ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
A Case Study of the Legend of the Burgundians*
The following paper attempts to reassess the value of current theories
regarding the origins of heroic poetry in the Germanic languages. It is
based on a thorough consideration of the evidence for heroic poetry and
historical or memorial traditions in the early middle ages, the period when
this poetry are supposed to have originated. I differentiate between
three stages of reception for the extant legends: the original audience, the
peoples whose histories the legends purport to tell and among whom they
might have been composed; the various societies that kept these legends
alive in the centuries between postulated original composition and extant
textual record; and finally the audience of the existing texts. This paper
is concerned with the first two levels of reception. I begin by examining
whether there is indeed evidence that the legends were composed at some
point during the so-called migration period among the peoples whose histories they tell, and what function they might have had in this first stage.
This is followed by an examination of the possible causes for and functions of the intermediate transmission, which doubtless took place at least
partly amongst societies not directly linked to the originators of the legends, if the latter did indeed originate in historical fact as a form of oral
history. Based on a reassessment of the historical evidence, I shall argue
that the extant works in Germanic languages have no value for the understanding of any previous stage of oral culture; they do, however, provide
evidence for the existence of this culture, and for a (very limited) continuity within the oral traditions in the Germanic vernaculars of the middle
ages. I conclude with some suggestions that might, I hope, help lay the
foundations for more historically plausible theories regarding the form,
function and origins of heroic poetry in Germanic languages than those
that are current in literary scholarship.
The legend of the fall of the Burgundians will be examined in detail
with the example of the Old Norse ›Atlaqviða‹, the sole witness to this
* I would like to express my profuse thanks to Andy Orchard for his help with
this paper. I am also deeply indebted to Nick Everett and Sandy Murray for
their many criticisms. Thanks are also due to Hartwig Mayer and Markus Stock.
Remaining infelicities remain my sole responsibility.
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221
legend in any vernacular that can be read as a completely independent
artefact, unconnected with the story of the dragon-slayer (Sigurð/Sı̂vrı̂t)
or that of Ermaneric’s death. It should be made clear at the outset that this
paper is by no means an interpretation of any specific text; the ›Atlaqviða‹
provides a convenient example against which the historical evidence may
be compared.
I
The ›Atlaqviða‹ may be summarised as follows:1
Atli, the Hunnish king, sends a messenger to Gunnar, whose hall is in
the courts of Giúci, to invite Gunnar to visit Atli at the stað i Danpar
(›banks of the Dnieper‹) and receive gifts from him. Gunnar asks the
advice of Ho§ gni, stating that he cannot conceive of treasures greater
than what they already possess. Ho§ gni indicates the wolf’s hair wound
in the ring sent by Guðrún, and concludes that it is meant as a warning.
Although no one urges Gunnar on, he, sem konungr scyldi (›just as a
king ought‹), announces his intention to travel to Atli. Before leaving,
he states that the arfr Niflungar (›inheritance of the Niflungs‹) will be
ruled by wolves if he does not return. Gunnar and his companions go
to Atli’s court, which is guarded by men apparently expecting a fight.
Gunnar’s sister Guðrún sees them first, and, indicating through her
words that they are unarmed, says that they should not have come, and
that the snake-pit awaits them. Gunnar says it is too late to look for an
army from the Rosmofioll Rı́nar (›red cliffs of the Rhine‹). The Huns,
vinir [following the manuscript] Borgunda (›relatives of the Burgundians‹), put Gunnar in fetters, apparently without a fight; Ho§ gni fights but
is also captured. Atli offers to ransom Gunnar for gold, but Gunnar
(called geir-Niflungr, ›spear-Niflung‹), refuses. He alone has the secret
of the hodd Niflunga (›treasure of the Niflungs‹), and before he is put
to death, he says that Rı́n scal ráð a (›the Rhine shall rule‹) the inheritance of the Niflungs. Following the deaths of Ho§ gni and Gunnar, amidst
much drinking of ale in the hall, Guðrún kills her sons by Atli and feeds
them to Atli, after which she kills him. The last lines state that she
brought death to three þiódkonunga (›kings of peoples‹) before her own
death.
A Burgundian settlement existed along the Rhine in the early fifth century,
and a Burgundian king, Gundicharius, is attested as having fought against
1
The edition used is: Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten
Denkmälern, vol. I: Text, ed. by G. Neckel, 5th ed. by H. Kuhn, Heidelberg 1983
(Germanische Bibliothek Reihe 4). For orientation on the poems of the ›Elder
Edda‹ manuscript, see J. Harris, Eddic poetry, in: Old Norse-Icelandic literature.
A critical guide, ed. by C. J. Clover and J. Lindow, Ithaca 1985 (Islandica 45),
pp. 68Ð156. See also the introduction and commentary in U. Dronke, The Poetic
Edda, vol. I: Heroic poems, Oxford 1969. All translations are mine.
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SHAMI GHOSH
the Huns in the 430s. It is not completely clear whether the Huns conquered the Burgundians or whether this was done by a (possibly) Hunnish
army acting under or for Aetius. The testimony of the earliest sources
(from the mid fifth to the early sixth century) is as follows:2
Eodem tempore Gundicharium Burgundionum regem intra Gallias
habitantem Aetius bello obtrivit pacemque ei supplicanti dedit, qua
non diu potitus est, siquidem illum Chuni cum populo suo ab stirpe
deleverint (›At the same time Aetius conquered Gundicharius, the Burgundian king living in Gaul, in war, and granted him peace, for which
he was pleading. He did not enjoy this peace for long, since the Huns
destroyed him and his people root and branch‹);3 Burgundiones qui
rebellauerant a Romanis duce Etio debellantur (›The Burgundians who
had rebelled were destroyed by the Romans under the command of
Aetius‹); Aetio duce et magistro militum Burgundionum caesa XX
milia (›Twenty thousand soldiers of the Burgundians were cut to pieces
by Aetius, the general and master of soldiers‹);4 Bellum contra Burgundionum gentem memorabile exarsit, quo universa / paene gens cum
rege per Aetium | deleta (›A remarkable war raged against the Burgundian people, in which almost the whole people along with their king
was destroyed by Aetius‹);5 Burgundiones victi ab Aezio patricio (›The
Burgundians were conquered by Aetius the patrician‹).6
The ›Lex Burgundionum‹ (510–520) records Gibica, Gundomar, Gislaharius and Gundaharius as the ancestors of the Burgundian king Gundobad
2
3
4
5
6
The principal historical sources are conveniently assembled and analysed by
Dronke [n. 1], pp. 29Ð36, esp. pp. 34Ð36; on the historical background, see I. N.
Wood, Gentes, kings and kingdoms Ð the emergence of states. The kingdom of
the Gibichungs, in: Regna and gentes. The relationship between late antique and
early medieval peoples and kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world,
ed. by H.-W. Goetz, J. Jarnut and W. Pohl, Leiden [et al.] 2003 (Transformation
of the Roman world 13), pp. 243Ð269. Cf. also idem, Ethnicity and the ethnogenesis of the Burgundians, in: Typen der Ethnogenese unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der Bayern, vol. I, ed. by H. Wolfram and W. Pohl, Vienna 1990
(Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Frühmittelalterforschung 12), pp. 53Ð
69; K. F. Stroheker, Studien zu den historisch-geographischen Grundlagen der
Nibelungendichtung, in: DVjs 32 (1958), pp. 216Ð240. A good synthesis of the
Burgundians’ history is provided by R. Kaiser, Die Burgunder, Stuttgart 2004
(Kohlhammer Urban-Taschenbücher 586).
Prosperi Tironis Epitoma Chronicon, in: Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII,
vol. 1, ed. by T. Mommsen, Hanover 1892 (MGH AA 9), pp. 341Ð349, 1322.
Hydatii Limici Chronica Subdita, in: The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana. Two contemporary accounts of the Roman Empire, ed.
by R. W. Burgess, Oxford 1993, pp. 1Ð172: 99; 102.
The Gallic Chronicle of 452: a new critical edition with a brief introduction, ed.
by R. W. Burgess, in: Society and culture in late antique Gaul: revisiting the
sources, ed. by R. W. Mathisen and D. Shanzer, Aldershot 2001, pp. 52Ð84, p. 79.
The Gallic Chronicle of 511: a new critical edition with a brief introduction, ed.
by R. W. Burgess, in: Society and culture [n. 5], pp. 85Ð100: 97.
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(474Ð516).7 This Gundaharius is generally accepted as being identical
with the Gundicharius named by Prosper Tiro, and as the historical antecedent of the Gunnar/Gunther figure in the extant versions of the legend.
Gibica is thought to be the same as the Old Norse Giúci. The ›Nibelungenlied‹ has a Giselher (Gislaharius?), brother to Gunther (Gunnar); other
lays in the eddic corpus refer to a brother called Guthorm/Gothorm (Gundomarius?).8
The relationship of the Burgundians to the Huns is less straightforward.
Atli corresponds to the Hunnish king Attila, who is not attested in historical sources as playing a part in the destruction of the Burgundians. He
died in his bed around 453. Conflicting accounts state that he died of a
nosebleed or by the hand of a woman. At any rate, there is drinking, blood,
and a woman present at his death:
Attila rex Hunnorum Europae orbator provinciae noctu mulieris
manu cultroque confoditur. quidam vero sanguinis reiectione necatum perhibent (›Attila, king of the Huns and the bane of the European
region, is pierced at night by the hand and knife of a woman. Some
however say that he died by the throwing up of blood‹);9 Qui, ut Priscus
istoricus refert, exitus sui tempore puellam Ildico nomine decoram
valde sibi in matrimonio [. . .] socians eiusque in nuptiis hilaritate
nimia resolutus, vino somnoque gravatus resupinus iaceret, redundans sanguis, qui ei solite de naribus effluebat, dum consuetis meatibus impeditur, itinere ferali faucibus illapsus extinxit [. . .] sequenti
vero luce cum magna pars diei fuisset exempta, ministri regii triste
aliquid suspicantes post clamores maximos fores effringunt inveniuntque Attilae sine ullo vulnere necem sanguinis effusione peractam
puellamque demisso vultu sub velamine lacrimantem (›Who [i.e. Attila], as the historian Priscus relates, at the end of his days took in
marriage [. . .] an extremely pretty girl with the name of Ildico;10 and
exceedingly exhausted in the nuptial celebrations and weighed down
by wine and sleep, as he lay on his back, the blood that normally flowed
out of his nostrils choked him, since its accustomed passage was impeded, and having flowed on a deadly path through his throat, killed
7
8
9
10
Liber Constitutionum sive lex Gundobada, in: Leges Burgundionum, ed. by L. R.
von Salis, Hanover 1892 (MGH LL II/1), pp. 29Ð122, III, p. 43: [. . .] regiae memoriae auctores nostros, id est: Gibicam, Gundomarem, Gislaharium, Gundaharium (›[. . .] our ancestors of royal memory, that is: Gibica, Gundomar, Gislaharius, Gundaharius‹).
