(German: Heiland, Saviour)
The oldest complete work of German literature, an epic poem on the life of Christ, composed in the Saxon language, c.830,under Emperor Louis the Pious. A fragment of the manuscript was discovered before 1587, and the full text appeared in 1830, from a Munich manuscript. The poem, written in alliterative verse, either by a priest or a layman, has a purely German atmosphere.