Career
As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry. Little is known of Wolfram"s life. This and a number of geographical references have resulted in the present-day Wolframs-Eschenbach, until 1917 Obereschenbach, near Ansbach in present-day Bavaria, being officially designated as his birthplace.
However, the evidence is circumstantial and not without problems - there are at least four other places named Eschenbach in Bavaria, and Wolframs-Eschenbach was not part of the Duchy of Bavaria (Altbayern) in Wolfram"s time.
The arms shown in the Manesse manuscript come from the imagination of a 14th-century artist, drawing on the figure of the Red Knight in Parzival, and have no heraldic connection with Wolfram. Wolfram"s work indicates a number of possible patrons (most reliably Hermann I of Thuringia), which suggests that he served at a number of courts during his life.
In his Parzival he claims he is illiterate and recorded the work by dictation, though the claim is treated with scepticism by scholars. The 84 surviving manuscripts of Parzival, both complete and fragmentary, indicate the immense popularity of Wolfram"s major work in the following two centuries.
Willehalm, with 78 manuscripts, comes not far behind.
Many of these include a continuation written in the 1240s by Ulrich von Türheim under the title Rennewart. The unfinished Titurel was taken up and expanded around 1272 by a poet named Albrecht, who is generally presumed to be Albrecht von Scharfenberg and who adopts the narrative persona of Wolfram. This work is referred to as the Jüngere Titurel (Younger Titurel).
The modern rediscovery of Wolfram begins with the publication of a translation of Parzival in 1753 by the Swiss scholar Johann Jakob Bodmer.
Parzival was the main source Richard Wagner used when writing the libretto to his opera, Parsifal. Wolfram himself appears as a character in another Wagner opera, Tannhäuser.
In Hugo Pratt"s comic book The Secret Rose, Corto Maltese speaks to a mural painting of Wolfram. In this book Corto is searching for the Holy Grail.