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The Gothic King Theoderic the Great was remembered in Germanic legend as Dietrich von Bern (Bern is the Middle High German name for Verona, where Theoderic had one of his residences). Dietrich figures in a number of surviving works, and it must be assumed that these draw on long-standing oral tradition. The majority of poems about Dietrich/Theoderic are composed in Middle High German, and are generally divided by modern scholars into historical (German: ''historische Dietrichepik'') and fantastical (German: either ''märchenhafte'' or ''aventiurehafte Dietrichepik''). The historical poems can loosely be connected with the life of the historical Theoderic and concern his expulsion from Verona by his uncle Ermenrich (Ermanaric) and his attempts to regain his kingdom with the help of Etzel (Attila). The fantastical poems concern his battles with dwarfs, dragons, giants, and other mythical beings, as well as other heroes such as Siegfried. In addition to these two categories of poems, he appears as a supporting character in some poems such as the ''Nibelungenlied'' and ''Biterolf und Dietleib''. == Dietrich von Bern versus Theoderic the Great == Despite the identification of Dietrich von Bern with Theoderic the Great throughout the entire Middle Ages, the two figures are vastly different. As the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1911) states: "the legendary history of Dietrich differs so widely from the life of Theoderic that it has been suggested that the two were originally unconnected." The most noticeable differences are: * Dietrich is portrayed as an exile from an Italian kingdom which is rightfully his. Theoderic, in contrast, was an invader. * The historical Theoderic's capital was Ravenna, not Verona; Ravenna does, however, feature prominently in the poems. * Theoderic's historical opponent Odoacer is replaced by Dietrich's uncle Ermenrich in all poems except for the Hildebrandslied. Odoacer is also mentioned in one version of the ''Eckenlied''. * Dietrich is the contemporary of Etzel (Attila the Hun, died 453) and of Ermenrich (Ermanaric, died 376). The assumed real Theoderic was born shortly ''after'' Attila's death and well after Ermanaric's. * Theoderic the Great was an Arian and despised by the Church for a persecution resulting in the deaths of Boethius, Symmachus, and Pope John I. Theoderic's death shortly after these killings was seen as divine retribution and in a church tradition dating at least from Gregory the Great's ''Dialogues'', Pope John and Symmachus's souls were said to have dropped Theoderic's soul into Mount Etna, to suffer there until the end of days. Heroic traditions make no mention of these events, and generally present Dietrich as an upstanding Christian, though hints of influence from church tradition can be found in allusions to Dietrich's father possibly being the devil, his fiery breath, and allusions to Dietrich's ride to hell at the end of his life. * Dietrich has many mythological features: he fights against supernatural beings and can himself breathe fire when angry. Numerous theories have been proposed to explain these differences. The change from invader to exile is sometimes explained as an attempt to justify Theoderic's taking possession of Italy. Attila and Ermanaric as contemporaries is part of synchronization, a phenomenon frequently encountered in oral traditions. This can also be seen in the way that other heroes such as Wayland and Witige have been drawn onto stories about Dietrich. An alternative theory was proposed by the late Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg: he reinspected the Old Swedish version of the Thidreks saga, a Norse compendium of German legends about Dietrich, for the historical information it supposedly contained, and firmly believed in its topographical accuracy. He theorized that these sources, which he regarded as being quite old, cannot refer to Theoderic the Great of the Goths, whose movements are moderately well known, mainly because of topographical contradictions. Ritter-Schaumburg proposed that their narration relates instead to a contemporary of the famous Goth, who bore the same name, rendered ''Didrik'' in Old Swedish. Moreover, he identified ''Berne'' as Bonn to which was ascribed, in the medieval age, an alternative (Latinized) name ''Verona'' of unknown origin. According to Ritter-Schaumburg, Dietrich lived as a Frankish petty king in Bonn.〔Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg: Dietrich von Bern. König zu Bonn. Herbig: Munich / Berlin 1982〕 This theory has found much opposition by other scholars.〔See, for example, the critical review by Henry Kratz, in ''The German Quarterly'' 56/4 (November 1983), pp. 636–638.〕 Another modern author, Rolf Badenhausen, starts from Ritter-Schaumburg's approach but ends up with a different result. He claims ''Berne'', where Thidrek/Didrik started his rise, to be identical with Varne, south of Aachen, the Roman ''Verona cisalpina'', in the district of the northern Rhine/Eiffel lands. Thidrek/Didrik could be identified with Theuderich son of Clovis I, a royal Frank mentioned with approval by Gregory of Tours and in Fredegar's royal Frankish chronicle. This theory is rejected by the majority of scholars, who see both theories as based on an overestimation of the exactness of history as preserved in oral traditions.〔http://www.badenhausen.net/harz/svava/MerovingSvava.htm i.a. dealing with scholarly identifications of ''Dietrich von Bern'' with Frankish king Theuderic I.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Legends about Theoderic the Great」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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