Ulrich von Liechtenstein (c. 1200 – 1275)
Anyone who’s seen the 2001 film “A Knight’s Tale” might remember the protagonist William Thatcher, played by the late, great Heath Ledger, taking on the name of Ulrich von Liechtenstein when he assumes a knight’s identity and starts entering into jousts. Despite the cameo appearance of several historical figures, particularly the English poet and composer of “The Canterbury Tales”, Geoffrey Chaucer, the film is neither historical nor autobiographical. However, in introducing even a fictional von Liechtenstein into a story that revolves around love, jousting, and chivalric honour, it pays fitting tribute to the real figure.
Ulrich von Liechtenstein was born into an aristocratic family in Styria, modern-day Austria. He received his accolade—the shoulder tap with a sword or, more traditionally, a rather hard strike across the face that conferred knighthood—at the betrothal ceremony of the Duke of Austria’s daughter. He then served as an administrator in his home duchy of Liechtenstein. Like all knights of the age he saw battle, fighting for Philip of Sponheim, the Archbishop of Salzburg, who had been deposed by Pope Alexander IV. The opposing forces met in 1252 at the Battle of Sachsenburg, and Philip’s forces won a decisive victory, with Ulrich being one of the seven men charged with mediating the ensuing peace.
Rather than his knightly career, it was through being one of the Minnesänger, a group of German nobles renowned for composing verse poetry, that he is better remembered. He wrote three works in High Middle German dispensing advice for how a knight should live by the chivalric code and, more famously, how to win over a lady through noble deeds His first work, the Frauendienst (Service of the Lady) is often regarded as autobiographical, and essentially outlines how in the guises of various legendary figures he roamed the lands breaking lances and winning jousts in order to please his lady and bring her honour.
Winning jousts alone wasn’t enough for his demanding damsel, however, and the indignities von Lichtenstein had to suffer were so extreme that we have to question how much of what we’re told was true. At one stage he had to dress as a leper; at another he had to endure being urinated on by a night watchman as he lay in wait outside his lady’s castle. Despite being physically unattractive (he had a hare lip, we are told) he did finally win her around by signing up to an event guaranteed to impress any medieval lady of high renown: a Crusade.