Commission for German Literature of the Middle Ages
The Commission's purpose is the historical analysis of the transmission of medieval literature. Texts, subjects, and genres that have been inadequately or not at all studied are made accessible in editions and monographs in the series Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen (Munich texts and studies).
Research projects cover a broad range of topics and corpuses of writings: currently the main undertaking is the Katalog der deutschsprachigen illustrierten Handschriften des Mittelalters (catalogue of illustrated manuscripts from the Middle Ages in the German language). This is organized by subject matter and describes all medieval manuscripts in the German language that include decorative elements: title page miniatures, pictorial cycles, historiated initials.
Deutschsprachige Lieddichtung des Mittelalters (the poetry of Medieval German songs) contains sections on the transmission and typology of songs composed up to approximately 1350, an index of their manuscripts, and a discussion of the reception of German poetry within Medieval Latin literary tradition.
The Wörterbuch der mittelhochdeutschen Urkundensprache (dictionary of Middle High German documents), planned as three volumes, completed in 2010. This is based on the 1986 edition of primary documents up to 1300, and surveys the vocabulary of legal and commercial language on the basis of precisely dated and localized texts.
All 14 volumes of the Commission's Verfasserlexikon: Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters (Author lexicon of German literature of the Middle Ages) have been published.
"Willehalm"-trilogy, Hessen, 1334: Count Heinrich knights his sons.