austria, and Hungary; a single episode takes place in Iceland. It dates back to the time of mass migration across Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries AD and is known across the continent.

The roots of the myth lie in the memory of a disastrous defeat of the Eastern German tribe of the Burgundians by the Roman general Aëtius as they advanced from the Rhine to Roman Gaul in around AD 436.

The Nibelungenlied was written during the 13th century in the Alemannic or Bavarian language area within the Alps region. It originated in the classical time of Middle German literature and was written in the form of singable stanzas. Its author is unknown, but his patron was Wolfger von Erla, bishop of Passau from 1191 to 1204.

Rediscovered by a new generation in the 18th century, it came to the fore in the 19th as a national epic poem both in numerous illustrations and in the musical dramas of Richard Wagner. It has exerted a wide influence on the history of thought, literature, art and music.

It is known only in the versions that have survived in thirty-seven manuscripts and manuscript fragments from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The three main manuscripts inscribed in the Register are labelled A, B and C. Each one is unique and transmits a different version of the text. They were written within a century of the poem’s composition and are the earliest and most important manuscripts of the text.

Codex A preserves the shortest version, probably in anticipation that its readers had some knowledge of the oral text. Codex B, some decades older, contains other Middle High German epic poems besides The Nibelungenlied. The oldest codex is C, a revised and expanded version of the text.