The Birth of the Legend
Theoderic of Verona is the heroic-legendary transfiguration of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic the Great (c. 453/454–526 CE), whose 1500th death anniversary falls this year. In the words of Joachim Heinzle (1999, p. 1), Theoderic belongs to a vast body of narrative traditions from Central and North-Western Europe and forms one of the most important subjects of the Germanic heroic tradition.
Although the capital of Theoderic’s kingdom was Ravenna — conquered by the Goths in 493 — the legend associates him with the place-name “Verona,” known in Middle High German as Bern, hence Dietrich von Bern (and in Old Norse, Þiðrekr af Bern). Various explanations have been proposed for this connection. Theoderic won one of his crucial battles against Odoacer near Verona in 489, and even after settling in Ravenna, the city remained one of his preferred residences. His commitment to urban and architectural development, including the construction of walls and a royal palace (now lost), points in this direction. One of the most significant traces of Ostrogothic presence in Verona is provided by the so-called Gotica Veronensia, a very important surviving piece of Gothic-language evidence. In the margins of a Latin manuscript dating to the late fifth or early sixth century, now preserved in the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona (Cod. Ver. LI [49]), a number of annotations in Gothic language and script can be found (cf. Falluomini 2018; Zironi 2009). These glosses reflect the exegetical activity of the Ostrogothic clergy, who adhered to Arian Christianity. Although Arianism had been condemned as heresy at the Council of Nicaea (325), it continued to spread among the Goths and other Germanic peoples. Religious tensions played a role in the decline of the Ostrogothic kingdom during the final years of Theoderic’s reign, especially after Emperor Justin I (450–527) launched persecutions against Arian clergy. In response, Theoderic sent Pope John I to Constantinople to intercede on behalf of the Goths, but the mission failed. According to the sources, the pope was imprisoned and died in captivity. Around the same time, the senators Boethius and Symmachus were accused of treason, imprisoned, and executed. Theoderic himself died in Ravenna in 526, and with him Gothic culture entered a gradual decline. In 568, after the Gothic War (535–553) had restored Byzantine control over Italy, the Lombards arrived. As the first Germanic group to settle in Italy after the Ostrogoths, they may have preserved their predecessors’ cultural memory. Indeed, they may have contributed to linking the Gothic king to Verona, helping to spread the legend north of the Alps.
Two main strands emerge in the later reception of Theoderic. In Catholic circles, he is portrayed as a heretic and a tyrant—a view that becomes firmly established in clerical and historiographical writings and reaches its fullest expression in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues (593–594), where it is said that Symmachus and Pope John cast Theoderic into a volcano near Lipari. This negative image reflects the religious and political tensions of his final years, when he was held responsible for the deaths of the pope and the senators. While imprisoned in Pavia, Boethius wrote the Consolation of Philosophy, a work that would have a lasting impact on Western thought. In it, Philosophy — personified as a severe lady — guides the philosopher from his suffering toward a higher understanding of reality. The text circulated widely in Latin and was soon translated into Germanic vernaculars, including Old High German by Notker III of St Gall (c. 1000) and Old English in a version attributed to Alfred of Wessex. These translations often include prologues that recount Gothic history and portray Theoderic as a heretical ruler and persecutor of Christians. Other sources, however, emphasise the more positive aspects of his reign. Agnellus of Ravenna (9th century) reports that Charlemagne had an equestrian statue of Theoderic moved from Ravenna to Aachen, an indication of the king’s enduring prestige as a model ruler. The memory of such a monument also appears in the North, for instance, in the runic inscription on the Rök stone (Sweden, 9th century), where Theoderic is depicted as a mounted warrior.
Later German chronicles treat the legend in different ways: sometimes incorporating it as history, sometimes rejecting it as fiction. Both tendencies can be seen in the Kaiserchronik (c. 1150), one of the earliest works of German historiography, which includes a legendary account of the Gothic king while attempting to align it with historical chronology.
