Using the example of von Tepl's "Ackermann", much read between 1450 and 1520, the volume casts new light on the complexity of the processes involved in the progress from one literary epoch to the next. It reconstructs the history of the text and its transmission and also points up contexts and potential impact. The modernity of the work is discussed against the background of central discursive figures (death, the human condition, mourning). The volume also provides first editions of important texts: Lothar von Segni's "De miseria humanae conditionis" in German translation; Guilhelmus Savonensis' "An mortui sint lugendi an non"; Menrad Molther's "Dialogus Mortis et Coloni".