Near the end of his work (line 3737) the poet of the thirty-eight-hundred-line Rede vom heiligen Glouben (Tract Concerning [Our] Sacred Faith, between 1140 and 1160) identifies himself as "ich arme Hartman" (I, poor Hartmann). The meaning of the fairly common epithet arm, a translation of the Latin miser, however, is not poor in the sense of destitute; rather, it is a highly stylized part of a rather traditional medieval humility formula in which the author names himself so that his audience might include him in their prayers to God (lines 3731-3742). The poet is assuming the role of a sinful, unworthy man who is trying to win the goodwill of the audience. Perhaps the best-known example of this type of humility formula is found in Hartmann von Aue's Der arme Heinrich (circa 1191).

To the name can be added the further biographical conjecture that Hartmann was the author of a work...