Economics of Virtue in Dietrich von der Glezze’s der borte: A Wife Errant and a Husband Caught

Abstract

This article is a Gender Theory-informed reading of a thirteenth-century German narrative entitled der borte. Der borte (1270–1290) was written by the little known, Dietrich von der Glezze and it deals with familial transgressions, perversions of knightly virtues, as well as same-sex physical encounters. Previous research maintains that this short verse narrative has not received much scholarly attention due to its queerness. However, I suggest that what has not received much attention is not the small measure of homoeroticism that is featured in it but rather the concept of desire quantification and how it justifies convention transgression. I claim the accepted view of der borte is week and prejudicial to an obviously heterosexual text. The core intent of the text has been missed by current scholarship, where the concept of desire quantification and how it is used to justify transgressions of social and religious conventions is the focus of Dietrich’s narrative.