ALEXANDER THE GREAT (356–323 B.C.E.) was one of
the most important mythical figures throughout
the entire Middle Ages and far beyond. One of the
many poets who dealt with Alexander was the Trier
priest Lamprecht who composed his Alexanderlied sometime between 1130 and 1150 on the basis
of a Provençal Alexander poem by Alberic de
Pisançon. Lamprecht’s Middle High German text
survived in three manuscripts, the Vorau ms. (fragmentary, but most authentic), the Strasbourg ms.
(burned in 1870), and the Basel ms. (abridgement;
15th century).
Basically this epic poem of 7,267 verses retells the
story of Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire and is particularly interesting for us because of
the narrative variations and adaptation of the original Hellenistic account by the third-century writer
pseudo-Callisthenes. The German version enriches
the original chronicle report with many anecdotes
about Alexander’s youth, his relationship with his
father, King Philip, and then his grandiose conquest
of the Persian Empire, defeating the mighty ruler
Darius. The narrator emphasizes Alexander’s intelligence, strategic brilliance, and inventiveness in the
battles against his enemies, and embellishes his account with reports about monstrous creatures and
also about wondrous flower girls. Alexander and
his men spend a long time with them and experience an erotic utopia, but eventually the girls wither
away and die as all flowers do. The encounter with
the Amazons, on the other hand, represents a major
difficulty for Alexander. Their queen reminds him
in a letter that his possible victory over the Amazons
would be publicly regarded as shameful, insofar as
an army of men would have fought young maidens, whereas his defeat at their own hands would result in the complete loss of his honor. Consequently
Alexander leaves the Amazons alone and marches
further east, until he reaches the wall of Paradise,
where he is rejected again. An old man gives him a
stone that, as an old Jew reveals to him once he has
returned home, teaches him humility and reason.
Lamprecht’s Alexanderlied proves to be entertaining, detailed, and witty in its adaptation of the
Graeco-Hellenistic and Provençal sources for his
12th-century German audience.
Bibliography
Classen, Albrecht. “The Amazing East and the Curious Reader: Twelfth-Century World Explorations
through a Writer’s Mind: Lamprecht’s Alexander,”
Orbis Litterarum 55, no. 5 (2000): 317–339.
Ruttmann, Irene, ed. Das Alexanderlied des Pfaffen
Lamprecht (Strassburger Alexander). Text,
Nacherzählung, Worterklärung. Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974.
Albrecht Classen