Medieval recs?

Next week, I'm going to start my first Ars Magica campaign as a game master/storyguide. I've played Ars Magica before, and many other roleplaying games, but this is only the second time I'm mastering a campaign, so it is a bit like tightrope walking. Ars Magica isn't a simple game, in part because it has extensive rules, in part because it requires each player to handle several characters, but also because the setting, Europa Mythica, is very historical - being a medievalist would be handy. Well, I actually study Germanistik, so I can read Middle High German and Old High German, and I've read some texts from the era, so I'm not completely lost, but I'd still like to get myself more immersed in the period. Medieval (13th century is ideal) recs, anyone? It doesn't have to be *from* the period.

At the moment I'm reading the Nibelungenlied, which is pretty much the archetypical fantasy saga - with a knight and a dragon and a dwarf and a magic sword, an Islandic amazon and some evil guys. My heart broke a little at the bit where the male "heroes" basically rape and de-power Brunhilde, the warrior queen, because she was simply awesome beforehand. The scene where she ties up her amorous husband with her belt and hangs him on the wall by a hook for the whole night while she sleeps in the bed is priceless, as is the bit where her husband-to-be says, "Leave your money and stuff at home, I'm rich!" and she basically says, "No way, I'm going to keep my stuff and my people and by the way, your guys are squandering my goods so I'm just going to oversee this myself!"

I don't quite find the story to be misogynistic - the narrator actually is actually doing a good job portraying the female characters, which is a rarity in medieval texts (where characterisation is... well, not very evolved). The male characters judge Brunhilde, but the narrator doesn't. Gunther, her husband, is portrayed as a cheater who constantly needs the hero Siegfried's help to do anything at all, and Siegfried would do *anything* to get his chosen bride, Kriemhild. Siegfried, I find, is part straightforward fighter, and part trickster-hero, which I didn't expect. I'm also amused at the narrator's preoccupation with their clothes and pretty armour (then men constantly go to the women and demand to be given pretty clothes so their allies will be impressed). I wonder if there are any theories that the Nibelungenlied was written by a woman, since we don't know the author? Whoever they were, I'm impressed.

Medieval recs?

Next week, I'm going to start my first Ars Magica campaign as a game master/storyguide. I've played Ars Magica before, and many other roleplaying games, but this is only the second time I'm mastering a campaign, so it is a bit like tightrope walking. Ars Magica isn't a simple game, in part because it has extensive rules, in part because it requires each player to handle several characters, but also because the setting, Europa Mythica, is very historical - being a medievalist would be handy. Well, I actually study Germanistik, so I can read Middle High German and Old High German, and I've read some texts from the era, so I'm not completely lost, but I'd still like to get myself more immersed in the period. Medieval (13th century is ideal) recs, anyone? It doesn't have to be *from* the period.

At the moment I'm reading the Nibelungenlied, which is pretty much the archetypical fantasy saga - with a knight and a dragon and a dwarf and a magic sword, an Islandic amazon and some evil guys. My heart broke a little at the bit where the male "heroes" basically rape and de-power Brunhilde, the warrior queen, because she was simply awesome beforehand. The scene where she ties up her amorous husband with her belt and hangs him on the wall by a hook for the whole night while she sleeps in the bed is priceless, as is the bit where her husband-to-be says, "Leave your money and stuff at home, I'm rich!" and she basically says, "No way, I'm going to keep my stuff and my people and by the way, your guys are squandering my goods so I'm just going to oversee this myself!"

I don't quite find the story to be misogynistic - the narrator actually is actually doing a good job portraying the female characters, which is a rarity in medieval texts (where characterisation is... well, not very evolved). The male characters judge Brunhilde, but the narrator doesn't. Gunther, her husband, is portrayed as a cheater who constantly needs the hero Siegfried's help to do anything at all, and Siegfried would do *anything* to get his chosen bride, Kriemhild. Siegfried, I find, is part straightforward fighter, and part trickster-hero, which I didn't expect. I'm also amused at the narrator's preoccupation with their clothes and pretty armour (then men constantly go to the women and demand to be given pretty clothes so their allies will be impressed). I wonder if there are any theories that the Nibelungenlied was written by a woman, since we don't know the author? Whoever they were, I'm impressed.