Wernher der Gartenaere and the Arthurian Romance: The Intertextuality of Helmbrecht’s Cap

The meaning of the Middle High German poem Helmbrecht, the sole known work of the poet Wernher der Gartenaere, is straightforward and transparent. The young Helmbrecht, son and grandson of peasants (both also named Helmbrecht), aspires to leave his lowly yet ordered and reasonably comfortable life in the country. Against the advice of his father, but with the misguided encouragement of his mother and sister, he takes up with a band of robbers, and after a short career of violence, theft and extortion he is caught, tried and condemned to mutilation by the forces of justice; finally he is seized and hanged by a group of peasants whom he has previously despoiled. He has been punished for attempting to overturn the social order.