This study of the role of the aristocratic family in vernacular literature of the Middle Ages looks at its chosen subject from the viewpoint of the history of mentalities. It traces the literary treatment of family knowledge, family awareness, and family constructions. In so doing it pursues two lines of inquiry, first the significance of the historical aristocratic family as initiator, promoter, and subject of vernacular texts, and second the typologically very variously contoured literary images of family and kinship and their historical implications.