Der arme Heinrich – digital

Hartmann’s von Aue Der arme Heinrich, composed towards the end of the 12th century, is a legendary tale of a man suffering from leprosy who is miraculously healed. This short story (ca. 1500 lines) is today rated as one of the classics, also in academic teaching.

On this website you will find an electronic text database on Der Arme Heinrich. It consists of a virtual manuscript library, the transcriptions and edited texts of all testimonies, the translation of the complete versions, an introductory section, and a series of attached materials. This is the first time that the transmission of Der Arme Heinrich is made completely accessible. This is important because the manuscript tradition, despite the rather small number of testimonies, shows a comparatively high textual variance, with many verse transpositions, shortenings, additions, and changes that have not been recorded in detail and shown in their context in the previously existing editions in book form. It is to be expected that this will lead to new perspectives on Hartmann's text and its development.

In the first place, under the tab Edition, you will find the access to the various viewing modalities. On the one hand, there is the virtual manuscript library, with digital images of the manuscripts and fragments, as well as their transcriptions. On the other hand, you will find editions of the texts, both in individual view and as a parallel synoptic presentation.

In the Introduction section you will find, in addition to an introduction to this digital edition, an explanation of the editorial principles, as well as a descriptive list of manuscripts (only in German).

Under Materials we collect additional working tools, such as a complete verse concordance to Der Arme Heinrich, a list of special characters in the manuscripts of the works of Hartmann von Aue (it is the same for all edition projects on this author), and a bibliography with numerous specially digitised or online available texts.

In the Informations section you will find details about the project, the team, the functionality and the terms of use.

Technically, the transcription and editing work is carried out in XML format according to the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). For specific aspects we follow the encoding guidelines of HeiEditions. All image and text data are made available online without restrictions under an 'open access'-license. In addition, Der Arme Heinrich – digital also sees itself as 'open science' in the sense that the data and materials can basically be expanded.

Responsible editors are Dr. Gustavo Fernández Riva (Heidelberg University) and Prof. Dr. Victor Millet (University of Santiago de Compostela), with support from Dr. Jakub Šimek (Heidelberg University).