Titurel is a fragmentary Middle High German

Middle High German

Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...

 romance

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

 written by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...

 after 1217. The fragments which survive indicate that the story would have served as a prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

 to Wolfram's earlier work, Parzival

Parzival

Parzival is a major medieval German romance by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the Middle High German language. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, is itself largely based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, the Story of the Grail and mainly centers on the Arthurian...

, expanding on the stories of characters from that work and on the theme of the Holy Grail

Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...

. Titurel was continued by a later poet named Albrecht, who tied the story together in a work generally known as Jüngere Titurel (Younger Titurel).

History

Wolfram's Parzival was an adaptation of the unfinished French romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail

Perceval, the Story of the Grail

Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chrétien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chrétien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders...

, by Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

. Titurel provides the back-stories

Back-story

A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...

 of Wolfram's characters, principally the wounded Grail-king Titurel and the tragic lovers Sigune and Schionatulander. Titurel was written some time after 1217, as indicated by its mention of the death of Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia, which occurred that year. It survives in three fragments and in Albrecht's Jüngere Titurel. The fragments primarily deal with the love between the young knight Schionatulander and the princess Sigune, the granddaughter of Titurel and a cousin of Parzival

Percival

Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his story is allotted to the historical Peredur...

. Like Parzival the poems focus on the relationship between secular and spiritual obligations.

Jüngere Titurel

The Albrecht who wrote Jüngere Titurel is generally presumed to be Albrecht von Scharfenberg. He completed his continuation around 1272. Albrecht synthesized the fragments into a cohesive narrative and expanded it to over 6300 lines. He adopts Wolfram's narrative persona, and due to this the work was assumed to be Wolfram's own for many years.