"Late medieval and early modern autobiography in the Holy Roman Empire has attracted much scholarly attention since the 1980s. Literary scholars such as Horst Wenzel, Gabriele Kees, and Hans Rudolf Velten have written extensively on texts from 1300-1600, one of the least-studied periods in the German canon, and their works have significantly broadened our understanding of the wide range of documents that fall under the autobiographical rubric. Barbara Schmid carefully positions her own contribution within this rich literary-historical context, demarcating her theoretical approach from previous work and underscoring her new empirical additions to the known corpus of texts. Building on the scholarship produced since 1980s, Schmid aims to combine its social-historical approach with literary-historical observations while illuminating many new examples of secular autobiographical writing that she has diligently retrieved from the archives. Although her methodology yields few new insights, her work contains a valuable account of a wide range of autobiographical writing from the South German urban bourgeoisie, patricians, and landed aristocracy, and useful observations about the writings produced by a network of writers at South German, chiefly Hapsburg, courts. Many of these texts, especially those of the urban writers, remain in manuscript, and Schmid reproduces a few of them in the appendices. Her original investigation of the family..." (James A. Parente, Renaissance Quarterly, 2008). Other reviews: Harm von Seggern, in: Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 95 (2008), 2, S. 194–195; Robert Jütte, in: Das Mittelalter 12 (2007), S. 209; Rainer Brüning, in: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, Bd. 155 (NF 116) (2007), S. 555-556; Peter Schuster, in: Historische Zeitschrift, Band 285, Heft 1 (2007), 131–132; Sabine Schmolinsky, in: sehepunkte 7 (2007), Nr. 2 [15.02.2007], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2007/02 10252.html; Barbara Hillen, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 01.12.2006, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.... Sven Rabeler, in: Das Historisch-Politische Buch, 5 (2006), S. 534–535; Pierre Monnet, in: Bulletin d’information de la Mission Historique en Allemagne, Göttingen, 42 (2006), S. 288–289.

Die Untersuchung, so kann man resümieren, ist von hohem Wert für die moderne Kulturgeschichte, bei der man ja auch nach der Selbstkonstruktion von Personen fragt und zu diesem Zweck auf die verschiedenen schriftlichen Werke wie die genannten Haus- und Geschlechterbücher usw. zurückgreift. Die Verfasser "autorisierten" in solchen Schriften "ihren Lebenslauf" (...) gegenüber sich selbst, den eigenen Nachkommen, im Falle der fürstlich-adligen Texte auch gegenüber der zeitgenössischen und künftigen höfischen Gesellschaft. Dabei handelt es sich nicht immer um ein Erzählen im strengen Sinn, sondern auch um ein Verzeichnen der für wichtig erachteten Lebensstationen, mit dem die Autoren eine Selbstinterpretation ihres Lebens gaben. Dieses wiederum kann der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft als Quelle für die Ermittlung der vergangenen Einstellungen, Überzeugungen und Ansichten dienen.

Late medieval and early modern autobiography in the Holy Roman Empire has attracted much scholarly attention since the 1980s. Literary scholars such as Horst Wenzel, Gabriele Kees, and Hans Rudolf Velten have written extensively on texts from 1300-1600, one of the least-studied periods in the German canon, and their works have significantly broadened our understanding of the wide range of documents that fall under the autobiographical rubric. Barbara Schmid carefully positions her own contribution within this rich literary-historical context, demarcating her theoretical approach from previous work and underscoring her new empirical additions to the known corpus of texts. Building on the scholarship produced since 1980s, Schmid aims to combine its social-historical approach with literary-historical observations while illuminating many new examples of secular autobiographical writing that she has diligently retrieved from the archives.