›Sigurðarqviða in scamma‹, 20, 1; 22, 5; ›Brot af Sigurðarqviðu‹, 4, 3.
Marcellini v. c. comitis chronicon in: Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII, vol. 2,
ed. by T. Mommsen, Berlin 1894 (MGH AA 11/2), pp. 37Ð108 at p. 86.
Although the name might be Germanic, speculations on her potential relationship to the Guðrún of legend have no basis. For less sceptical views, cf. e. g.
Dronke [n. 1], p. 32 sq.; W. Haubrichs, Die Anfänge: Versuche volkssprachlicher
Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter, 2., durchgesehene Auflage, Tübingen 1995
(Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit I/1), pp. 95 sq.
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SHAMI GHOSH
him [. . .] And the following morning, when the better part of the day
had passed, the attendants of the king, sad and suspecting that something was wrong, after calling out loudly, broke down the doors and
found the slaughter of Attila had been accomplished by the effusion of
blood without any wound, and the girl was weeping under the covers
with a dejected face‹).11 These sources were composed about a century
after the events; Jordanes, however, claims to be following Priscus, who
was contemporary. Two later texts, Poeta Saxo’s narrative on Charlemagne (9th century), and the ›Quedlinburg Annals‹ (11th century), provide somewhat embellished versions of the story: Poeta Saxo adds to
what we know from the earlier texts that the woman (here unnamed)
killed Attila in revenge for the murder of her father; the annals state
further that she was taken by force after her father was killed.12 Because of their late date, they are of less relevance to our purposes, but
we should note that they might furnish evidence of an oral tradition
regarding the death of Attila intruding into Latin, literate culture; they
could, however, also have been influenced by Paul the Deacon’s account
of Alboin.
It has been suggested that Attila’s wife was of Burgundian origin, and the
finds of artificially elongated skulls in graves along the Rhine and in southeastern Gaul in the Rhône valley have, on somewhat dubious grounds,
been taken as evidence of cultural links between the Huns and Burgundians, including intermarriage.13 Beyond these few grave-finds, the only contemporary indication of any cooperation between Huns and Burgundians
comes from Sidonius Apollinaris, who states that the Hunnish army that
fought against Aetius under Attila at Châlons in 451 included Burgundians.14 Some Burgundians are mentioned as joining the settlement in Sapaudia later in the additions to the ›Liber Constitutionum‹, but Stroheker’s
assertion that these had lived long under Hunnish rule cannot be substantiated. That they might have brought with them material on the death of
Attila, which then became a part of the legend of the Rhine catastrophe,
is therefore questionable.15 Whether either these Burgundians or those
11
12
13
14
15
Jordanis Romana et Getica. De origine actibusque Getarum, ed. by T. Mommsen,
Berlin 1882 (MGH AA 5/1), c. 49 at pp. 123 sq.
Poetae Saxonis annalium de gestis Caroli magni imperatoris libri quinque, in:
Poetae latini aevi Carolini, vol. 4/1, ed. by P. von Winterfeld, Hanover 1899 (MGH
Poet. IV/1), pp. 1Ð71 at III, ll. 25Ð34 (l. 17 might suggest that the events described are a part of a living memorial tradition); Die Annales Quedlinburgenses,
ed. by M. Giese, Hanover 2004 (MGH SRG 72), p. 415.
Dronke [n. 1], p. 30; Stroheker [n. 2], pp. 216 sq.; 224.
Gai Sollii, Apollinaris Sidonii, Epistolae et Carmina, ed. by C. Lütjohann, Berlin
1887 (MGH AA 8), pp. 173Ð264, Carm. VII, ll. 316Ð356: the Huns invade Gaul
along with other barbarian groups, among whom ›the Burgundian urges on the
Scirian‹ (Scyrum Burgundio cogit, l. 322).
Leges Burgundionum [n. 7], ›constitutio extravagans‹, § 21, 12: a Burgundionibus, qui infra venerunt (›from the Burgundians, who came later‹); Stroheker
[n. 2], pp. 229 sq.; similarly Kaiser [n. 2], p. 201; cf. Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2],
p. 260.
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mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris have anything to do with the descendants of those defeated in 436 is debatable, as is the relationship of the
(supposed) Burgundians with elongated skulls on the Rhine to those in
southern Gaul. The death of Attila as recorded in the legend has dubious
historical foundations: there is no evidence of any marital relationships
between the Huns and the Burgundians, even if the some groups of the
latter might have been a part of a Hunnish army; and there is no contemporary or near-contemporary source that provides a narrative of Attila’s
death sufficiently close to that found in the later material. From the testimony of the Middle High German ›Nibelungenlied‹, Poeta Saxo, and the
›Quedlinburg Annals‹, it is apparent that Attila’s death might not even have
been a fundamental part of the Burgundian legend, and given the lack of
historical evidence, it is not considered here in further detail.
Comparing the contemporary or near-contemporary historical evidence
with the narrative of the ›Atlaqviða‹, we find that there are four important
details that the lay has in common with at least one early source (though
not necessarily all these details are contained in any single contemporary
record). First, the names of the kings are or could be historical, bearing
significant similarities to the latinized forms recorded in the contemporary
sources. Second, these kings are said to be Burgundian; the names of
specific kings are, in other words, associated with a specific ›ethnic‹ designation, which is in turn linked to a specific geographical area. Third, the
Gibichung or Gjúkungar kings of the Burgundians from somewhere along
the Rhine are said to have fought against the Huns (thus bringing in another ethnic designation). The last common detail is that this battle leads
to the destruction of the Burgundians. All these details are also present
in the other extant vernacular versions of the legend.
Although this might not seem like much Ð and I stress that none of the
later Germanic material provides any information of historical value not
contained in some contemporary source Ð it is, I believe, more historical
fact than is common for most of the corpus of Germanic heroic literature.16 Given that the extant versions of our legend, dating from roughly
eight or nine centuries after the events, are built around a core of historical fact, it seems reasonable to accept that this historical core reached
the composers of the extant poems in some form, whether oral or written;
in other words, not all that we have in the extant monuments was purely
poetic creation. It remains, then, to determine how far back in time we
16
That relatively little historical information is contained in heroic legends was
pointed out already by A. Heusler, who also stressed, correctly, that the plot of
the extant legends can have no real explanation in history. See his Geschichtliches und Mythisches in der germanischen Heldensage [originally pub. 1909], in
his: Kleine Schriften, ed. by S. Sonderegger, Berlin, 1969, vol. 2, pp. 495Ð517.
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SHAMI GHOSH
may trace the possibility of a poetic form being given to our core historical
facts.
A group of Burgundians was settled in south-eastern Gaul in the second
half of the fifth century by Rome.17 This settlement grew into a fairly
prominent kingdom, and the Burgundian kings were, by the end of the
century, heavily involved in imperial politics at Rome, and patrons to
members of the senatorial aristocracy of southern Gaul.18 It is generally
accepted in literary scholarship that the destruction of the Rhine kingdom
was commemorated through song, most probably by the surviving Burgundians, following a tradition of oral heroic poetry thought to be current
among the Germanic tribes during this period (if not already several centuries before). This is thought to be the origin of the legend as we have it
in the eddic poems, and with some (often significant) variations, in the
›Vo§ lsunga saga‹ and the ›Nibelungenlied‹.19
How plausible is this assumption? What is the evidence that there was
any surviving oral tradition in the later Burgundian kingdom that commemorated the destruction of the kingdom of Gundaharius? Before attempting to deal with this question, we must make a digression to another
one, fundamental to the subject of this paper: what was ›Burgundian identity‹? The evidence seems to show that the Burgundian kings in Savoy
understood themselves as Roman officials (magistri militum; patricii)
as well as reges gentium;20 their regnum consisted not only of members
of a gens Burgundionum, but also of the Gallo-Roman populace of the
region over which they ruled. It is extremely unclear to what extent they
differentiated between their roles as rulers of their own gens and regents
of a ›Roman‹ populace, and, at least by the time of the codification of
their laws, it appears that the differences were not held to be essential in
17
18
19
20
Chronicle of 452 [n. 5], p. 80: Sapaudia Burgundionum reliquiis datur cum
indigenis diuidenda (›Sapaudia is given to those left of the Burgundians to be
shared with the native people‹); cf. Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2], p. 246. It is important to note that the settlement was probably not a single event, but an ongoing
process over several decades; this instability might well have had consequences
for the sense of identity (or lack thereof) among the settlers. It is quite possible
that people settling in Sapaudia at different times might have had somewhat
different traditions (cf. Wood, Ethnicity [n. 2], pp. 65Ð69).
On the social structures of the Burgundian kingdom, cf. Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 38Ð56
and pp. 102Ð132, and esp. pp. 49Ð52 and pp. 121Ð124 on the kings’ involvement
in Roman politics and their patronage of Romans respectively.
For the consensus of scholarship, see e. g. Dronke [n. 1], pp. 29Ð31; 40Ð42; Haubrichs [n. 10], p. 92.
Cf. P. Amory, Names, ethnic identity, and community in fifth- and sixth-century
Burgundy, in: Viator 25 (1994), pp. 1Ð30 at pp. 11Ð12; Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2],
p. 251; Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 49Ð52.
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227
constituting the regnum.21 From the career of Gundobad, it is apparent
that at least he and his successors were heavily romanised,22 and the
extent to which they maintained any kind of Germanic culture (especially
in the linguistic sense of the term) is debatable.
There is little evidence to suggest that the kings or their advisors in
lawmaking were concerned to stress the identity of the kings as specifically Burgundian in any ethnic or even cultural sense, and while the army
probably consisted primarily of descendants of pre-settlement Burgundians, the kings probably did not see themselves as having a distinct ›ethnic‹
identity, separate from that of those they ruled. The Burgundian royalty
definitely exerted much effort to ›romanise‹ themselves, and it seems
hasty to assume that there could have been a conflict between ›Germanic‹
and ›Roman‹ traditions or ethnic identities (although there were some
variances in shades of Burgundian identity among those ruled by the Burgundian kings).23 Based on the evidence, all we can safely say is that
›Burgundian‹ normally referred to a political (and sometimes legal) entity,
with uncertain links to any ethnic or cultural traditions. This entity, moreover, was ruled by kings who adopted the Christian religion, Latin, and
(at least to some extent) Roman law; it would appear hasty to assume too
much adherence to ›Germanic‹ cultural identity in the face of the extant
evidence.
It is clear that group identity was a complex matter in this period, and
that people and peoples might have subscribed to multiple and changing
identities.24 The discourse on ethnic or national identity could have had
21
22
23
24
P. Amory, The meaning and purpose of ethnic terminology in the Burgundian
laws, in: Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993), pp. 1Ð28 esp. at 8Ð10, 24Ð26; Wood,
Gibichungs [n. 2], pp. 255Ð262.
