Heinrich Wittenwiler was a late medieval Alemannic

Alemannic German

Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France and Italy...

 poet (lived roughly 1370 – 1420). He is the author of a satirical poem entitled The Ring (ca. 1410). He may be identical to an advocate to the bishop of Konstanz

Konstanz

Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...

, mentioned in 1395. Heinrich may be of the family of the former rulers of Wittenwil

Wittenwil

Wittenwil is a village and former municipality in the district of Frauenfeld in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland.In 1996 the municipality was incorporated into the larger, neighboring municipality Aadorf.-External links:*http://www.wittenwil.ch...

 in the Thurgau

Thurgau

Thurgau is a northeast canton of Switzerland. The population, , is . In 2007, there were a total of 47,390 who were resident foreigners. The capital is Frauenfeld.-History:...

, who became destitute and abandoned their castle in 1339. Throughout the early 15th century, most bearers of the name lived in the Toggenburg

Toggenburg

Toggenburg is the name given to the upper valley of the Thur River, in the Swiss Canton of St. Gallen. Currently, it is one of the eight constituencies into which the canton is divided....

, probably including one of the scribes of the Cgm 558

Cgm 558

The Cgm 558 is a convolution of two 15th century manuscripts with a total of 176 folia, bound together in the 16th century. It is kept at the Bavarian library in Munich...

.

The Ring is a poem of 9 lines, preserved in a single manuscript, apparently an autograph of Wittenwiler's. Each line is marked with either red or green ink. Wittenwiler in the prologue (verse 40f.) explains that the red line marks "serious" material, while the green marks törpelleben (lit. "village life", in the sense of "rustic

Rustic

Rustic can refer to:*rural*pastoralIn zoology:* Rustic moths, various noctuid moths of subfamilies Hadeninae and Noctuinae, including** The Rustic, * The Rustic , a brush-footed butterfly...

ity, peasantry, buffoonery"), but the actual division between 'red' and 'green' material is far from straightforward. The protagonists are Bertschi Triefnas and Mätzli Rüerenzumph, two peasant lovers of Lappenhausen, a fictitious village in the Black Forest

Black Forest

The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

. The handsome Bertschi woos the ugly Mätzli with knightly

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

 pretensions. The wedding involves a "peasant tournament

Tournament (medieval)

A tournament, or tourney is the name popularly given to chivalrous competitions or mock fights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance . It is one of various types of hastiludes....

" and escalates into wild brawling, leading to a war between villages and the destruction of Lappenhausen.

Editions

• Edmund Wießner, Leipzig 1931
• Bernhard Sowinski, Heinrich Wittenwiler, Der Ring. Text mit neuhochdeutscher Übersetzung und Kommentar, Stuttgart 1988.
• Bibliotheca Augustana, online edition