The so-called ‘historical’ Dietrich epics, the thirteenth-century Middle High German heroic epics dealing with Dietrich von Bern (Verona), the corresponding saga of the Ostrogoth king Theoderic the Great, tells of Dietrich’s warring conflicts with his uncle Ermanaric to gain the rule of Northern Italy. The monograph elucidates the text group (the flight epics ?Dietrich’s Flight’ and ‘The Battle of Ravenna’ and the associated epic ?The Death of Alphart’) from the perspective of literary history.