Amory [n. 20], pp. 10Ð13; D. Shanzer, Two clocks and a wedding: Theoderic’s
diplomatic relations with the Burgundians, in: Romanobarbarica 14 (1998),
pp. 225Ð258.
Cf. Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2], pp. 260Ð264; Amory [n. 21], p. 24; Kaiser [n. 2],
pp. 111Ð114; 126Ð135.
The literature on the subject is vast; see the most recent critiques collected in
A. Gillett (ed.), On barbarian identity. Critical approaches to ethnicity in the
early middle ages, Turnhout 2002 (Studies in the early middle ages 4), especially
the papers by Gillett and Kulikowski. Other recent works with contrasting views
include Amory [nn. 20 and 21]; H.-W. Goetz, Regna and gentes: conclusion, in:
Regna and gentes [n. 2], pp. 597Ð628; idem, Gens. Terminology and perception
of the »Germanic« peoples from late antiquity to the early middle ages, in: The
construction of communities in the early middle ages. Texts, resources and artefacts, ed. by R. Corradini, M. Diesenberger and H. Reimitz, Leiden [et al.] 2003
(Transformation of the Roman world 12), pp. 39Ð64; W. Pohl, Tradition, Ethnogenese und literarische Gestaltung: eine Zwischenbilanz, in: Ethnogenese und
Überlieferung. Angewandte Methoden der Frühmittelalterforschung, ed. by K.
Brunner and B. Merta, Vienna 1994 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 31), pp. 9Ð26; Wood, Ethnicity [n. 2]. S. Reynolds,
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SHAMI GHOSH
specific, normally political functions (though it did not necessarily always
do so), which would not remain static over time; there should not, therefore, be any assumption of an unchanging tradition any more than of an
unchanging Germanic (or, for that matter, Burgundian) identity. It is also
extremely unclear what value was placed on ethnic terms by early medieval writers, what relationship the Latin terminology (for example, words
such as gens, regnum, natio) might have had to the understandings of
those who had no Latin, and whether, in fact, ethnic or national identity
was considered to be of much importance among either the Latinate or
non-Latinate people of the time; we must also remember that our sources
reveal nothing about what the barbarians themselves thought about their
own identity at this period.
If a Burgundian oral tradition in a Germanic dialect survived, and if the
legend we are concerned with here was a part of this tradition, it definitely
coexisted with other discourses within the Burgundian cultural sphere,
which were much influenced by Roman, Latin, and Christian tradition.
That there appears to have been no official, recorded history that was
anything like what is contained in the legend, and that the Burgundian
kings Ð who do state that they are descendents of the kings of the legend Ð also identify themselves as a part of a Roman elite, might seem to
indicate that the origins of this legend were probably not in the Burgundian royal family and its self-representation. That the kings seem to have
made no attempt to discover or create a past, or to record genealogies as
forms of legitimation, might also indicate a lack of interest in a specifically
Burgundian tradition. The self-representation of the Burgundian kings appears to have been more oriented towards projecting a ›Roman‹ rather
than a Burgundian identity, though it is important to note that the evidence
is largely e xt er na l self-representation; what form of identity formation
was used by the royal family among other Burgundians is unknown.
However, although our legend deals with kings, it is not necessary that
any oral memorial tradition was the sole preserve of the royalty, nor is it
indeed necessary that the royal family could not participate in multiple
discourses of history and memory. While the royal family might have seen
itself at least partly as Roman, it is quite possible that the rest of the
Burgundians settled in Gaul propagated non-Roman traditions as a part
of their cultural memory, especially if »soldiering in Burgundy as in the
Our forefathers? Tribes, peoples, and nations in the historiography of the age of
migrations, in: After Rome’s fall: narrators and sources of early medieval history
(FS W. Goffart), ed. by A. C. Murray, Toronto 1998, pp. 17Ð36, presents a nuanced and balanced perspective.
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229
late Empire was a hereditary profession«.25 This might not have been an
appropriate form of royal self-representation in codified, Latin laws, which
were aimed at the whole of the populace, but the kings might well have
participated in this tradition as well. Alternatively, these traditions could
have been maintained independent of royal self-representation; different
levels of society in the Burgundian kingdom might have practiced different
forms of memoria and identity formation.26
It may seem unlikely that a tradition of Germanic poetry reinforcing
some kind of Burgundian identity was maintained when one considers the
Latin sources of the period, but it should be noted that these sources are,
firstly, written and in Latin, therefore inherently inaccessible to at least a
sizable proportion of the settlers in the first decades of the settlements;
and secondly, most extant sources that have anything to say about the
Burgundians are forms of representation to those who are clearly not
›Burgundian‹: they are written either by or for outsiders, primarily ›Roman‹ outsiders. The laws are the exception to this; they do seem to make
some distinction (however vague and flexible) between Burgundians and
Romans. They are, however, not really a form of self-representation. The
primary reference to what might be surviving oral tradition among the
Burgundians comes from Sidonius Apollinaris, who mentions Burgundians
singing in German. This is not sufficient evidence for the existence (or
non-existence) of Burgundian historical poetry.27 What mode of identity
formation was used by the social classes below the kings is not known; it
seems indubitable that it was in the vernacular, and included an oral tradition. That the extant sources make no mention of this means little: unless
one assumes either that the Burgundians had no sense of history or that
all records were lost, an oral tradition probably formed a part of their
memorial practices. This tradition might also have included a lay concerning the destruction of the Rhine kingdom, though there is no reason to
believe that beyond the four basic details enumerated above, any such
25
26
27
Amory [n. 20], p. 27; cf. also Amory [n. 21], p. 24; Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2], p. 262.
We should note, though, that the Burgundians were apparently not solely a military group; cf. Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 31; 34 sq.; 138Ð142.
Cf. Reynolds [n. 24], pp. 22 sq. (emphasis added): »Medieval ideas of hierarchy
and custom allowed for layers of political authority and community. Just as
lords at every level had rights against their superiors, so each lord’s subjects
could envisage themselves as a co mm un it y w it h i ts ow n r ig ht s a nd cu st om s within the wider community of the kingdom. People owed loyalties at
each level, so that c on fl ic ts co ul d a ri se [. . .] between those owed to kingdoms and those owed to the other communities to which people belonged«.
Sidonius Apollinaris [n. 14], Carm. XII, ll. 4Ð7. Kaiser [n. 2], p. 201, believes without evidence that the songs referred to are ›(Helden-)Lieder‹.
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SHAMI GHOSH
›original‹ lay had anything in common with extant Germanic poetry from
later periods.
From the preceding discussion, it will be apparent that any Burgundian
memorial poetry that might have existed would probably have been,
within three generations of the Rhine catastrophe, a part of a larger historical discourse embracing Latin, Roman identity and history as well. Germanic traditions were probably less important for the highly romanised
ruling class than for other sections of the population. It also seems very
unlikely, given the intermingling between the settlers and the native populace in Gaul, that any memorial tradition of the earlier Rhine kingdom
would have survived uncontaminated for more than two or three generations at the most; the function Ð and therefore the content Ð of a lay
commemorating the Rhine catastrophe would undoubtedly have been
quite different in the context of the first generation of settlers (possibly
survivors of the events of 436) and that of their descendants three or four
generations later (with no link to the living memory of those events),
who had now probably married into the local populace, adopted their
(Romance) language, and were ruled by heavily romanised kings. We
should note too that intermarriage between Romans and Burgundians was
allowed, and Romans were also allowed to serve in the military;28 even
specifically military traditions, therefore, are likely to have been rapidly
romanised.
The Burgundians eventually fade from historiography as a specifically
distinguished people.29 The Burgundian kingdom became a part of the
Frankish domain.30 Furthermore, although the Burgundians who settled
in southern Gaul must have spoken a Germanic language, by the end of
the eighth century at the latest, and probably far earlier, that region spoke
some form of Romance vernacular. Given that the majority of the population in Sapaudia and along the Rhône remained native Latin/Romance
speakers after the settlement of the remnants of the Rhine Burgundians,
and given the lack of laws preventing intermarriage, the move away from
a Germanic language must have taken place quite early.31 I f our legend
28
29
30
31
Leges Burgundionum [n. 7], § 12, 5; § 100; Lex Romana Burgundionum, in: ibd.,
pp. 123Ð163, § 45, 3.
See Goetz, Terminology [n. 24], tables 1 and 2 on pp. 62Ð63.
On the complex historical events leading to the end of Burgundian independence, see Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 57Ð74. We should note, however, that the Burgundian
region was a self-conscious and quasi-independent entity under Frankish rule at
least until around 700 (cf. Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 191Ð200); native traditions could
potentially have flourished here, although it is unlikely that they would have
done so in a Germanic language until such a late date.
Kaiser [n. 2], p. 100, suggests (on somewhat shaky evidence) ›sprachliche Unsicherheit‹ and ›sprachliche Assimilation‹ among the Burgundians as early as the
late 5th century.
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
231
originated among the Gallic Burgundians of the mid-fifth century, it must
have transferred to some other Germanic-speaking group by the end of
the eighth at the latest. The Franks are an obvious candidate; we shall
now turn to the possibility that the legend might have been kept alive
among the Franks, or perhaps even have originated among them.
II
That the Franks might have had something to do with the genesis of the
Burgundian legend has been noted before.32 The earliest records of a cognate of niflungr as a place-name appear much later, but from the eighth
century, Nibelunc is recorded as a personal name among Frankish families; whether the latter had any relationship with any Burgundians is unknown.33 The Burgundian king Sigismund’s cousin Clothild married the
Merovingian king Clovis, and there was thus from a very early period a
close link between the Burgundian and the Merovingian royal families;
other prominent Burgundian and Frankish families were also soon linked
by marriage. Under the Franks, the word Burgundia appears to be used
solely as a territorial term. Fredegar (late seventh century) mentions Burgundaefarones, but he seems to use the term to denote the Burgundian
aristocracy connected to the court of the (Merovingian) king, without necessarily any specifically ethnic connotations.34 A family of Burgundiofarones are recorded in the late ninth century ›Vita Faronis‹,35 but as the
family concerned lived mainly in northern Gaul, it is unclear whether there
is any link to the people mentioned by Fredegar.36
The Burgundian legend is closely connected, in all extant vernacular
sources, with that of Brynhild and Sigurð. There was a historical Brunechilde, married to the Burgundian king Sigibert, who ruled Burgundy as
regent for her grandson in the first decade of the sixth century.37 Fredegar
32
33
34
35
36
37
For instance by Stroheker [n. 2], esp. p. 234
Dronke [n. 1], p. 37; Kaiser [n. 2], pp. 202 sq.
Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii scholastici. Libri IV cum continuationibus, ed. by Bruno Krusch, Hanover 1888 (MGH SRM 2), pp. 1Ð193, Book IV, 41;
44; 55; cf. Wood, Ethnicity [n. 2], pp. 54Ð55; A. C. Murray, Germanic kinship
structure. Studies in law and society in antiquity and the early middle ages (Studies and texts 65), Toronto, 1983, p. 93.
