12th-Century European Vernacular Literatures

In the 12th century, an anonymous, book-length epic poem, El Cid, very loosely based on the exploits of an 11th-century Castilian knight, was written in Spanish, as well as one in French, La Chanson de Roland, very loosely based on the exploits of one of Charlemagne's generals, and one in German, das Nibelungenlied, very loosely based on some events in central Europe in the 5th century, mixed with some pre-Christian Germanic mythology. 

 

 Each, in a way, was either the beginning of literature in each of those languages, or was there very close to the beginning. I say "in a way," because creative literature including poems and fanciful stories had been written in each of those language for centuries beforehand. Still, an overall description or representative anthology of Spanish will tend to start with El Cid, of French with La Chanson of Roland, and although anthologies and descriptions of German literature tend to go back earlier than the the 12th century and the Nibelungenlied, perhaps they shouldn't always. Although it does so happen that a greater volume of poetry from before the 12th century has survived in German than in Spanish or French, to be honest, most of this very early German literature is of very little interest to anyone but specialists. El Cid, La Chanson de Roland and the Nibelungenlied are among the earliest works in each of their respective languages to be widely read and re-interpreted today. A continuous, conscious literature in each of those languages goes back directly to those three works, and not much further, if at all.

Why did Spanish, French and German literature each get going in such a big way around the same time, and why did a long anonymous quasi-historical epic poem play such a big part of this beginning in each language? I have no idea. I simply noticed that these three epic poems all appeared in the 12th century, and that there wasn't much by way of written literature in their languages before that. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's much more than a coincidence. I also have no idea whether these three anonymous poems started the great waves of literature which started in Spanish, French and German at that time -- or if they just happened to be a part of that sudden explosion. In any case, beginning in the 12th century, many poems were published in those languages with authors' names attached to them. 

Latin literature, including Latin poems and Latin epics, continued to be written in Spain, France and Germany, and would continue to be written there for a long, long time to come, just as they were written everywhere from Iceland to Poland and Sicily. The sudden appearance of Spanish, French and German literature in the 12th century may seem like a large-scale explosion to us today. From the point of view of those who read and wrote Latin at the time, I'm not sure whether it caused much of a ripple. It could be that many 12th-century Latin authors and scholars never even heard about the new vernacular literatures. Big things often grow from small beginnings, beginnings which come to seem much larger than they were at the time. And as far the general populations were concerned -- most of them couldn't read any language yet.

And it's very likely that some people know much more about all of this than I do. I just sort of accidentally noticed some similarities between a few poems.