Theoderic and the Germanic Heroic Tradition
In the Germanic heroic tradition, Theoderic appears very early in foundational texts. One example is the Hildebrandslied (ed. and Italian trans. Zironi 2019), copied at Fulda in the early ninth century in the margins of a Latin theological manuscript. This is the earliest surviving example of German heroic poetry and one of the oldest in the entire Germanic cultural sphere. The poem recounts the confrontation between the old warrior Hildebrand, a loyal companion of Theoderic, and Hadubrand, a young warrior serving in Odoacer’s army. In the young man, the older warrior recognises his own son, whom he had been forced to abandon thirty years earlier to follow Theoderic into exile from his enemy, Odoacer. The text already contains, in nuce, several key elements of what would later become the Theoderic legend, shaped through processes of synchronisation, simplification, and personalisation (Haymes & Samples 1996). Theoderic thus becomes a king forced into a long exile after an enemy has usurped his kingdom. The historical adversary, still present in the poem, is later replaced by Ermanaric, a Gothic ruler who died in 376; in the legend, he becomes the hero’s cruel uncle, transforming a political conflict into a dynastic struggle over inheritance and usurpation. The poem also shows that Theoderic and Hildebrand find refuge at Attila’s court. Although Attila had died in the same years as Theoderic’s birth, the association between the Hun king and the Gothic ruler becomes a stable feature of the legend, reflecting both the memory of earlier alliances and the positive image of Attila in Germanic tradition. For this reason, he is often portrayed in later literature as a generous ruler and a loyal ally who assists Theoderic in his attempts to regain the kingdom of Verona.
As can be observed from the earliest stages of the legend, the literary tradition around Theoderic reaches its fullest development in German and Nordic contexts. Theoderic plays an important role in the second part of the Nibelungenlied (cf. Bertagnolli 2020), where he appears at Attila’s court together with Hildebrand. His portrayal in the poem has given rise to differing interpretations, but the most convincing reading presents him as a prudent and suffering ruler, reluctant to engage in violence for its own sake, inclined toward diplomacy, and always attentive to the safety of his men. The events that concern him — namely exile and flight — are only alluded to in the poem, suggesting that the audience was already familiar with them through oral tradition.
In the Nordic tradition, in addition to references to Theoderic in some poems of the Poetic Edda, the hero becomes the protagonist of the Norwegian Þiðreks saga af Bern (c. 1250, Italian trans. Szőke 2022). This is a unique work, as it presents a complete biography of the hero, beginning with the history of his ancestors and, through a wide range of Germanic heroic narratives, following his life up to its end. The origin of the saga is linked to the mercantile environment of Bergen (Norway) and to stories circulating from the Low German areas along the routes of the Hanseatic League. In the final section of the saga appears the episode of the so-called “hellish ride,” which combines the Gregorian legend of the Gothic king’s damnation with the folkloric motif of the Wild Hunt. The hero, now old, while pursuing a marvellous stag, leaves the baths in which he had immersed himself and mounts a black horse that turns out to be the devil. Unable to stop the demonic animal, he is carried away and, before disappearing, calls upon the mercy of Christ and the Virgin Mary, who seem to show him compassion. This episode corresponds in part to the reliefs on the façade of the basilica of San Zeno Maggiore in Verona (12th century) and to a passage in the Ystorie Imperiales by Giovanni Mansionario (14th century), a major historiographical work produced in Verona.
However, the peak of Theoderic’s reception in the German-speaking world is reached in the so-called Dietrichepik. This is a very extensive corpus of texts written down from the thirteenth century onwards and devoted to the exploits of Theoderic and his companions. These works are characterised by a long and complex textual tradition, with numerous versions and redactions, as well as a rich manuscript and printed transmission. Alongside a group of works with a historical background (historische Dietrichepik), such as the Rabenschlacht and Dietrichs Flucht, which focus on the unsuccessful attempts to regain the kingdom, there are many texts of a more fantastic nature (âventiurehafte Dietrichepik), such as Laurin (ed. and Italian trans. Benati 2007) and the Rosengarten zu Worms, in which the hero, in the guise of a courtly knight, fights together with his warriors against dwarfs, giants, and dragons (Kragl 2013). The reception of the legend continues into the post-medieval period through the circulation of the Heldenbücher (14th–16th centuries) and later reworkings in ballads and theatre, extending into Yiddish and Low German cultural contexts.
The rediscovery of Theoderic material in the modern period gave rise to novel adaptations, such as Giosuè Carducci’s Legenda di Teodorico (Rime Nuove, 1887), in which the poet combines Gregory’s narration of Theoderic’s death with the legend of the Nibelungs. In the twentieth century, Theoderic appears both in children’s literature — such as the works of the Austrian writer Auguste Lechner (1905–2000) — and his story is even adapted in contemporary literature and popular culture. The legend is also reworked in the visual arts: among the most interesting and discussed examples is the statue carved in 1907 and now located in Piazza Silvius Magnago in Bolzano, depicting Theoderic towering over the dwarf king Laurin, a clear sign of the legend’s continuing fascination.