Sebastian Coxon Book order

This anthology of twenty medieval tales contains a representative selection of the various kinds of short narrative in verse that were transmitted together in German manuscript collections from the later thirteenth century onwards. They include religious miracle-tales, comic tales, moral-didactic tales, and courtly tales. Considered together, they offer an insight into how medieval poets tried to entertain as well as instruct their audiences in matters of faith and everyday conduct, and just what it was that made medieval listeners (and readers) laugh. The translations have been taken from DVN vol. 5 (Deutsche Versnovellistik des 13. bis 15. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Klaus Ridder and Hans-Joachim Ziegeler) and revised for the general reader; they are presented here for the first time with a commentary and notes.

A study of beard motifs in medieval German poetry. Beards make frequent appearances in medieval German poetry—as esteemed markers of majestic wisdom or as hilarious props for undignified manhandling. In Beards and Texts , Sebastian Coxon traces this preeminent symbol of masculinity through four major poetic traditions across the twelfth and sixteenth centuries—Pfaffe Konrad’s  Rolandslied , Wolfram von Eschenbach’s  Willehalm , ‘Sangspruchdichtung’, and Heinrich Wittenwiler’s  Ring . By attending to this hairy trope, Beards and Texts sheds new light on the construction of both poetic form and masculinity in the Middle Ages. 

Focusing on late medieval Germany, this work delves into the narrative structure and key themes of short comic tales that captivated audiences through public recitals and private readings. It highlights how these stories offered bawdy entertainment, reflecting the cultural dynamics of the time.

This book sheds light on the complexity of medieval German literary culture as it evolved in the course of the thirteenth century (c. 1220-1920) by analysing the attitudes of narrative poets towards the issue of authorship. It describes the various ways in which vernacular writers could address the theme of their own authorship within their literary works, and explores the tensions that arose between such authorial strategies on the one hand and their subsequent manuscript transmission on the other.