Heinrich von Ofterdingen

Heinrich von Ofterdingen was a Middle High German lyric poet and Minnesinger mentioned in the 13th-century epic of the Sängerkrieg (minstrel contest) on the Wartburg.

Defeated by cunning he obtains the permission to call in the legendary sorcerer Klingsor von Ungerlant (Hungary) to his relief.

Several versions of the Sängerkrieg, partially divergent, were rendered in later Liederhandschrift manuscripts, among them the Codex Manesse; it was depicted as a historic event already by medieval chroniclers such as Dietrich of Apolda.

The younger vulgate version of the Laurin poem about Dietrich von Bern (Theoderic the Great) ascribes the authorship to Heinrich.

After the Sängerkrieg was republished by the Swiss author Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698–1783), the medieval tale about poetry and society became popular with Romantic writers.