Pfaffe Konrad's Das Rolandslied (Song of Roland, circa 1172), an adaptation of the Old French Chanson de Roland (circa 1100), is one of the earliest large-scale works of secular epic poetry in Middle High German and stands on the threshold of the great phase of vernacular narrative literature at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries. It is the first major treatment in Germany of the theme of Crusade; with this theme, and with its exposition of Carolingian history-the theocratic kingship of Charlemagne and his imperial holy war to conquer and convert the heathen-it incorporates key ideological concerns of the German Empire in the age of Friedrich I (Barbarossa). As phaffe (cleric or ordained priest), Konrad belongs to an important category of clerical writers who had a vital role in the emergence of vernacular literature in the twelfth century and in the genesis of the...