Hazelnuts, Eroticism and Epistemology in the Literature of the Middle Ages

Based on a rather unusual maere, Der Ritter und die Nusse, this article discusses the universal and often rather enigmatic function of the hazelnut in medieval literature. We can find examples in the lais by Marie de France, in the German verse narratives, the so-called maeren, in the mystical texts by Julian of Norwich, and in the late medieval folk song poetry. From there the motif of the hazelnut experienced a wide-ranging reception far into the nineteenth, perhaps even to the twentieth century.