Rudolf von Ems is one of the most important figures in the literary history of thirteenth-century Germany. Like his predecessors Heinrich von Veldeke, Hartmann von Aue, and Gottfried von Straßburg, whose work of accommodating the classical heritage to the vernacular he saw himself continuing, Rudolf was skilled in the school-based techniques of rhetorical and dialectical composition. His work shows that he had received a thorough grounding in the subjects that comprised the trivium and that he was well versed in the fundamentals of theology. He was a self-consciously literary author who was regarded by his contemporaries and successors as a master, and his texts continued to be read and copied in unusually large numbers for more than two centuries after his death.

According to his own account in Willehalm von Orlens (circa 1235-1243), he was a ministeriale (members of the unfree nobility) in the service of...