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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]