Graph of co-transmission of Iwein

The following graph shows the manuscript tradition of Iwein, and the co-transmission given in the multiple-text manuscripts.

The starting point for the graph is Fernández Riva / Millet 2022[a]. The data was taken from the Handschriftencensus, the manuscripts were provided with siglae, and the work titles were partly simplified. The data was then processed with the software Gephi, the single text was selected, the path of connections reduced to 2 steps (text – manuscript – co-transmitted text). After this, the data was transformed into a graph using the filter 'ForceAtlas 2' and the result manually adjusted to avoid overlapping of the nodes.

The graph shows on the one hand that a significant number of manuscripts transmit Iwein alone, not only the younger ones (a, b, c, p, r, u), but also some of the old ones (A, B). None of the 19 fragments contains any evidence of co-transmission.

On the other hand, the diagram shows that the co-transmission does not follow a coherence of genres, but obviously other criteria which differ in each case. Ms. z assembles around the Iwein didactic texts on love and marital life (among them prominently Albrecht von Eyb’s Ehebüchlein and the Wilhelm von Orlens). Ms. f is a thematically strongly varying collection (Mocking poem on love, a pilgrim's guide, and animal exempla). Ms. l places Iwein behind Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois, but stands quite alone with this Arthurian compilation, apart from the marginal entry of Iwein-verses in the Wigalois ms. P. Ms. D places Iwein next to Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and the continuation by Heinrich von Freiberg.

Only mss. E, J and d place Iwein in the context of broader collections of courtly literature. Thus, only in these cases one can find coincidences in the co-transmission: Twice Iwein is handed down together with Otnit (J, d), twice with Stricker's Pfaffe Amis (E, d), and three times with Dietrichs Flucht and Rabenschlacht (E, J, d).

In general, it can be said that Iwein – if one also looks at the context in which it is found in ms. d – was connected with other texts, if at all, more from the perspective of a love story rather than that of a chivalric romance.