Alongside Till Eulenspiegel, the Schildbürger chapbooks are the best-known collection of the prankster type in German literary tradition.
The first edition was printed anonymously; the title page gives the "author's name" as a subset of the full alphabet.
[a] Sources used include Rollwagenbüchlein by Jörg Wickram (1555), Gartengesellschaft by Jacob Frey (1557) and Katzipori by Michael Lindener (1558), Nachtbüchlein by Valentin Schuhmann (1559) and the Zimmern Chronicle (1566).
The 2010 Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle contains a fictitious entry about a supposed Chronica sive Historia de populo Schildorum.
Julius von Voss wrote a comical novel Die Schildbürger: ein komischer Roman (1823).