Ludwigslied

Dennis Green summarises the poem as follows: After a general introductory formula in which the poet claims to know of King Ludwig (thereby implying the reliability of what he has to say) this king's prehistory is briefly sketched: the loss of his father at an early age, his adoption by God for his upbringing, his enthronement by divine authority as ruler of the Franks, and the sharing of his kingdom with his brother Karlmann. [ll. 1–8] After these succinct eight lines the narrative action starts with God's testing of the young ruler in sending the Northmen across the sea to attack the Franks as a punishment for their sinfulness, who are thereby prompted to mend their ways by due penance. [ll. 9–18] The kingdom is in disarray not merely because of the Viking aggression, but more particularly because of Ludwig's absence, who is accordingly ordered by God to return and do battle. [ll. 19–26] Raising his war-banner Ludwig returns to the Franks, who greet him with acclamation as one for whom they have long been waiting. Ludwig holds a council of war with his battle-companions, the powerful ones in his realm, and with the promise of reward encourages them to follow him into battle. [ll 27–41] He sets out, discovers the whereabouts of the enemy and, after a Christian battle-song, joins battle, which is described briefly, but in noticeably more stirring terms. Victory is won, not least thanks to Ludwig's inborn bravery. [ll. 42-54] The poem closes with thanks to God and the saints for having granted Ludwig victory in battle, with praise of the king himself and with a prayer for God to preserve him in grace. [ll. 55–59] ==Genre==

Although the poem is Christian in content, and the use of rhyme reflects Christian rather than pagan Germanic poetry, it is often assigned to the genre of Preislied, a song in praise of a warrior, of a type which is presumed to have been common in Germanic oral tradition and is well-attested in attested in Old Norse verse. Not all scholars agree, however. Other Carolingian-era Latin encomia are known for King Pippin of Italy (796) and the Emperor Louis II (871), and the rhyming form may have been inspired by the same form in Otfrid of Weissenburg's Evangelienbuch (Gospel Book), finished before 871. ==Language and authorship==

There is a consensus that the OHG dialect of the Ludwigslied is Rhine Franconian. However, this was a Rhineland dialect from the area around Mainz in East Francia, remote from St Amand and Ludwig's kingdom. Thus there is an apparent inconsistency between the language of the text on the one hand and the origin of the manuscript and the event described on the other. However, the language also shows some features which derive from the German dialects closest to Saucourt, Central Franconian and Low Franconian. Additionally, the prothetic h before initial vowels (e.g. (l.24) for correct , "have") indicates interference from the Romance dialect. The fact that the scribe was bilingual in French and German also locates the text away from the Rhine Franconian area. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the text was written in an area close to the linguistic border between Romance and Germanic. Bischoff's localising of the script to an unidentified known scriptorium Lower Lotharingia on the left bank of the Rhine strengthens this conclusion. However, it is impossible to tell on purely linguistic grounds whether these local indications belong to the original text or arose only in local copying. A number of solutions have been suggested: • the original text was written in East Francia and the other dialect features were introduced when the text was copied in West Francia by a locally educated, bilingual scribe; • it was composed in West Francia by someone who either came from East Francia or had been educated there, but his language was affected by features from the local Frankish dialects and the Romance idiom of the area. • while the general population of the area round Saucourt and St Amand spoke the local Romance dialect (Picard-Walloon), in court circles there was widespread French-German bilingualism amongst both senior clergy and aristocracy. Many nobles had connections with East Francia, and a local Frankish dialect, often referred to as West Frankish (), may have been spoken at Ludwig's court. The first of these options seems implausible: God gives Ludwig "a throne here in Francia" (, l. 6), which only makes sense from a Western perspective. The personal commitment of the author to Ludwig ("I know a king", , l. 1) also indicates that he was a close to Ludwig's court rather than an outsider. ==Manuscript==

Description The Ludwigslied is preserved over four pages in a single 9th-century manuscript formerly in the monastery of Saint-Amand, now in the Bibliothèque Municipale, Valenciennes (Codex 150, fol. 141v-143r). File:Ludwigslied 141v.jpg|Fol. 141v, bottom(ll. 1–7). File:Ludwigslied 142r.jpg|Fol. 142r(ll. 8–31). File:Ludwigslied 142v.jpg|Fol. 142v(ll. 32–55). File:Ludwigslied 143r.jpg|Fol. 143r, top, (ll. 56–59). The codex itself dates from the early 9th century and originally contained only works by Gregory of Nazianzus in the Latin translation by Tyrannius Rufinus (fol. 1v-140r). The blank leaves at the end of the codex contain later additions in four different hands: • , a sequence in Latin (fol. 140v to 141r) • , a 14-line sequence about Saint Eulalia in Latin (fol. 141r) • the Sequence of Saint Eulalia in Old French (fol. 141v) • the Ludwigslied (fol. 141v to 143r) • , 15 couplets in Latin (fol. 143r to 143v). The Sequence of Saint Eulalia and the Ludwigslied are written in the same hand. A Carolingian minuscule with rustic capitals for the rubric and first letter of each line, it differs from the other hands in the manuscript. The text of the Ludwigslied is presumed to be a copy made after August 882 as the poem describes a living king, while the rubric refers to Ludwig as being "of blessed memory" (). Sources St Amand's ownership of the codex is indicated by the note ("St Amand's book") on the verso of the final folio (143), but this dates from the twelfth century, and the long-held view that the text of the Ludwigslied was written in St Amand itself now seems unlikely to be correct. The hand of the Sequence of Saint Eulalia and the Ludwigslied does not show the characteristics of the scriptorium of St Amand, and the limp binding is untypical of the library. The MS was unlikely to have been at St Amand before 883, when the abbey and its library were destroyed by Viking raiders. The monks returned after a few years and the library's holdings were rebuilt from 886 onwards under Abbot Hucbald. Hucbald himself provided 18 volumes, and further volumes seem to have been "scrounged" from around the region. MS 150 is likely to have been among these new accessions. Rediscovery In 1672 the manuscript was discovered in St Amand by the Benedictine monk Jean Mabillon, who commissioned a transcription, though, unfamiliar with Old High German, he was unable to appreciate its shortcomings (Willems later counted 125 errors). He forwarded this to the Strassburg jurist and antiquarian Johann Schilter. WHen he asked for a better transcription, the manuscript could no longer be found, presumably having gone astray when the abbey was hit by an earthquake in 1692. Schilter published the transcription in 1696 with a Latin translation, "together with an expression of his misgivings". (Mabillon published his own version in 1706.) Subsequent editions by Herder (1779), Bodmer (1780), and Lachmann (1825) were necessarily based on Mabillon's text, though attempts were made to identify and correct likely errors. In 1837 Hoffman von Fallersleben set out to trace the fate of the manuscript, which he discovered, uncatalogued, in the Valenciennes library. He immediately made and published a new transcription, along with the first transcription of the Sequence of Saint Eulalia, with a commentary by Jan Frans Willems. It was Jacob Grimm who in 1856 gave it the title of Ludwigslied. ==Excerpt==

The first four lines of the poem, with an English translation. ==Notes==

• • • • • The standard edition of the text. ==Bibliography==