Prior to the middle of the twelfth century Vienna appears to have been
a town of little importance. In fact, the precise time when the
name _Wien_ first occurs is in dispute. Giesebrecht discovered it
in documents purporting to date from the beginning of the eleventh
century, but the genuineness of the documents is doubted by
most historians. The town is mentioned several times in the
_Nibelungenlied_, and described as existing in the times of Etzel
(Attila, king of the Huns). But this is undoubtedly the invention of
popular fancy. The _Nibelungenlied_ was put into its present shape
between the middle and the end of the twelfth century. The poet has
changed more than one feature of the original saga, has blended, not
unskillfully, primitive Teutonic myth with historic personages and
events of the early Middle Ages, and has interpolated sayings and
traditions of his own times. The Viennese of the twelfth century
sought, with pardonable vanity, to invest their town with the
sacredness of antiquity. But we can scarcely allow their claims. On
the contrary, we must deny all continuity between the Vindobona of
the fourth and the Wien of the twelfth century. The Roman castrum
disappeared, the Babenberg capital appeared, but between the two there
is an unexplored gulf. Yet this incipient Vienna, although only
the capital of a ducal family that had a hard fight at times for
existence, holds an honorable position in the annals of German
literature. The Babenberg dukes were generous patrons of the Muses.
Their court was frequented by minnesingers and knights-errant.
Their praises were sung by Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von
Lichtenstein and others. Walther, in his ode to Duke Leopold, has
almost anticipated Shakespeare, when he sings--

His largess, like the gentle rain,