No official records have been found that give the
exact birth and death dates of Heinrich von Veldeke,
but it is known that he was a member of a family of
minor nobility in Limburg, then a German province
in what is now part of Belgium. He is best known
for his medieval adaptation of VIRGIL’s Aeneid, but
he also wrote a narrative about the life and miracles
of the fourth-century saint Bishop Servatius of Tongeren,
as well as a series of love songs.
Heinrich began the Eneit around 1174 but did
not finish it until 1190, during which time, as he
relates in his epilogues, the manuscript was stolen.
He supposedly loaned it to Margareta, the countess
of Cleve and his patron.When she was married to
Ludwig III of Thuringia, it was “stolen” by Count
Heinrich (Ludwig’s brother), who sent it home to
Thuringia. Heinrich did not get the manuscript
back until he journeyed to Thuringia nine years
later. Count Palatine Hermann (another brother)
finally returned it to him and asked that he finish
the story. Thus the poet gained the patronage of
the two counts.
Heinrich’s Eneit, alternately called the Eneas, is
based heavily on an anonymous French translation
of the Aeneid called Roman d’Eneas (Book of Aeneas,
ca. 1160). Heinrich had also read Virgil’s epic in
Latin, and the Eneit maintains Virgil’s original narrative;
Heinrich changed only those elements necessary
in keeping with the Christian world of medieval
CHIVALRY, adapting the epic to fit court fashions and
customs of the 12th century and to emphasize activities,
such as jousting, of the noble classes.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the two
works involves details of the gods. In the Eneit,
Heinrich includes the pagan gods of Rome but gives
them a much smaller role.As a whole, the characters
in his adaptation have more responsibility over their
choices, and the story is about both the struggle for
self-fulfillment and the role of fate in our lives.
Love also plays a much more prominent role
in Heinrich’s version than it does in Virgil’s. For
example, Virgil uses the scene with Dido to explain
the politics of Carthage and Rome, but
Heinrich uses it to theorize on the meaning of
love and obsession. As a result, the scene in the
Eneit becomes much larger and more important
to the poet’s message. In addition, the relationship
between Aeneas and Lavinia is established in
a very minor scene in Virgil’s Aeneid, but it carries
more weight in terms of its relevance to the
theme in the Eneit, revealing what love can be like
when it is reciprocated. Heinrich’s attention to
the idea of love is a direct result of his having read
OVID’s works and his being aware of his audience—
medieval nobles for whom courtly love
was a way of life.
In terms of artistic achievement, the Eneit is
no match for the Aeneid; however, it is important
in that it was one of the first successful
books to be written in vernacular German rather
than in traditional Latin. This accomplishment
made Heinrich one of the founders of German
court EPIC poetry, and his influence on later German
writers was profound. In the introduction
to his translation of the Eneit, J. W. Thomas
quotes the Middle High German poet GOTTFRIED
VON STRASSBURG, who comments on Veldeke’s influence:
[I]t was he who made the first graft on the tree
of German verse and that the shoot put forth
the branches and the blossoms from which
they took the art of fine composition. This
craft has now spread so widely and become so
varied that all who devise tales and songs can
break off an ample supply of the twigs and
blooms of words and music.
English Versions of a Work by
Heinrich von Veldeke
Fisher, Rodney W. Heinrich von Veldeke: Eneas: A
Comparison with the “Roman d’Eneas” and a
Translation into English. Bern: Peter Lang, 1992.
Heinrich von Veldeke: Eneit. Translated by J. W.
Thomas. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985.