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Die Offenbarung des Geheimen? Mittelalterliche Gottesurteile als Erkenntnisquelle

und ihr Niederschlag in der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur

From the book Geheimnis und Verborgenes im Mittelalter

  • Heinz Sieburg

Abstract

Ordeals (‘judgements of God’) undoubtedly belong to the alterity side of the Middle Ages. For centuries they were a legal practice for the divine revelation of secret knowledge. They can also be found as a motif in medieval and Middle High German literature, especially in ‘Tristan’, ‘Iwein’, ‘Nibelungenlied’ or even in Stricker’s ‘Das heiße Eisen’. The exemplary cases for trials by fire and the so called Bahrproben can be found therein are to be described and evaluated in this contribution in the context of historical legal practice. Of particular interest is the question of the legitimacy of the ordeals, which is partly raised there. A separate point should be to locate the European judgments of God in a global context and to discuss models of cultural historical derivations.

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
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