Theuerdank

Theuerdank (Teuerdank, Tewerdanck, Teuerdannckh) is a poetic work composed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, (1486-1519) in German which tells the fictionalised and romanticised story of his journey to marry Mary of Burgundy in 1477. The published poem was accompanied by 118 woodcuts designed by the artists Leonhard Beck, Hans Burgkmair, Hans Schäufelein and others. Its newly designed blackletter typeface was influential.

The full title in the first (1517) edition is Die geverlicheiten vnd einsteils der geschichten des loblichen streytparen vnd hochberümbten helds vnd ritters herr Tewrdannckhs ("The adventures and part of the stories of the praiseworthy, valiant and most famous hero and knight, lord Teuerdank").

Maximilian I, and his father Frederick III, were part of what was to become a long line of Holy Roman Emperors from the House of Habsburg. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans in 1486 and succeeded his father on his death in 1493.

During his reign Maximilian commissioned a number of humanist scholars and artists to assist him complete a series of projects, in different art forms, intended to glorify for posterity his life and deeds and those of his Habsburg ancestors. He referred to these projects as Gedechtnus ("memorial"), and included a series of stylised autobiographical works, of which Theuerdank was one, the others being the poem Freydal and the chivalric novel Weisskunig.

Published in 1517, Theuerdank was probably written by Maximilian himself, or alternatively may be attributable, albeit under Maximilian's close direction, to his chaplain, Melchior Pfintzing or his secretary, Marx Treitzsauerwein. Giulia Bartrum says that "the text was composed and versified by Sigismund von Dietrichstein and Marx Treitzsauerwein. It was edited and prepared for publication" by Pfintzing, and the text was finished by 1514.

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