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It ought to be an ongoing effort by all scholars/researchers to question the validity, legitimacy, and purposes of their own discipline because we live in an ever-changing world. This also applies to the field of medieval studies that faces considerable difficulties and challenges today with declining numbers of students enrolling in respective classes and lacking support by university administrators. This study begins with a general reflection on where we are today in terms of justifying the humanities at large, that is, of the study of literature particularly, and hence of medieval literature. Then this paper focuses on two universal themes, love and tolerance. While love has been associated with the courtly world since the twelfth century, tolerance does not seem to fit within the medieval context. However, the discussion of tolerance can be utilized as a catalyst for further investigations of medieval culture and literature within the framework of modern and postmodern responses to the Middle Ages. The exploration of this theme as it emerged already at that time offers intriguing opportunities to make the study of medieval literature relevant and important for us today.

When medieval poets began to reflect on love, it was, from the beginning, a highly complex and problematic phenomenon, mostly determined by frustration, contradictions, and a lack of fulfilment. Highlighting particularly two major texts, one in Latin, the other in Middle High German, this paper brings to light the critically important element of discourse as part of the public performance of theoretical and practical reflections of love in the Middle Ages. Since courtly love thus has to be defined as a literary medium for courtly debates about its own identity, it makes perfect sense that we hardly ever hear about actual individual satisfaction and the realisation of erotic dreams. Instead, the overarching intention by medieval poets was to problematise the issue of love and to present its paradoxes, difficulties, and conflicts through the literary performance, not to present a maudlin, sentimental story with a simple happy end. As we realise here, the debate about proper attitudes towards the other gender, the analysis of values and virtues all contribute to the realisation of the discourse itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late Middle Ages, aristocratic and urban circles competed against each other for esteem, legitimacy, authority, and fame. Family chronicles gained significant importance in that process, but we can also identify a definite discourse on dynastic interests in historiographical terms in contemporary literature. This study illuminates in three cases how individual authors conceived of the notion of dynasty and traced the rise and/or fall of their protagonists. Even in the case of an utter demise, the topic itself, the emergence and development of a dynasty, appealed to the wider readership, as reflected in some of the major late medieval German prose narratives and novels. The concept of a mythical origin of the family was particularly attractive, but also the miraculous rise from a low social status to the rank of a king, unheard of in reality, of course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social historians have often overlooked the evidence of popular literature as a reflection of common cultural conditions and the history of everyday life. But if we want to understand sixteenth-century society, such as in the Holy Roman Empire where the Protestant Reformation had brought about major upheavals, we would be well advised to consider the value of jest narratives that appealed to wider audiences, and this well into the seventeenth century. One of the issues in recent social-historical research has been gender relationships, whether we think of love, sexuality, marriage, or divorce. To shed light on this concern, relevant for all adults throughout early modern society, this article examines the statements about women and their relationships with their husbands in the Lalebuch (first printed in 1597) to gain a better understanding of the dominant patriarchal concepts and their challenges. Even though the anonymous author did not intend, as far as we can tell, to provide specific information about the gender relationship, in the background of the narrative we can discover numerous references of relevance for the exploration of the everyday life situation at the end of the sixteenth century concerning women's roles within marriage and within their community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]