Constructing Sigfrid: History and Legend in the Making of a Hero

Abstract

Few figures in medieval German literature have received as much attention as Sigfrid, the most important figure in the Nibelungenlied. Not surprisingly, the theories about his origin have been many and varied. These range from depicting him as a product of Germanic mythology (Schroder 13f.) to rep- resenting him as a literary descendant of Arminius, the Germanic warrior and hero of the battle of the Teutoberg forest (Hofler 22). It is fair to say that most, if not all, of those who have addressed the question of the origin of Sigfrid have, like Hofler, found the answer in some historical account. How- ever, the equation of Sigfrid with a specific historical figure is problematic— for two reasons. First, there is the question as to which historical figure is the model for Sigfrid, and second, it is apparent that the figure of Sigfrid itself is not unitary, but exhibits traits that bear a resemblance to various historical figures. Moreover, it is increasingly recognized that the variation in the ac- counts preserved in our manuscripts is not merely the result of scribal crea- tivity, but rather the product of a very lively oral tradition which has found its way into the manuscripts which have been preserved. In this article, the spelling Sigfrid is used as a general term for the various forms found in the works in which he appears: Sivrit in the Nibelungenlied, Seyfrid in Hans Sachs's poem Der hurnen Seyfrid, Sigifridus in various Latin texts, etc. When specific texts are cited, the form which appears in those texts will be used. The abbreviation NL refers to the Nibelungenlied. As to the NL, we are largely dependent on the written tradition for our picture of Sigfrid—Sivrit—which has been preserved in nearly 40 manu- scripts or fragments of manuscripts. From the beginning, this raised the ques- tion as to which manuscript was, or was closest to, the original (e.g., Lach- mann, v). The method used to answer this question employed the techniques of textual criticism which had been developed since the Renaissance for the edition of Latin works. This effort culminated in the work of Wilhelm Braune,