Ulrich von Zatzikhoven

Who is Ulrich von Zatzikhoven?

Ulrich von Zatzikhoven was the author of the Middle High German Arthurian romance Lanzelet.

Ulrich's name and his place of origin are only known definitively from the work itself. However, it is generally accepted that Ulrich is the same person as a lay priest from Lommis in the canton of Thurgau by the name of Uolricus de Cecinchoven, who occurs as a witness to a deed of gift dated March 29, 1214, executed by the family of the Counts of Toggenburg in favor of the monastery of St. Peterzell.

The Middle High German verse romance Lanzelet is Ulrich's only known work, and is an imitation of an unknown Old French Arthurian romance. The hero of the work is Sir Lancelot, whose story had also been told a little earlier by Chrétien de Troyes in his Le Chevalier de la Charette. However, the content of Ulrich's Lancelot romance differs considerably from that of Chrétien's. Ulrich himself calls his model daz welsche buoch von Lanzelete, and claims that it came to Germany in the luggage of the Anglo-Norman nobleman Hugh de Morville, one of the hostages for King Richard the Lionheart. Richard was imprisoned by the Staufen Emperor Henry VI from December 21, 1192 to February 4, 1194, and Ulrich would have had to become acquainted with the book in this period. By extension, it is presumed that Lanzelet was produced not long after 1193 in an unknown place.