The Kaiserchronik (ca. 1147), though written before the emergence of
courtly narrative literature, presents to its audience a wide pool of plot-types and
narrative possibilities. It is, however, still legitimated and structured by the chronicle
genre. From a narratological point of view, the text might be described as a cycle of
stories creating and showing coherence on three levels: (1) level of the cycle, being
integrated by the hermeneutics of the prologue; (2) level of the chapters, where the
(often tenuous) unifying element of the disparate matters and genres is the vita of
the respective Emperor; (3) level of episodes within the chapters, here exemplified
by the fable of the Stag without Heart (Severe-Adelgêr-chapter). In this way, the
Kaiserchronik offers a model not only for a historicized concept of narratology
prior to the beginnings of German courtly literature, but also for a more specific
narratology of historiographic narration.

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• Kohärenzstiftung auf vielen Ebenen: Narratologie und Genrefragen in der Kaiserchronik