This interdisciplinary study discusses the conditions and modes of the reception of the ‘Middle Ages’ as an historical period in the operatic system of the Early Modern Age and enquires specifically into the significance of appropriate ‘medieval’ subjects for the German and European opera stage at the turn of the 18th century. The focus of the investigation is placed on characteristic stage works in Northern Germany (Brunswick, Hanover, Hamburg) which thematise the ‘Middle Ages’ as the source or preliminary stage of their own particular prehistory and are linked to the contemporary courtly and urban culture of representation and remembrance.