Vita Faronis episcopis Meldensis, in: Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, ed.
by Jean Mabillon, 3rd edition, vol. 2, Paris 1936, pp. 606Ð625.
Wood, Gibichungs [n. 2], p. 247.
For a detailed study of Brunechilde, see J. L. Nelson, Queens as Jezebels: the
careers of Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian history, in: Medieval women.
Dedicated and presented to Professor Rosalind M. T. Hill on the occasion of her
70th birthday, ed. by D. Baker, Oxford 1978 (Studies in church history: subsidia
1), pp. 31Ð77.
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SHAMI GHOSH
mentions the Burgundians as being extremely hostile to this queen.38
There can be no direct link between her and our legend, but is possible
that names, and potentially the hostility attached to Brunechilde, current
in the early sixth century were transposed onto the dragon-slayer legend
and then attached to the Burgundian story.39
The absorption of Burgundy into Merovingian Francia, the retention of
a Germanic language in part of the Frankish realm, and the similarity of
names between some historical Frankish figures and those of legend could
be enough to suggest that the Burgundian legend lived on and was modified among the Franks (one might assume that the joining with the Brynhild legend took place at this stage). There was plenty of contact between
the descendants of the Burgundian settlers and the Frankish aristocracy,
and given the geographical proximity, it seems most plausible that if the
legend survived in a Germanic language (in other words, if it was not later
translated back into a Germanic language from Latin or Romance), it did
so among the Franks. This would imply that it also travelled north fairly
early.
More interesting in this context is that at least by the Carolingian period, the Franks were interested in pasts, and specifically in Germanic
pasts. Two eighth-century texts, the ›Chronicon universale Ð 741‹, and the
›Passio Sigismundi‹, confer on the Burgundians a Scandinavian past (thus
distinguishing them from most Frankish origin myths);40 the ›Vita Faronis‹
gives the family of the Burgundiofarones a history in the Roman provinces of the Rhine, and like the ›Passio Sigismundi‹ derives the name derived
from the Roman fortifications there (the ›Vita Faronis‹ has a somewhat
more detailed but essentially similar account of the settlement and etymology to that of the ›Passio Sigismundi‹).41
38
39
40
41
Fredegar [n. 34], IV, 41.
On the genesis of the dragon-slayer legend see W. Haubrichs, Sigi-Namen und
Nibelungensage, in: Blütezeit (FS L. P. Johnson zum 70. Geburtstag), ed. by
M. Chinca, J. Heinzle and C. J. Young, Tübingen 2000, pp. 175Ð206, with extensive references; neither Haubrichs nor the older work he cites provide conclusive arguments. I cannot go as far as Kaiser [n. 2], p. 202, who believes not
only that the Brynhild and Kriemhild figures are derived from the historical
Brunechilde, but also that the events of the 14th âventiure of the ›Nibelungenlied‹ are derived from Brunechilde’s conflicts with Queen Fredegund.
Chronicon universale Ð 741, in: Supplementa tomorum IÐXIII, pars I, ed. by
G. Waitz, Hanover 1881 (MGH SS 13), pp. 4Ð19 at 4; Passio S. Sigismundi regis,
in: Fredegar [n. 34], ed. by W. Wattenbach, pp. 329Ð340, c. 1. The Scandinavian origin could derive from Fredegar [n. 34], III, 65; cf. Wattenbach’s note to the ›Passio‹.
Vita Faronis [n. 35], c. 8. The Burgundians inhabited Germania according to this
text. The etymology of the name might be derived from Orosius or Isidore, the
Scandinavian origin possibly from Fredegar, Jordanes or Paul the Deacon,
whose works were in circulation in Carolingian libraries: cf. Wattenbach’s note
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
233
There are no precedents in fifth-, sixth- or seventh-century sources for
a Scandinavian origin of the Burgundians, and the etymological explanations seem to derive from learned sources rather than native material. It
seems certain that the interest in this ancient and potentially Scandinavian
past was thought appropriate in the eighth century and after (though it
should be noted that even in these later histories, the Burgundians are put
together as a people by Rome). It is not possible, however, to determine
whether or not the Burgundians mentioned in these texts (and presumably
derived ultimately from the testimony of Orosius) have anything to do
with the Gibichungs of the fifth-century chronicles: the Rhine catastrophe
is not mentioned, and the settlement in southern France is portrayed very
differently from the contemporary chronicles. Nor do any of the Latin
sources of this period share anything in common with our legend in the
extant vernacular forms.42
Otherwise too, it appears that the Carolingians had some interest in a
barbarian (and possibly Germanic) past, as is apparent from a number of
statements in ninth-century texts:43
Ninth-century evidence includes Einhard’s famous statement that Charlemagne recorded what might be barbarian heroic or historical poetry;44
there is no indication that the kings mentioned need have been exclusively of Charlemagne’s own family, or even Frankish. Charlemagne’s
son Louis the Pious also apparently learnt pagan songs in his youth,
which appears to indicate a current interest in the court at the time,
even if he repudiated them later.45 Whether these songs were ›Germanic‹ or not is difficult to tell Ð it is conceivable that they might have
been Aquitanian rather than Germanic.46 Charlemagne’s interest in Theoderic is evident from the testimony of Agnellus of Ravenna, who tells
42
43
44
45
46
to c. 1 of the ›Passio Sigismundi‹ [n. 40]; and Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos, ed. by M.-P. Arnaud-Lindet, Paris 1990 sq., VII, 32, 1. On the ›Passio Sigismundi‹ and the ›Vita Faronis‹, see also Wood, Ethnicity [n. 2], pp. 56Ð57.
Paul the Deacon mentions that Attila kills Gundicarius, perhaps evidence of his
knowledge of some version of our legend, but given that he does not elaborate,
it is not possible to know at what stage of development he might have encountered it. See Paul the Deacon, Historia Romana, ed. by H. Droysen, Berlin 1879
(MGH AA 2), pp. 4Ð224 at p. 202.
On the following, see W. Haubrichs, Veterum regum actus et bella Ð Zur sog.
Heldenliedersammlung Karls des Großen, in: Aspekte der Germanistik (FS H.-F.
Rosenfeld zum 90. Geburtstag), ed. by W. Tauber, Göppingen 1989 (GAG 521),
pp. 17Ð46; and D. Geuenich, Die volksssprachige Überlieferung der Karolingerzeit aus der Sicht des Historikers, in: DA 39 (1983), pp. 104Ð130.
Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. by O. Holder-Egger, Hanover 1911 (MGH SRG
25), c. 29.
Theganus, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ed. by E. Tremp, Hanover 1995 (MGH
SRG 64), pp. 167Ð278 at c. 19, p. 200.
Cf. Astronomus, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. by E. Tremp, Hanover 1995
(MGH SRG 64 [n. 45]), pp. 279Ð555 at c. 4, p. 294; it is not entirely clear what is
meant by peregrinorum mores in this context.
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SHAMI GHOSH
us that the emperor took from Ravenna a statue of Theoderic.47 The Old
High German ›Hildebrandslied‹48 is also set in the context of Theoderic’s
battles, though it contains no information that is strictly historically
accurate. It is impossible to ascertain exactly what value this figure had
for the Carolingians, but it seems manifest that Theoderic was already
a revered ancient ruler (though whether he was thought to be ›Germanic‹ is unclear, as is the value of such a term in the period). There
are also some references to written Germanic poetry in library catalogues.49 In addition, Flodoard of Rheims makes a clear reference to
a written vernacular narrative about Ermaneric.50 Other ninth-century
references to what might be Germanic heroic poetry seem to be overwhelmingly about oral performance. In addition, there is some evidence
that in the ninth century, some tradition of historical vernacular poetry
dealing with relatively recent events was still current: Poeta Saxo refers
to (probably vernacular) songs about Charlemagne’s ancestors;51 despite dependence on Einhard, Poeta Saxo’s words seem to indicate that
a contemporary audience would not have found the idea of songs about
the ancients implausible. In addition, the existence of the ›Ludwigslied‹,52 a poem of uncertain genre that praises the exploits of a young
Carolingian king, is testament to a still existing v e r n a c u l a r tradition
of historical poetry in the 880s (I do not mean to imply that the ›Ludwigslied‹ is an example of an unchanging, ancient Germanic tradition Ð
manifestly, it is not, being composed in end rhymes and not alliterative
verse).53
The astonishing existence of a Latin ›Germanic‹ epic, the ›Waltharius‹,
possibly composed in the ninth century, is further testament to an interest
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
Andreas Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. by O. Holder-Egger, Hanover 1878 (MGH SRL VIÐIX), pp. 265Ð391 at c. 94, p. 338: On Theoderic
in this period, cf. especially H. Löwe, Von Theoderich dem Großen zu Karl dem
Großen. Das Werden des Abendlandes im Geschichtsbild des frühen Mittelalters,
in: DA 9 (1952), pp. 353Ð401; and M. Innes, Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians
and the Germanic past, in: The uses of the past in the early middle ages, ed. by
Y. Hen and M. Innes, Cambridge 2000, pp. 227Ð49 esp. pp. 242Ð245.
Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, ed. by W. Braune, 17th ed. by E. A. Ebbinghaus,
Tübingen 1994, pp. 84 sq.
See P. Lehmann (ed.), Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der
Schweiz, vol. I, München 1969, p. 248 (Reichenau catalogue of 821 sq.); and
p. 260 (Reginberts catalogue from between 835 and 842). On written vernacular
poetry, see E. Hellgardt, Zur Mehrsprachigkeit im Karolingerreich. Bemerkungen
aus Anlaß von Rosamond McKittericks Buch »The Carolingians and the written
word«, in: PBB 118 (1996), pp. 1Ð48 at pp. 36Ð38.
Flodoard, Die Geschichte der Reimser Kirche (Historia Remensis Ecclesiae), ed.
by M. Stratmann (MGH SS 36), Hanover 1998, IV, 5 (Que regibus quibusdam
Folco direxerit scripta) at p. 383.
Poeta Saxo [n. 12], V, ll. 117Ð120 and ll. 545Ð546.
Althochdeutsches Lesebuch [n. 48], pp. 136Ð138.
On other Germanic praise-poems in relation to the ›Ludwigslied‹, see H. Beck,
Zur literaturgeschichtlichen Stellung des althochdeutschen Ludwigsliedes und
einiger verwandter Zeitgedichte, in: ZfdA 103 (1974), 37Ð51; he rightly suggests
that there need not be any opposition between a Germanic tradition and Christian/Latin traditions.
