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The legend of Walther of Aquitaine found its way into writing quite early. The story of Walther remains essentially the same in all versions. Walther is a noble hostage at the court of Attila/Etzel. Walther's praise of German woman and, by extension, German culture is unique in medieval song. The fifteenth century saw the rise of a new literary genre, the chapbook. Although precise definitions are still missing, the large number of prose novels, often based on medieval themes and motifs, if they are not direct translations, which were soon printed and made available for an increasingly expanding readership, are generally called Volksbucher. Warfare was a dominant feature of medieval German history. After the late fourth century, Germanic tribes penetrated the western Roman Empire in force, bringing important changes to the military system. The expanding role of the stirrup gradually encouraged the development of heavy cavalry and eventually the archetypical medieval knight.