Dietrich von Bern

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Dietrich von Bern is a figure from medieval German legend, the archetype of the wise and just ruler, traditionally said to be based on Theodoric the Great (454–526), the historical king of the Ostrogoths; the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) noted that "the legendary history of Dietrich differs so widely from the life of Theodoric that it has been suggested that the two were originally unconnected." Anachronisms abound, for example in making Ermanaric (died 376) and Attila (died 453) contemporary with Theodoric (born 454). Bern is the Middle High German form of Verona, which was one of the historical Theodoric's residences.

The "Berner" figures in a number of surviving works, and it must be assumed that these draw on long-standing oral tradition. With the exception of the Hildebrandslied and the Nibelungenlied, in neither of which is Dietrich a central character, all the surviving Dietrich epics were composed or written down after 1250.

The earliest evidence of the legend is provided by the heroic lay, the Hildebrandslied (Lay of Hildebrand), recorded in around 820. In this, Hadubrand recounts the story of his father Hildebrand's flight eastwards in the company of Dietrich, to escape the enmity of Odoacer. Hildebrand reveals that he has lived in exile for 30 years. Hildebrand has an arm ring given to him by the (unnamed) King of the Huns, and is taken to be an "old Hun" by Hadubrand. The obliqueness of the references to the Dietrich legend, which is just the background to Hildebrand's story, indicates an audience thoroughly familiar with the material. In this work Dietrich's enemy is the historically correct Odoacer (though in fact Theodoric the Great was never exiled by Odoacer), indicating that the figure of Ermaneric belongs to a later development of the legend.

In the heroic epic the Nibelungenlied (c. 1200), Dietrich is living in exile at the court of Etzel (Attila), the Hunnish King. He fights on Etzel's side against the Burgundians, and his whole retinue apart from Hildebrand is slain. He ends the conflict by capturing Hagen and then Günther in single combat.

The Norse saga deals with Dietrich's return home. The most familiar version is that by an Icelandic or Norwegian author writing in Norway in the 13th century, who compiled a consecutive account of Dietrich, with many additional episodes. This Norse prose version, known as the Þiðrekssaga (Thidrek's saga), incorporates much extraneous matter from the Nibelungen and Wayland legends.

The late Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg reinspected the Old Swedish version of the Thidreks saga for the historical information it contained, and established its topographical accuracy. Further, he concluded that these oldest of the "Dietrich" sources cannot refer to Theodoric the Great of the Goths, whose movements are moderately well known, mainly because of irreconcilable topographical anomalies. Ritter-Schaumburg asserted that their narration relates instead to a contemporary of the famous Goth, who bore the same name, rendered Didrik in Old Swedish. Moreover, he identified Berne as Bonn to which was ascribed, in the medieval age, an alternative (latinized) name Verona of unknown origin. Due to his questionable argument,^[1] Dietrich lived as a Frankish petty king in Bonn.^[2]

Another modern author, Rolf Badenhausen, starts from Ritter-Schaumburg's approach but ends up with a different result. He claims Berne, where Thidrek/Didrik started his rise, to be identical with Varne, south of Aachen, the Roman Verona cisalpina, in the district of the northern Rhine/Eiffel lands. Thidrek/Didrik could be identified with Theuderich son of Clovis I, a royal Frank mentioned with approval by Gregory of Tours and in Fredegar's royal Frankish chronicle.

In the Book of Bern (Buch von Bern) written in the late 13th century partly by Henry the Fowler, Dietrich tries to regain his empire with the help of the Huns. In the collection of the Heldenbuch ("Book of Heroes"), Dietrich's story is related in Dietrichs Flucht ("Dietrich's Flight"), the Rabenschlacht ("The Battle of Ravenna") and Alpharts Tod ("Alphart's Death")

The legendary figure of Dietrich also appears in the 13th-century Rosengarten zu Worms ("Rosegarden at Worms"), the Epos of Biterolf, of Goldemar, of Ecke, Sigenot and Laurin.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: "Dietrich of Bern"
• Rolf Badenhausen, "Merovingians by the Svava?": discussion based on the Skokloster Svava, Stockholm catalogued as Skokloster-Codex-I/115&116 quarto, E 9013.