The Heidelberg Passion Play as we have it dates back to 1514 and displays a number of unusual characteristics within the group of Hessian Passion Plays. It (a) represents an older Frankfurt play tradition, only recognized as such by study of the texts in parallel, (b) is the only one of the Hessian Passion Plays to contain 13 Old Testament prefigurations, and (c) occupies a strangely ambivalent position between the documentation or conception of a text for staging and a record of the text for reading purposes. This parallel-text edition is the first to document where the author drew on tradition and where we may assume he added passages of his own.

Within the group of Hessian passion plays, the Alsfeld play tradition is the one best and most comprehensively documented. Alongside a frequently revised and enlarged play text, the other sources that have come down to us are a director's book, various individual roles, and a catalogue of players. This is the first publication of these documents based on uniform editorial principles, together with the Fritzlar Passion Play Fragment and a new reconstruction of the no longer extant "Friedberg Dirigierrolle." To illustrate the intersection between the Frankfurt (Vol. 1) and Alsfeld traditions, the introduction presents the relevant text passages from the Frankfurt and Heidelberg Passion Plays on opposite pages, with the "Frankfurt Dirigierrolle" as lead reference text. The heart of the volume is the new edition of the Alsfeld Passion Play (with melodies) together with parallel passages from all relevant textual sources within the Hessian Passion Play collection.

The aim of this publication is twofold: editorial and text-historical. It contains a new edition of the "Frankfurt Dirigierrolle" based on a diplomatic print documenting the successive stages of revision, as far as they are discernible. The new edition of the "Frankfurt Passion Play" is printed opposite the parallel passages from the "Frankfurt Dirigierrolle," the "Alsfeld Passion Play," the "Heidelberg Passion Play," the "Frankfurt Easter Play Fragment" and the "Fritzlar Passion Play Fragment," with a view to situating the central text in its historical context. All texts have been newly verified against the manuscripts. Further volumes of parallel editions are planned with the "Alsfeld Passion Play" and the "Heidelberg Passion Play" figuring as the central texts.

An important work for heuristics and the systematic investigation not only of the medieval fable, but of epic rhyming couplets in general. The work is unsurpassed and will remain so for a long time. At the same time it represents a document of research history, which made a major contribution to the boom of late medieval German studies. Prof. Dr. Johannes Janota"

Literarhistorisch gesehen, ist das 14. Jahrhundert innerhalb der deutschen Literatur die bislang am wenigsten bekannte Zeitspanne. Dieses Defizit versucht die vorliegende Darstellung zu beheben. Nach dem Konzept des Gesamtwerks sind der Behandlung der literarischen Formen zwei Modelle der literarischen Interessenbildung vorangestellt: das literarische Leben in der habsburgischen Residenzstadt Wien und - als bedeutendste literarische Erscheinung des 14. Jahrhunderts - das mystische Schrifttum. Insgesamt wurde Wert darauf gelegt, auch kleinere und kleinste literarische Texte zu berucksichtigen und im Blick auf die leitenden Interessenschwerpunkte einzuordnen. Mit diesem Detailreichtum ubertrifft die Darstellung alle bislang vorgelegten UEberblicke uber die deutsche Literatur im 14. Jahrhundert. Neben dem Schrifttum der Mystik nehmen die vielfaltigen Formen der Lyrik und der literarischen Rede, vor allem aber der Aufschwung der Prosa den breitesten Raum ein.

Der Band dokumentiert ein Kolloquium, das unter der Leitung der Herausgeber an der UniversitAt Augsburg stattgefunden hat. Die BeitrAge liefern erstmals eine zusammenhAngende Grundlegung fA1/4r eine Literaturgeschichte der Stadt Augsburg im ausgehenden SpAtmittelalter. Dabei wird A1/4ber die Darstellung signifikanter Gattungsbereiche hinaus auch nach den institutionellen und organisatorischen Aspekten des literarischen Lebens gefragt. Die FA1/4lle der schriftlichen Aoeberlieferung erlaubt facettenreiche Einblicke in die MAglichkeiten literarischen Lebens in spAtmittelalterlichen StAdten von der Bedeutung Augsburgs. Die hier versammelten Forschungsergebnisse sind damit zugleich ein grundlegender Beitrag zur stAdtischen Literaturgeschichte im 15. Jahrhundert.

Whereas the medieval minnelied speaks of the unfulfilled wooing of an unapproachable lady, the modern love song deals with the chequered relationship of a lover with his beloved. The present study is the first to enquire into the different literary and historical factors which led to the minnelied being superseded by the love song and to the love song's success in the modern age. Contrary to what was maintained by previous research, these transition processes can be traced back to the first half of the 14th century.

This fourth edition of the successful volume of verse narratives by Der Stricker has subjected the text to a complete revision and above all enlarged the bibliography. The latter includes all major studies on Der Stricker's minor epics and gives a full listing of the published work done on the individual narratives assembled in the present edition.