KÖNIG ROTHER IS THE EARLIEST of the works that comprise the genre traditionally designated as the minstrel epic, Spielmannsepik, anonymous verse narratives that were once believed to have been recited by a minstrel (Middle High German spil[e]man), either itinerant or resident, before a courtly audience. Alone among contemporary epics of the twelfth century, these works show no hint of French influence, as do, for example, the classically inspired Eneide (Aeneas, ca. 1175–86) by Heinrich von Veldeke or Pfaffe Lamprecht's Alexander (ca. 1150), or Konrad's Rolandslied (Song of Roland, ca. 1170), a chanson de geste. They seem to have been an entirely indigenous development in German literature, based on folkloric tradition that “antedates the fashion of French romance” (Andersson 1987, 68). The works generally included among the minstrel epics, in addition to König Rother, are Orendel, St. Oswald, Salman und Morolf, and, usually, Herzog Ernst. There is, however, no known documentary evidence to support the assertion that they were composed by minstrels, nor that there was, at the time of their composition, a distinct class or guild of minstrels who were regarded or who regarded themselves not merely as entertainers and reciters, but as composers of epics (Naumann 1924/77, 135–37). The validity of both the terms “minstrel” and “minstrel epic” in this context, and exactly what they mean, has been a subject of scholarly controversy ever since the term Spielmann was first used by Wilhelm Grimm — in his 1808 essay “Über die Entstehung der altdeutschen Poesie und ihr Verhältnis zu der nordischen” (Concerning the Emergence of Old German Poesy and Its Relationship to the Nordic) — to designate the reciter of such tales.