Klage und memoria

Abstract The intertextual comparison of Laudine and Sigune in Wolframs ›Parzival‹ reveals the conflict between the medieval Christian ideal of chaste widowhood and the constraints of feudal power relations. While Sigune is conceived as a character who, in her perfect execution, aestheticizes the Christian ideal in the literary text, Laudine’s remarriage shows how the demands of this ideal cannot be reconciled with the reality of women in positions of authority. At the same time, their behavior reflects the requirement placed on widows to preserve the memory of the deceased, which arose with the establishment of the Christian ideal. The consequences of the two female characters’ behavior for their deceased husbands show how closely the question of the legitimacy of a widow remarrying is linked to the associated act of remembering or forgetting the deceased. This contrast is also reflected in the narratological function of mourning widows in literary texts, whose portrayal always also represents the mourned.