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
235
in and knowledge of Germanic heroic legend Ð even in monastic and/or
clerical circles.54 This poem is of especial interest because it also contains
the historical figures of Attila, Gundaharius, Gibica, as well as the unhistorical Hagano, who corresponds to the Old Norse Ho§ gni, Hagen in the
›Nibelungenlied‹. Gibica is here, however, a Frank (ll. 13Ð14). There is a
conflict with the Huns, but the kingdom of Gibica is not destroyed; he
sends a hostage to the Huns, and at the end of the poem Gundaharius
rules a still-existing kingdom; the legend of the fall of the Burgundians, if
related to the ›Waltharius‹, has turned into something very different.
That the historical Burgundian king is now a Frank seems to support
the view that Burgundian legend travelled among the Franks Ð and, it
seems, was even made a part of their history in some way. It should be
noted that the ›Waltharius‹ must have occupied a very different place in
the historical consciousness of its audience than vernacular, oral legends.
The ›Waltharius‹ could only have a primary audience among the Latinate
and literate, and with its many clear references to the inherited Latin
literary tradition, it would have been perceived very differently from vernacular material, even when the latter was received by the same audience.
That apart, vernacular legends would also have had a wide audience with
no access to such epics as the ›Waltharius‹. The ›Waltharius‹ competes
with a flourishing tradition of Latin prose historiography, with more exacting claims to accuracy, in which no connections are made between the
Burgundian Gibica and his kin, Attila, and the Frankish kings. For this
reason alone, it is unlikely that the ›Waltharius‹ was understood by its
audience as being as historically accurate as the prose historiography.
Such a conflict need not have been the case among people who would
have had no access to the Latin historiography because of lack of literacy
and/or Latin Ð but how different any vernacular version of the legend may
have been from the extant Latin text is impossible to ascertain.
However, given that some form of the legend of Walter travelled beyond
this period, possibly in the vernacular,55 and remained connected to the
figures of the Burgundian legend (though in the ›Nibelungenlied‹, these
are Burgundians, not Franks), the poet was probably drawing on an existing oral tradition. As is the case with the Brynhild/Sigurð figures, the Gibichungs are connected with characters (Waltharius and Hiltgund) for
whom no clear historical model exists. If the suggestion that the Brynhild
54
55
Waltharius, ed. by K. Strecker, mit Unterstützung von Otto Schumann (MGH
Poet. VI, 1), Weimar 1951, pp. 1Ð85; cf. P. Klopsch in 2VL 10 (1997), cols 627Ð
638; and P. Dronke, Waltharius Ð Gaiferos, in: U. and P. Dronke, Barbara et
antiquissima carmina, Barcelona 1977, pp. 27Ð79.
On the various versions and the possible modes of transmission, cf. Dronke
[n. 54].
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SHAMI GHOSH
legend began to be joined to the Burgundian one from some time in the
seventh century can be accepted, then there are two cases of legends of
unclear historical accuracy being linked, by the ninth century, to one that
does appear to have a clear and definite historical core. The only vernacular heroic lay extant on the continent, the ›Hildebrandslied‹, dates to this
period, and, like the ›Waltharius‹ and the Brynhild legend, cannot be
clearly related to any specific historical events, although it too does make
mention of some historical characters. It seems fair to suggest, on the
basis of the little evidence we have, that legends concerning migrationage figures had by the ninth century begun (and perhaps completed) a
move from being fairly historical to being rather unhistorical (in content,
though not necessarily in function).
A well-known example of a story from the migration period, which was
actually written within decades of the event it concerns, transforming into
a legend, is that of Alboin and Rosamund. There are a number of different
Latin versions of the story recorded within a few decades of Alboin’s
death:56
Hoc anno Albuenus rex Langobardorum a suis, id est, Hilmaegis cum
reliquis consentiente uxore sua Verona interfectus est: et supra scriptus Hilmegis cum antedicta uxore ipsius, quam sibi in matrimonium
sociaverat, et omnem thesaurum, tam quod de Pannonia exhibuerat
quam quod de Italia congregaverat, cum partem exercitus, Ravennae
rei publicae se tradidit (›In that year Alboin, the king of the Lombards,
was killed in Verona by his own followers, that is, by Hilmaegis and
others, with the consent of Alboin’s wife. And the aforementioned Hilmegis, along with the aforementioned wife of Alboin, whom he married,
and all the treasure Ð both what he [Alboin] had brought forth from
Pannonia as well as what he had collected in Italy Ð surrendered himself to the Roman state at Ravenna‹);57 Mortua autem Chlothosinda,
uxore Alboeni, aliam duxit coniugem, cuius patrem ante paucum tempus interfecerat. Qua de causa mulier in odio semper virum habens,
locum opperiebat, in quo possit iniurias patris ulcisci; unde factum
est, ut unum ex famulis concupiscens, virum veninu medificaret
(›With Chlothosinda, the wife of Alboin, having died, he took another
spouse, whose father he had killed a short time perviously. For this
reason the woman, who always hated her husband, awaited an opportunity when she could avenge the injustice to her father. Therefore it happened that she, desiring one of his entourage, administered poison to
56
57
Cf. O. Gschwantler, Die Heldensage von Alboin und Rosimund, in: H. Birkhan
(ed.), Festgabe für Otto Höfler zum 75. Geburtstag, Vienna 1976 (Philologica
Germanica 3), pp. 214Ð247 at pp. 217Ð224 for dates and analysis of these and
other sources; I do not fully agree with his interpretations. See also W. Goffart,
The narrators of barbarian history (A.D. 550Ð800). Jordanes, Gregory of Tours,
Bede, and Paul the Deacon, Princeton 1995, pp. 386 sq.; 290Ð293.
Marii Episcopi Aventicensis chronica, in: Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII.,
vol. 2 ed. by T. Mommsen, Berlin 1894 (MGH AA 11/2), pp. 225Ð239 at p. 238.
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
237
her husband‹);58 Albuenus Chlodesindam, Chlotharii regis filiam, habuit uxorem; qua defuncta, aliam duxit coniugem, cuius patrem interfecerat. Ipse vero eiusdem mulieris fraude venino perit (›Alboin was
married to Chlodesinda, the daughter of king Clotharius. After she was
dead, he took another spouse, whose father he had killed. Alboin himself perished by venom through the deception of the same woman‹);59
Aluinus Langobardorum rex factione coniugis suae a suis nocte interficitur (›Alboin the king of the Lombard is killed at night through the
plotting of his wife by his own followers‹);60 uxoris suae Rosemundae
regis Conimundi filiae dolo apud Veronam interfectus est auxiliante
sibi Elmigisilo, cum quo adulterari credebatur: quod postea manifestum est, dum eum sibi in loco mariti tam coniugio quam etiam regno
copulare conata est (›he was killed by the cunning of his wife Rosamund, the daughter of king Cunimund, at Verona, with the help of Elmigisilus, with whom she is thought to have been having an affair; this
later became known, for she tried to join herself to him in place of her
husband both in marital union and in the rule‹).61
The key thing to note for our purposes is that the earliest form of the
story remained close to fact: all versions agree, for all their variations,
that Alboin was murdered with the connivance of his wife and her helpers
from his own people. There is nothing innately unlikely about this; from
what we know of the history of the period it seems quite plausible that
Alboin could have married the daughter of a vanquished king, who might
have wished to exact her revenge on him for this and been aided by or
used the aid of one of his followers to accomplish this deed.62 The legend
has not, therefore, undergone the transformation that the Burgundian legend has in all extant versions, where the destruction of a people is turned
into a private conflict between Atli (or his wife) and the Burgundian kings.
Paul the Deacon, writing in the late eighth century, recounts the same
story, but with substantial additions to the testimony of the contemporary
sources:
In Paul’s version the story of Alboin and Rosamund takes on a fullblown legendary form: Alboin incites his wife to revenge by asking her,
when he is drunk, to drink out of the skull-cup made from her father’s
58
59
60
61
62
Gregor von Tours, Historiarum libri decem, vol. 1: libri IÐV, ed. by R. Buchner,
Darmstadt 1977, IV, 41.
Fredegar [n. 34], III, 65Ð66 (a compressed retelling of Gregory).
Iohannis abbatis Biclarensis chronica, in: Chronica minora [n. 57], pp. 207Ð220
at p. 213.
Continuatio Havniensis Prosperi, in: ibd., vol. 1, ed. by T. Mommsen, Berlin 1892
(MGH AA 9), pp. 298Ð339 at p. 337 sq.
For a survey of violence, revenge and feud in the early middle ages, see
G. Halsall, Violence and society in the early medieval west: an introductory survey, in: Violence and society in the early medieval west, ed. by G. Halsall, Woodbridge 1998, pp. 1Ð45. On the role of revenge in the career of Brunechilde, see
also Nelson [n. 37], pp. 39Ð44.
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head. She attempts to plot with Helmechis, but he advises her to seek
Peredeo’s help. The latter refuses to help her, so she lies in the bed of
her chambermaid, with whom Peredeo is having an affair; after he has
unknowingly slept with her, she threatens to tell Alboin of their intercourse unless he helps her. He agrees, and while Alboin sleeps, removes
his arms and ties up his sword; following Peredo’s advice, Rosamund
lets Helmechis, the murderer, into the room. Alboin is unable to defend
himself, and is killed.63
Here we note that the sparse story recorded by the contemporary historians has been much embellished, and provided with a number of more
personal details. Somewhat like the Burgundian legend, there is a difference between the contemporary historical records and the later version.
While it is possible (though by no means necessary) that Paul’s additions
derives from a vernacular, oral narrative, what is more important for our
context is that there is a clear embellishment and shift towards a narrative
more motivated by immediate personal considerations in the later work.
I f Paul’s source was vernacular oral tradition (as he appears to claim: he
states that king was celebrated in songs among diverse peoples, all of
whom, we should note, spoke Germanic dialects; Paul does not, however,
explicitly state that his own version derives from any of these songs),64 it
seems most plausible to assume that it represented the story as told in
his own time; Paul’s version says little about what might have been in oral
tradition immediately after the events. I would suggest that if there was
an orally transmitted story soon after Alboin’s death, it was closer to that
recorded by the earlier historians (and might have been a source for
them). If this be the case, we would have here evidence that a narrative,
originally rather brief and primarily historical in content, becomes transformed by the Carolingian period into one that appears to be more characteristic (according to modern scholarship) of heroic legend.
The narrative of Alboin and Rosamund from its earliest extant forms to
Paul the Deacon’s version, and perhaps the embellishments of the account
of Attila’s death provided by Poeta Saxo and the ›Quedlinburg annals‹, are
examples of stories that did deal with very recent events being transformed as those events receded into the distant past. This is not direct
evidence for Burgundian practice, but it could be a support for the general
argument that historical material from the fifth and sixth centuries was
63
64
Pauli historia Langobardorum ed. by L. Bethmann and G. Waitz, Hanover 1878
(MGH SRL), pp. 12Ð187, II, 28 at pp. 87 sq. Paul’s version of the story takes
up two pages in this edition, in contrast to the few lines of the contemporary
historians.
