Hans Sachs (1494–1576) is the most powerful German-language author of the 16th century with a body of work comprising more than 6200 songs. In recent decades, research on his rhyme and song poetry has been limited to individual studies and shorter summaries. At first, this volume presents the poetological foundations of his work. Sachs' own highly developed awareness of forms, genres, and themes sets the starting point for a presentation of his poetry according to text types in their sources, processing patterns, and in their direction in Nuremberg, which was becoming Protestant, and Germany. The different medial realizations in writing, picture and imagery, reading and singing give a diversified face to the texts from ancient, biblical and medieval tradition, which are made accessible here in an overview and by examples.

Der deutsche Bauernkrieg von 1525 hat in der geschichtswissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Frühen Neuzeit größte Aufmerksamkeit gefunden. Nur am Rande hingegen wurde registriert, dass er auch in der Dichtung des deutschen Humanismus thematisiert wurde. Im Mittelpunkt der vorliegenden Studie stehen insgesamt 18 bisher wenig beachtete neulateinische Dichtungen des 16. Jahrhunderts, die auf den Aufstand des „Gemeinen Mannes“ näher eingehen und dabei eine bemerkenswerte Vielfalt der literarischen Gestaltungsformen und Deutungsansätze erkennen lassen. Die Autoren zeichnen literarische „Bilder vom Bauernkrieg“, die nicht nur das historische Geschehen, sondern auch dessen Bewusstwerdung, Bewertung und Instrumentalisierung in der Zeit nach 1525 widerspiegeln. Prägend erweist sich darüber hinaus die sprachliche und formale Anlehnung an die als vorbildlich empfundenen Modelle der antiken Literatur. Das Spektrum reicht von historisch-panegyrischen Dichtungen (Epos, Kasuallyrik) über hexametrische Konfessionspolemiken bis zu spezifisch humanistischen carmina, welche die Mittel elegischer, bukolischer und dramatischer Dichtung nutzen, um zu den aktuellen Ereignissen Stellung zu nehmen.

The "Anleitung Schießpulver zu bereiten, Büchsen zu beladen und zu beschießen" contains an illustrated manuscript of a gunmaster from the beginning of the 15th century. Some extracts on working procedures deal with the production and purification of saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal. The gunpowder recipes present the first known mention of granulated powder and a group of illustrations of the technology of warfare show simple stoneguns but even early revolver guns. The Faksimile will describe the history, contest and context of this earliest document about chemistry and technology of the gun masters.

The study is devoted to tracing the reanimation of medieval drama and theatre in Germany in modern times. Based on a collection of more than 3000 documented performances the historical and theatrical developments are analysed critically

The examination of historical images in selected works from the 16th century offers a fundamental insight into how the Early Modern Period related to the past, especially the High Middle Ages; it shows, among other things, the coexistence of both the continuation of tradition lines as well as deliberate breaks with tradition and the resulting 'new beginnings'. It contains the new editions of the Historia of Friedrich Barbarossa as well as of Georg Thym's didactic poem Thedel von Wallmoden, which are therefore available for the first time as basic material for further research in a critical edition, taking all the surviving prints into account.

The late medieval verse dialogue ‘Christus und die minnende Seele’ portrays the journey of the soul as the bride of Christ toward mystical union in a series of 20 to 24 individual scenes. This study provides for the first time a comprehensive examination of all manuscripts and prints containing the work. In addition, a thorough analysis of the context in which the text is embedded in the manuscrips and of the illustrated broadsheet reveals the late medieval approach to broader and often controversial themes such as mysticism and the role of visual images in religious life and practice.

The present study is the first to examine in detail a representative corpus of the tragedi and comedi with female protagonists written by the Nuremberg author Hans Sachs. On the basis of a precise reconstruction of the intertextual frame of reference of each of the plays, taking into account both the enormously diverse literary sources and Sachs’ own topically related poems in the form of master songs and narrative poems, the author’s dramaturgical methods are explored more precisely. The "serious" drama in particular turns out to be a formidable virtual arena for exhibiting creative female attributes and the female potential for action, bringing out frequently subliminal contradictions to the normative claim to validity of the attached moral instruction. Conversely, in other cases, the moral message also ties in with the literary discourse, for example by tracing female vices back to male misconduct. Seen as a whole, the author's attempt to negotiate new, more reciprocally conceived ways of dealing with the sexes within the framework of the Lutheran-patriarchal marriage model and the socio-political order that it supports becomes apparent.

Musical instruments played a represantative role in the splendid courtly world of the 13th century. The author treats nearly all the names of musical instruments which occur in the texts of courtly novels from the perspectives of literary studies, art history and musicology.

Die sechs überlieferten illustrierten mittelalterlichen „Parzival“-Handschriften werden in dieser Arbeit untersucht. Nach einer Darstellung von Überlieferung, Datierung, Aufbewahrung, Schrift, Texteinrichtung und Ausstattung der Codices folgt eine Charakterisierung des künstlerisches Ausdrucks der Bilder. Die Analyse beschäftigt sich zum einen mit Technik, Zeichen- und Malstil sowie Koloristik, zum anderen mit der Darstellungsweise in den Kategorien Person, Tier, Architektur, Landschaft und Komposition. Ziel der Bestandsaufnahme ist die Herausarbeitung der stilistischen Merkmale der verschiedenen Bildversionen der „Parzival“-Handschriften. Der zweite Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Untersuchung der Text-Bild-Beziehungen. Eine Synopse der Bebilderungssysteme und ihrer szenisch-inhaltlichen oder ikonographischen Beziehungen weist verschiedene Bildtraditionen nach.