Annolied

The Annolied is an Early Middle High German poem in praise of Archbishop Anno II of Cologne. Anno died in 1075 and the poem, probably written in the years immediately after his death, can be seen as part of a campaign for his canonisation, which was finally achieved in 1183. The modern title is taken from the heading given to it by Martin Opitz in his edition of the text: RHYTHMVS DE S. ANNONE COLONIENSI ARCHIEPISCOPO.

Dating

The principal point of reference for the dating is the mention of Mainz as the new place of coronation. This may refer to one of two coronations:

Rudolf of Rheinfelden was crowned anti-king in opposition to Henry IV, [Holy Roman Emperor|Henry IV] in Mainz on 15 March 1077. Rudolf was succeeded by Hermann of Salm, who was crowned in Goslar in December 1081.
Henry V was crowned in Mainz in January 1106.

Support for the earlier period 1077–81 comes from evidence that the Gesta Treverorum, which ends in 1106, drew on the Annolied. The Vita Annonis, a Latin life of Anno written in 1105, concentrates more on Anno's miracles, which suggests a later reworking of the story and an earlier date for the Annolied.

Content

The poem consists of three parts: the religious or spiritual history of the world and its salvation, from the creation to the time of Anno II; the secular history of the world up to the foundation of the German cities ; and finally the "Vita Annonis", or the biography of Archbishop Anno II.
A recent interpretation sees this threefold structure in the context of the poet's remark in the prologue that in the beginning God created two worlds, one spiritual and one earthly, and then he mixed these to create the first human, who, being both, was a "third world". The poem then charts spiritual and secular history and finally shows the two culminating in the biography of the man who stands at the centrepoint of history. This is a remarkable and highly original historiographical approach.
Parts of the Annolied were incorporated into the later Middle High German Kaiserchronik and the two works are often considered together.

German origin story

The poem includes sections on four German peoples, the Swabians, Bavarians, Saxons and Franks, a typical medieval Foundation myth story, telling in each case of their origins in the classical near east. The Annolied is the first text to give what later became quite a popular motif whereby the ancestors of the Bavarians migrated from Armenia.

Excerpt

Editions

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Literature