Historia Langobardorum [n. 63], I, 27, p. 70. We should note that this mention of
songs occurs after another story about Alboin, and it cannot be certain that Paul
intends us to believe that the king’s death was equally celebrated.
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
239
turned into more legendary matter by the ninth century. If the Burgundian
legend originated among some class of Burgundians soon after 436, and
survived (probably with some transformations already) through to the end
of the fifth century, it would at this time (like the Lombard story at the
end of the sixth century) probably still have been seen as ›historical‹,
dealing with fairly recent events, which would have been in the living
memory of at least the grandparents, if not the parents, of the generation
towards the end of the century. Like the story of Alboin and Rosamund,
it dealt with a recent, identifiable past, and like this story, it is probable
that its form and content was quite different from what we know from
later sources: not so removed from historical fact, and closer in generic
function to poems such as the ›Ludwigslied‹.
The Burgundian legend, however, would have been superseded as current historical poetry by other narratives, dealing with more recent events.
Perhaps because of the dramatic nature of its narrative, the Burgundian
legend could have been retained as a part of inherited lore, and modified
and transformed as Burgundian identity itself changed over generations,
with some elements of recent historical poetry regarding the Frankish
royal family perhaps being added, as these too lost their current relevance.
Initially, however, the legend would have been fairly close to fact. The
Lombard examples also show, however, that a record of historical fact
(whether oral or written Ð we cannot be certain how the various early
historians received their information) can travel beyond its origin quite
fast (if this was among the people who experienced the historical events),
and thereby possibly undergo transformations both in content and function. It is impossible to know how soon a legend might have been transformed, how far it might have travelled, and how the changes might have
been brought about; on the basis of the evidence examined, it seems reasonable to suggest that changes that removed the legend further from the
realm of historical plausibility in the minds of an audience that had a
living memory of the events would have taken place at least after the
passing of eyewitnesses, and thus probably at least a few generations after
the recorded events.
III
Past literary scholarship has expended much effort on elucidating the
processes by which historical events were transformed into a poetic form
that often distorted history. Such heuristic efforts appear to operate on
the assumption that the legends achieved their present lack of historical
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SHAMI GHOSH
veracity fairly close to the time of the events they tell of.65 For this reason,
scholars such as Andreas Heusler believed that there was a sharp distinction between praise-poetry, which did not contain a narrative and was
concerned with current events, and heroic legend, which was concerned
with the past (and specifically the past of the migration period), and did
contain a narrative and plot (›Fabel‹). Many scholars would agree that
heroic legend served as a form of collective memory, a belief borne out
by comparisons with other, surviving oral traditions.66 The comparative
evidence is impressive indeed, and suggests that it is reasonable to assume
that the pre-literate cultures of Europe would have had some sort of oral
tradition that probably functioned as a means of identity formation, group
cohesion and collective memory.67 Even though more recently scholars
65
66
67
The classic (and still influential, if controversial) theories remain those of
A. Heusler, Die altgermanische Dichtung, 2. , neubarbeitete und vermehrte Ausgabe, Potsdam 1943; see also his Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung,
Dortmund 1905, and his work cited at n. 16. The most significant rejoinder to
Heusler was provided by W. Haug, Andreas Heuslers Heldensagenmodell:
Prämissen, Kritik und Gegenentwurf, in: ZfdA 104 (1975), pp. 273Ð292. An important response to Haug is presented by T. M. Andersson, Walter Haug’s Heldensagenmodell, in: Germania. Comparative studies in the Old Germanic languages and literatures, ed. by D. G. Calder and T. C. Christy, Woodbridge 1988,
pp. 127Ð141. Of the recent work assessing the various theories see especially
A. Ebenbauer, Heldenlied und »Historisches Lied« im Frühmittelalter Ð und davor,
in: Heldensage und Heldendichtung im Germanischen, ed. by H. Beck, Berlin,
New York 1988 (Ergänzungsbände zum RGA 2), pp. 15Ð34; and idem, Hat das
»Nibelungenlied« eine Vorgeschichte? Eine Polemik, in: 6. Pöchlarner Heldenliedgespräch. 800 Jahre Nibelungenlied. Rückblick Ð Einblick Ð Ausblick, ed. by
K. Zatloukal, Vienna 2001 (Philologica Germanica 23), pp. 51Ð74; more recently
and cautiously, cf. K. Reichl, Singing the past: Turkic and medieval heroic poetry,
Ithaca, NY [et al.] 2000, which provides a very valuable comparative perspective.
A conservative statement of the consensus is in W. Haubrichs [n. 10], pp. 106Ð
114 and 127Ð133. For important views contrary to almost all other literary scholarship, see R. Frank, Germanic legend in Old English literature, in: The Cambridge companion to Old English literature, ed. by Malcolm Godden and Michael
Lapidge, Cambridge 1991, pp. 88Ð106; and W. Goffart, Conspicuously absent:
martial heroism in the Histories of Gregory of Tours and its likes, in: The world
of Gregory of Tours, ed. by Kathleen Mitchell and Ian N. Wood, Leiden [et al.]
2002 (Cultures, beliefs, and traditions. Medieval and early modern peoples 8),
pp. 365Ð393.
See e. g. L. Hedeager, Migration period Europe: the formation of a political mentality, in: Rituals of power, from late antiquity to the early middle ages, ed. by J.
L. Nelson and F. Theuws, Leiden [et al.] 2000 (Transformation of the Roman
world 8), pp. 15Ð57; J. Heinzle, Die Nibelungensage als europäische Heldensage,
in: Die Nibelungen. Sage Ð Epos Ð Mythos, ed. by J. Heinzle, K. Klein and
U. Obhof, Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 3Ð28 at pp. 18Ð21; Reichl [n. 65], esp. at pp. 55Ð
73, 133Ð151; Haubrichs [n. 10], pp. 107Ð112; 132.
On the importance of memorial practices in the middle ages, see the stimulating
works of O. G. Oexle, Memoria in der Gesellschaft und in der Kultur des Mittelalters, in: Modernes Mittelalter. Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, ed. by
J. Heinzle, Frankfurt a. M. [et al.] 1994, pp. 297Ð323; idem, Memoria als Kultur,
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
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such as Ebenbauer and Reichl have argued for less sharp distinctions
between the genres of panegyric and heroic verse, the consensus still
appears to be that heroic poetry was in some way formed at a time close
to the events it narrates, and that not just a few historical details, but also
the plot structure and narrative motifs (and, some views, even the ›heroic
ethos‹) of the extant texts are representative of a form of poetry dating
back to the so-called migration period.
It is generally accepted that the productive period for Germanic legend
lies between the late fourth and the beginning of the seventh century: all
the historical events that could correspond to what is contained in extant
heroic legend in any Germanic vernacular belong in this period Ð a time
in which, it should be noted, many Germanic peoples were making the
move from being pre-literate to being at least partly literate cultures.68
The consensus of literary scholarship is that the tradition of composing
›heroic‹ lays based on history was no longer productive after this point.
That a tradition of oral poetry survived through this period seems certain,
though since no ›historical‹ works exist dealing with later events as past
history, it is probably safe to assume that the oral tradition from the seventh century onwards consisted of poems about events of the migration
period or of poetry concerned with current or fairly recent events. The
(implicit or explicit) assumption, therefore, is that there was in the migration period a current tradition of vernacular oral poetry that served some
identity-forming function as a form of historical consciousness, and furthermore, that the legends probably originated among those peoples
whose histories the poems narrate. In the case of the Burgundian legend,
it would have originated amongst the surviving Burgundians as an idealised memory of their past glory, and would have been handed down over
the generations in a more or less fixed form, having a lr ea dy made the
transformation from ›history‹ to ›legend‹, whether through an unconscious
process innate in oral culture or at the hands of an individual poet.
However, given the available evidence, we can never know if there was
any sort of heroic poetry in the fifth century, nor whether the Burgundian
legend enunciated any kind of heroic ethos, and transformed the historical
events into a personal, family conflict. It seems absurd to me to argue
against the existence of any oral historical tradition whatsoever, but
68
in: Memoria als Kultur, ed. by O. G. Oexle, Göttingen 1995 (Veröffentlichungen
des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 121), pp. 9Ð78, and from a rather different perspective, J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social memory, Oxford [et al.]
1992; more broadly on the use of memory, see the seminal work of J. Assmann,
Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen
Hochkulturen, Munich 1992.
Cf. Heusler [n. 16], pp. 495 sq.; and more recently, Hedeager [n. 66], pp. 31Ð37.
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whether or not this was ›heroic‹ is a moot point; all that we can say is
that given the commonness of some form of heroic mentality in oraltraditional cultures around the world, some form of heroic ethos quite
possibly existed among some section of the Burgundians too, though we
cannot know how much it might have had in common with what is expressed in the extant narratives.
There is no evidence for an extant tradition of heroic poetry among the
Burgundians, and if they composed any poem commemorating their defeat in 436, it travelled fairly soon, and most probably underwent a number
of transformations in the course of its journey. The generic function of
the original lay was in all likelihood very different from that of the extant
versions. I would like to propose that extant Germanic heroic poetry derives from h is to ri ca l poetry of the migration period, which might not
have been as ›heroic‹ as the surviving texts. I suggest that the original
poems were probably closer to historical fact, and functioned in much the
same way as later works such as the Old High German ›Ludwigslied‹ or
the Old English ›Battle of Brunanburh‹ and ›Battle of Maldon‹,69 free relations of recent history, in which the characteristics of heroic poetry Ð the
transformation of the political into the personal, the ›epic‹ chronology that
allows personages of different centuries to mingle with each other Ð were
probably only very minimally present, if at all (I stress that I make no
broader claims with regard to similarity of form, plot, ethos, style or content between these three poems and my postulated original Burgundian
lay). In other words, the chronology was probably fairly accurate (the
living witnesses to the events would have ensured that figures generations
apart would not have been brought together as contemporaries), and
while there might have been some intrusion of personal elements, this
would have been on a much smaller scale than in the extant later legends,
and would have corresponded to what was historically plausible (as is the
case in the early reports concerning Alboin’s death). Thus, the motivation
for the conflict between Burgundians and Huns would probably have been
portrayed as primarily (and probably solely) political. Furthermore, the
much discussed heroic ethos Ð with its stress on honour, exorbitant behaviour, martial heroism etc. Ð need not have been in evidence in these
original poems; there is little evidence either way.
The supposed dichotomy of content between heroic and historical poetry is in fact far from clear when one considers poems such as the ›Lud69
Das Ludwigslied [n. 52]; The Battle of Brunanburh, ed. by A. Campbell, London
1938 (discussion of the historical background at pp. 43Ð80); The Battle of
Maldon, ed. by D. G. Scragg, Manchester 1981 (an overview of the historical
background at pp. 8Ð23).
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
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wigslied‹, ›The Battle of Brunanburh‹ or ›The Battle of Maldon‹ (despite
many similarities, I exclude skaldic verse from my analysis because of the
insuperable problems involved in dating, transmission and authenticity).
