Abstract
This study investigates in what way and why a knotted scarf called torque was depicted with certain text passages of the Willehalm manuscript in the Austrian National Library, the oldest and yet — due to its inaccessibility — rather neglected manuscript illuminated for one of the greatest late medieval bibliophiles, the king of Bohemia, Wenceslas IV of Luxembourg. It discusses the nature and possible meanings of this motif, which mostly appears in a cluster of the king’s personal emblems on the margins of his manuscript. Taking a closer look at the story of the Willehalm epic and the contextual relation between torque and plot may open up new perspectives on the entire emblematic programme of the king and shine a light on this highly evolved and still little understood coded language of late medieval rulership.1
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