Dietrich von Bern

Common card · No. 218569

Dietrich von Bern is the name of a character in Germanic heroic legend who originated as a legendary version of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great. (Theodoric and Dietrich are Gothic and High German versions of the same name, meaning "ruler of the people".) In the legends, Dietrich is a king ruling from Bern (Verona) who was forced into exile with the Huns under Etzel (Attila) by his evil uncle Ermenrich (Ermanaric). The differences between the known life of Theodoric and the picture of Dietrich in the surviving legends are usually attributed to a long-standing oral tradition that continued into the sixteenth century. Most notably, Theodoric was an invader rather than the rightful king of Italy and was born shortly after the death of Attila and a hundred years after the death of the historical Gothic king Ermanaric. Differences between Dietrich and Theodoric were already noted in the Early Middle Ages and led to a long-standing criticism of the oral tradition as false.

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