In terms of narrative content and closeness to historical fact, there is
actually not very much difference between the ›Atlaqviða‹ and these three
›historical‹ poems: like the ›Atlaqviða‹ or other heroic poems, none of
these three works actually present very much in terms of historical detail,
and can scarcely be understood on their own as historiography without
recourse to other, independent accounts. We should note that both
›Maldon‹ and the ›Ludwigslied‹ are poems in which historical events, while
perhaps not distorted, are nevertheless clearly reported selectively to
present a particular perspective, and both poems have fictional elements
and a clear narrative (›Fabel‹). Neither can fit easily and exclusively into
either category of praise-poem or heroic poem. None of these three poems
present the kind of considerations of personal conflict and motivation
common in the heroic works such as the ›Atlaqviða‹ or the ›Nibelungenlied‹. All the events presented in the ›Ludwigslied‹, ›The Battle of Brunanburh‹ or ›The Battle of Maldon‹ may be explained solely by what we know
from other sources about the historical situation (even though ›Maldon‹
blurs the lines here to some extent, all the action is explicable by the
actual historical context); this is impossible for the extant versions of the
Burgundian legend.70
It appears fair to state that there is what might be called a generic
continuum between straightforward historical/praise poetry dealing with
contemporary/recent events, and heroic poetry dealing with the past,
rather than simply these two extremes; the primary distinction in content
appears to be that historical poetry deals with the present or recent past,
whereas heroic verse deals with a distant, and sometimes rather mixedup past. This in turn explains much of the chronological and psychological
difference between the two types. Although it is true that strict genre
distinctions are modern inventions and do not necessarily correspond to
the evidence,71 the social function and possibly context of a poem that
deals with a recent event in which one’s own king or his identifiable predecessors took part, and of one that deals with past events which took place
in a time that might not have been ›our past‹, must be quite different. The
main difference in function, deriving from the content, is that historical/
praise poetry is firmly rooted in a contemporary political context, whereas
70
71
On ›Maldon‹, ›Brunanburh‹ and the ›Ludwigslied‹, in addition to the notes and
introductions in the editions cited above, see Beck [n. 53]; Reichl [n. 65], pp. 56Ð
60; 70Ð73; 177 sq.; and Ebenbauer, Heldenlied [n. 65], on the theoretical aspects
of the preceding paragraph.
Reichl [n. 65], pp. 70Ð73.
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heroic verse is more universal in its meaning: since the contemporary
situation has receded in time, the narrative of the poem can (and perhaps
must) focus more on personal qualities and motivations (not necessarily
historically accurate), and is freed from more immediate historical and
political concerns. Because it is free of the political context of the events
it relates, and even of living memory of it, chronological details may be
altered to suit the psychological needs of the narrative. In the poetry
rooted in a contemporary context, much may be left out of the narrative,
since a knowledge of the background could be assumed; once such knowledge receded from the common memory, for a legend to enjoy a productive reception, it might have been necessary to provide it with a more
universal context, which in turn would require a focus on the personal
over the political.
Such a distinction between two types of historical poetry might well
have existed in the migration period too. However, while for later times,
the migration period functioned as a ›heroic age‹, to which people looked
back with wonder and awe, and which provided some form of exemplary
entertainment, in the migration period itself, when the events of the later
heroic poems were happening or were of the very recent past, they were
looked upon in a very different light. Just as in the Carolingian period it
appears that there were poems dealing with the recent past, as well as
›heroic‹ literature dealing with an ancient past, so too this might have
been the case in the migration age. If there was a ›heroic ethos‹ in the
migration period and in the early medieval centuries, it was nourished by
a different heroic age from that of the Carolingians, and one that is lost
to us; no evidence shows that the extant heroic poems derive their ethos
from the migration period.
There is no reason to believe that the Burgundian legend, in its original
form close to the events it reported, presented a narrative that diverged
significantly from the historical record in terms of the motivation for the
conflict or chronology; nor need we believe that the ›heroic‹ elements
(acceptance of fate, dying heroically, etc.) belonged in the original story.
Any transformations from a narrative with a historical motivation, regardless of how little it contained in terms of factual content, to one in which
the plot was moved by Heusler’s ›Privat-menschliches‹, either through
agency of an individual poet (Heusler) or by modifications caused by
Haug’s literary ›Muster‹, must have taken place at a later stage. It is possible that the transformations of the narrative of Alboin and Rosamund, and
perhaps also the few late references to the death of Attila, are witness to
this change from historical narrative motivated by political concerns, to
›heroic‹ narrative, motivated by personal conflict. Although it is apparent
that similar transformations of political into more personal events are
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
245
present in heroic legends from many parts of the world, I know of no
evidence to suggest that this transformation takes place while living witnesses to the events, who would be able to contradict both the recurring
theme of ›personal conflict as motivation‹, and the garbled chronology
(and potentially also the expression of an ›heroic ethos‹) are alive. We
know well enough in what ways heroic epics differ from the facts, when
contemporary chronicles exist; we cannot claim to k no w how, why, or
when these differences came into being. While my theory outlined here
is, of course, impossible to prove, it accords better with what we know
of historical traditions in the early middle ages, and Ð equally important Ð
our massive ignorance of the nature of these traditions.
It follows from my proposal that the functions of migration-age and
early medieval historical poetry had nothing (or very little) in common in
that period itself with the functions of the heroic poetry it later became.
In other words, whether or not any (no longer existing) heroic poetry of
the fifth century had something in common with extant heroic poetry, the
archetype of the Burgundian legend served a very different function from
the extant texts derived from it. Theories concerning the function of heroic poetry that are based on the extant texts might perhaps be applicable
to the latter, but they cannot explain their migration-age archetypes. T he
l it er ar y a na ly si s o f t he su rv iv in g m on um en ts is us el es s w it h
r eg ar d t o t he ro le of th ei r m od el s i n t he so ci et ie s i n w hi ch
t he y o ri gi na te d. Whether one considers them to be realistic and typical
portrayals of the time, exempla of honourable action, fascinating tales of
exorbitant characters Ð we have no way of knowing if these assessments
might have applied to the historical poetry of the migration period as well.
It is admittedly often hard to fit the extant heroic poetry into what is
known of the cultural context in which it was written, for which reason
explanations are sought in the heroic ethos of the past; but such an ethos
cannot legitimately be sought in texts written several centuries after the
passing of the postulated heroic mentality they are supposed to be evidence for.
The Burgundian legend, originally a historical narrative, was transformed over time into a tale of family conflict between a gold-hungry
Attila and the three Burgundian kings. Its original function, like that of
the ›Ludwigslied‹, was to record the memory of a battle, possibly with
some identity-forming function for survivors of that conflict; its later function might have been to serve as an example of good (or bad) conduct for
a king, perhaps even to serve as a means of interpreting the (distant) past;
ultimately, it would have become something close to what it is for us now:
a work of art and entertainment. Like any report of a historical event, the
original version must have been coloured by a particular perspective (and
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SHAMI GHOSH
we should note how ›Maldon‹ attempts to find a moral victory in the face
of defeat: something similar might have been present in the original Burgundian legend), but this perspective is completely lost to us, and cannot
be recovered by recourse to any extant text. As in the case of the Lombard
legend, there is a transformation over time Ð and it is probable that much
of this transformation had taken place by or took place during the Carolingian period. All the evidence examined above (the ›Passio Sigismundi‹,
the ›Waltharius‹, the ›Hildebrandslied‹, and the Lombard legend, perhaps
even the names of Brynhild and Sigurð and the narratives concerning
Attila’s death) seems to point to an increasing departure from historical
fact and admission of more legendary elements into narratives of the migration age from end of the seventh century onwards.
By the Carolingian period, the legends were no longer a part of a specific group’s historical consciousness; in other words, they no longer had
any kind of identity-forming function. The stories were by now more »a
matter of folklore, a set of widely diffused common stories with stock
characters, which served almost as parables, examples of morality in action [. . .]«.72 This also allows (perhaps even invites) the admission of elements almost certainly extraneous to the original narrative: in our case,
apart from the transformation into a conflict between kin, the intrusion
of the Ermaneric legend, and the linking with the Brynhild story. Since
the legend of the Burgundians d oe s have a historical core it seems most
likely that there was indeed a vernacular legend about these events, which
was current before, during, and after the ninth century (by which point it
probably served an exemplary rather than identity-forming function), but
one which was not created then. I would suggest that this legend must
have originated close to the time of the historical events Ð when it w as
a part of a historical consciousness, that of the group whose history it
tells. The possibility that the story originated among another more or less
disinterested contemporary group cannot be ruled out. It is highly likely,
however, that the Burgundians did have some form of historical poetry,
and therefore that they did commemorate the events of 436 in some poetic
form. It seems simpler to assume that the surviving texts derive from this
tradition, rather than postulating an independent origin outside the theatre
of events in addition to a Burgundian tradition, with the former being the
one to survive, rather than the latter. Of course, it is extremely likely that
if there were more than one contemporary story about this event, currently extant versions would have been influenced not just by one, but
by several ›originals‹. We should note also that n on e of these potential
prototypes need have been formal poems; they may just have been stories
72
Innes [n. 47], p. 248.
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ON THE ORIGINS OF GERMANIC HEROIC POETRY
247
passed on informally, not necessarily in the context of any kind of performance or ceremonial setting.73
There is plenty of evidence that songs about ancient deeds in the vernacular were sung between the sixth and the thirteenth centuries, so it
seems highly unlikely that the various legends w ri tt en in the later period
have nothing to do with what was s un g before. While the oral/lay and
literate/clerical cultures of the early middle ages were not mutually exclusive cultural spheres, cases of vernacular borrowing from written, Latin
material on the continent are exclusively confined, until the end of the
Carolingian period at least, to religious literature, and arise largely from
conscious clerical efforts to disseminate the message of Christianity. It is
impossible to establish direct textual relationships between any extant
Germanic legend and any extant contemporary Latin text; this is not the
case for the many vernacular religious works of this period. It seems most
likely, therefore, that the transmission was in the vernacular all the way.
This brings us to the crucial question of language: the only continental
Germanic legend to survive in Romance in the region of the historical
figures it contains is the legend of Walter of Aquitaine. In all of those
regions where the historical equivalents of the Germanic heroes lived, the
language spoken by the ninth century was no longer a Germanic one.
Moreover, with the same exception of the legend of Walter, Germanic
legends do not survive in the vernacular Romance languages. This is
surely not a coincidence. It might be explained by a Carolingian interest
in a Germanic past, but if one assumes that Germanic legend originated
in this period in the imagination of poets, such an interest would also
require a fairly ambitious enterprise of research into somewhat obscure
chronicles from several centuries beforehand, and translation into the vernacular Ð something for which there is absolutely no evidence at all.
