ABSTRACT
Comparing the portrayal of violence and how it results in bodies in pain in German heroic and courtly epics reveals a profound change in attitude toward violence in the High Middle Ages. 1 Violence in heroic and courtly epics is quantitatively and qualitatively different. These differences are characterized by unrestrained and graphic violence in heroic epics versus restrained and idealized violence in courtly romances. This observation does not suggest that combat during the High Middle Ages was not violent. Rather, through the idealization of violence, the courtly poets attempt to distance the refined image of civilization they were propagating from a Germanic past marked by a violence that led to social upheaval and endangered the political status quo. However, the differentiation of heroic and courtly violence is not always as simple at it seems. This difficulty arises from the fact that the heroic epics do not simply glorify violence. Upon closer analysis there is evidence that they are as critical of violence as in the courtly romance. Moreover, the courtly poets could not or do not always hide or condemn the negative effects of violence, indicating that violence is as fundamental to the nobility in courtly literature as it is in heroic epics. 2 When this paradox of violence occurs, the body in pain appears amidst the idealized world of the court. Suddenly, grave injuries and blood disturb the image of the refined knight in shining armor, creating a recognizable and interpretable iconography of pain, and suggesting that the court is not purely defined by vreude, “joy.” 3 Subsequently, the question we will pose in this study is: What information about the meaning of violence within courtly society can we derive from motifs of bodies in pain?
