The Zimmern chronicle : nobility, memory, and self-representation in sixteenth-century Germany

This volume brings the history of the Zimmern family to English readers.

The author not only offers a new solution to the problem of the text's authorship, but examines the chronicle in the context of broader current debates, including: the problem of the relationship of the early modern German nobility to the state; memory studies; and self-representation.

Bastress-Dukehart first relates the history of the chronicle and introduces the long-standing mystery surrounding the text's authorship.

Next she draws attention to the importance of inheritance and the obligation for ancestral memorialization that property devolution demands.

She then sets the stage for the history the chronicle tells, recounting a feud between the Zimmern family and the more powerful Werdenberg family and examining how in general feuds helped to shape the German nobility's political relationships and personal values.

Thus, Bastress-Dukehart portrays the "Zimmern Chronicle" as far more than just a family history. She argues that because the Zimmern authors filled their work with legends, sexual tales, and farcical stories of daily life in Southwest Germany, they proved themselves adept at offering their readers puzzles to solve, of sparking imagination and stimulating curiosity.

In short, they developed a number of memory devices intended to make certain that their audience, once engaged, would read their work to its conclusion.