Given that there is plentiful evidence of some form of vernacular poetry
in the Carolingian period, some most probably containing stories about
the past, it is surely easier to assume that our legend derived from a living
oral tradition rather than a reading of Latin history. This should not imply,
however, a reversion to the position that the Germanic legends remained
largely unchanged (in content, function, or ethos) over the centuries: presuming that a s to ry was kept alive in oral tradition does not imply lack
of transformation any more than postulating a creative translation of Latin
historiography. With regard to the Burgundian legend, I stress again that
while some continuity seems to have existed, this bore only the four basic
73
Cf. H. Kuhn, Heldensage vor und außerhalb der Dichtung, in: Zur germanischdeutschen Heldensage: Sechzehn Aufsätze zum neuen Forschungsstand, ed. by
K. Hauck, Darmstadt 1961 (WdF 14), pp. 173Ð194.
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historical facts that the extant vernacular works share with contemporary
historical record: these facts, however, could have been manipulated in
any number of ways, and embellished with any number of potential motifs,
conflicts, and moral or ethical messages. Given the state of the evidence,
it seems that if we are to seek the origins of our extant vernacular legends,
they may be sought in the historical events only insofar as the few factual
details are concerned; the origins of their transformation from historical
record to narratives driven by personal conflict, with mythic and ›heroic‹
motifs and telescoped chronology, can probably be better traced to the
eighth and ninth centuries, or at any rate, to a period several generations
after the events.
IV
The preceding examination of evidence shows that we can know little
about Germanic oral tradition beyond the fact that it probably existed; its
content and function remain opaque, and parallels to other cultures can
only be used with caution.74 While it is certain that there was such a
tradition, we can know little about what it contained and what function it
served. Modern anthropologists may ask their subjects about their notions
of identity; since we see them only through the lens of Latin writing (laws,
letters, poetry and histories), which brings with it its own baggage, the
group identity of the peoples among whom Germanic oral poetry probably
flourished is quite opaque to us. Since nothing survives of the ›oral culture
of the barbarians‹, it seems very likely that at least some of what survives
was created later as a form of retrospective use of the past Ð and it is in
fact most unlikely that there was no interference from later periods. What
is extant cannot be seen as any evidence about the culture of ›Germanic
antiquity‹, or even as evidence that such a thing as Germanic antiquity
existed. We should also remember how soon at least some sections of
Burgundian society began to adopt ›Roman‹ customs, and eventually a
Romance language; this should caution us about assumptions of cultural
stability and the importance and preservation of traditions from which
our extant texts might be derived.
Discourses of memory in the early middle ages most probably had a
significant identity-forming function, but given the lack of clarity about
74
Germanic heroic poetry is preserved among peoples with no relation to its heroes; this is, to my knowledge, never the case in other cultures. The identityforming function of other heroic traditions cannot, therefore, simply be transferred by analogy to Germanic poetry.
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the nature of early medieval social groups, it remains unclear to us how
they used their traditions and their past. This applies equally to the surviving poetry that is thought to originate in this period. Traditions and memories could be manipulated and possibly invented, as well as carefully selected and extinguished. Moreover, legends could, and manifestly did,
travel, and could be used by people who had no relation to any past that
was in the legends; this need not indicate any sense of ›Germanic‹ kinship.
The possible functions of extant legends in later contexts say nothing
about their functions in their original contexts, which were certainly different.
As noted, with one exception, there are no Romance legends containing
material also in Germanic languages. On the other hand, heroic legends
dealing with what were once current historical events did come into being
in Romance (for example, the ›Guillaume‹ cycle and the ›Chanson de Roland‹ from the twelfth century, both dealing with events from several centuries earlier). This is further indication that among both the Germanic
and the Romance peoples a current tradition of historical poetry was
maintained; that ›Germanic‹ legends did not survive among the now ›Romance‹ peoples is not because the latter no longer cultivated such poetry.
The legends dealing with a ›Germanic‹ past were widely transmitted
among Germanic peoples not because of a shared past Ð the past of the
legends was shared by the Romance speakers more than by the Germanic
speakers Ð but because of closely related languages, and common forms
of poetry (using, for example, similar alliterative metres or kennings). The
legends were probably carried to the peoples among whom a Germanic
language continued to be spoken by the end of the seventh century. Having been composed by Germanic-speaking peoples, they died out among
those peoples when their language changed from Germanic to Romance:
hence the survival only among distant and unrelated peoples. This explains also the fact that Romance languages preserve for us no legends
from before the shift from Germanic to Romance that are also preserved
in a Germanic language.
In their new environment, our narratives would have been received and
passed on n ot as a form of maintaining ›our past‹, but simply as a part of
inherited tradition, ›folklore‹, with a purpose quite different from that of
current historical poetry. By the ninth century, although a tradition of
historical poetry dealing with the relatively recent past remained current,
there existed also a tradition of such inherited manifestations of culture,
the value of which did not lie in their power to help form identity by
identification with common ancestors. The same legend, with the same
›factual‹ core, therefore, could now have served a very different function
from that of its original context.
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The lack of ›ethnic‹ identities stable over centuries might have been,
paradoxically, the root of a ›pan-Germanic‹ culture: if people’s ethnic identities were not well-defined or static, and if people were often absorbed
into different groups, but simultaneously maintained some cultural practices (such as the telling of specific legends), these would have then been
carried into new situations, where any previous relevance of these legends
in terms of identity formation b y m ea ns of a l in k t o a sh ar ed pa st
was lost. This does not mean that the traditions lost all cultural relevance.
There may have been no ›Germanic‹ ethnic or national identity, but this
did not preclude some similarities, including, especially, common poetic
techniques and themes, as well as somewhat similar social structures (by
no means exclusive to Germanic cultures), and most crucially, closely
related languages. The growing awareness of the kinship of languages may
have been connected to a shared antiquarian interest in stories in the
related languages. The sharing of poems and/or legends with a base in a
particular group’s history does not indicate that the groups with different
histories who shared had any sense of a common past; it could mean that
cultural traditions overlapped, which permitted historical traditions to do
the same as groups merged and changed over time. The distant past did
not need to be ›our past‹ to have some value in a people’s historical consciousness, if the value lay elsewhere than in forming identity through
i de nt if ic at io n with the past. A past might have cultural uses without
being thought of as one’s own.
This might also explain, for instance, the joining of what seem to be
(from a historical point of view) the very different traditions of the Sigurð
legend (with its very strong mythic elements), the fall of the Burgundians,
and the death of Ermaneric. With each movement of the legend, the new
groups adopting and adapting it might have brought their own historical
traditions that melded and lost their immediate historical value as the
group identities overlapped. Ultimately, the sense of a particular group’s
past need have little to do with what we might consider to be the real
past, judged by biological or direct political links. For the purpose of
cultural traditions, an ›invented‹ past is as good as a real one: beyond a
certain lapse of time, no one was likely to have a fixed memory of any
events, and the memorial traditions that were propagated would have
changed considerably from the historical facts, taking on new traditions
and facts and merging them in completely unhistorical ways. For their
audiences, however, this did not make the legends any less ›authentic‹ Ð
by which I mean viewed as having some p er ce iv ed correlation to fact.
Heroic poetry, therefore, cannot be viewed simply as a manifestation of
traditions about a shared past; one must always be careful to consider
whose past, and the value of the tradition for the people who maintained
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it. The wanderings and transformations of legend, coupled with the increasing and competing claims of Latin historiography, might indicate that
for some, at least, the legends might have had no credibility as fact. But
some form of vernacular historical tradition probably retained credibility
among the many who had no access to Latin historiography, and the line
between fiction and history was probably drawn fairly late, and is unlikely
to have been pervasive at all levels of society until at least the end of the
middle ages. I stress that o ur conceptions of history and myth are very
different from those of the middle ages; it seems likely that there existed,
even until later in the middle ages, differing conceptions of history that
might have allowed for an equal credibility regarding both what we consider ›historical‹ information, and heroic traditions.
The Latinate and literate, as well as the vernacular-speaking and illiterate sections of society might well have participated in the same discourse
of oral tradition Ð though possibly for different reasons. While for those
with no access to Latin history and literate notions of historiography, the
oral traditions probably still had some credence as ›fact‹, for both this
social layer as well as the elites, the tradition of heroic legends, in their
performance, probably also had a function »more generally as a cultural
symbol. Its significance for a (however sociologically defined) community
consists also in the fact that it expresses cultural values, reinforces them,
and comments upon them«.75 The cultural values of the Carolingians (or
of thirteenth-century Icelanders or Bavarians) were certainly not identical
to those of the fifth-century Burgundians. If these legends were perceived
as an emanation of a heroic ethos in the ninth or the thirteenth century,
this says nothing either about the origins of the legends, or their original
moral position, which, like the content, could have changed quite considerably and probably did. The cultural values these legends represented,
moreover, need not necessarily be related to any sense of ethnicity or
group origins; the heroic legends might have value as inherited, ancient
tales of a distant past, with possibly some moral message (which too
ought not to be understood as unchanging over the course of transmission), even if that past was not ›our past‹ for the audience.
It may be objected that I am simply substituting a ›Germanic‹ past with
a ›distant‹ past; but there is a difference. An Englishman with a public
school education in the nineteenth century would have counted both Richard the Lionheart and Caesar as a part of his cultural inheritance, and
located both in the past. This does not mean that he would have identified
the past of Caesar as being his own, as he probably would have done with
that of King Richard. Similarly, a German-speaking courtly audience in
75
Reichl [n. 65], p. 177.
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the early thirteenth century would probably have viewed the figures of
Germanic legend as well as Charlemagne and Alexander the Great as being heroic figures of a glorious past, though not necessarily in all three
cases a past to which their own group could, would, or wished to trace
its lineage. Of course, medieval nostalgia of the sort proposed by Frank
(n. 65) could well have played a part Ð but there is little evidence for it
before the beginning of the late eighth century. An image of a common
Germanic past, if created in the eighth century, cannot explain the survival
of legend until this point; I would argue that it alone probably cannot
explain it even after this point. Even before the Carolingian period, I
would propose, Germanic legends would have made the transformation
from tales of the recent past, with some form of identity-building function,
to narratives set in the distant past, now an element of inherited cultural
tradition, but not necessarily with any identity-forming role.
Understanding the oral memorial traditions of pre-literate Germanicspeaking peoples, and how they relate to textual historical records and
extant heroic legends would require a more detailed study of not just one,
but all of the legends, and unfortunately not all other legends provide us
with the same relative richness of early source material as the Burgundian
story. Such detail is impossible here, but I hope some of the methods by
which such a study might proceed have been illustrated. The foregoing
reflections have, I hope, both presented a step towards a better understanding of the social context of heroic legend in the many centuries before it was written, and provided a chapter of the prehistory of Germanic
heroic poetry that is more compatible with the historical record than has
often been the case.
TORONTO
SHAMI GHOSH
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