**LAMPRECHT, called “Der Pfaffe”** (the Priest). — A German poet of the first half of the 12th century, author of a poem on the life of Alexander the Great, composed from the French original by Alberic of Besançon, which he freely and skillfully reworked.
In the two parts into which the poem is divided, preserved in two versions of differing length, are fantastically narrated the youth, the education of the Macedonian, and the great wars he won, as well as the fabulous marvels of the East, whither he was driven by his unbridled pride as a conqueror, even to the vain attempt to conquer Paradise; the latter endeavor having the effect of bringing Alexander back to himself, teaching him that beatitude is attained only through humility and that self-restraint is the supreme wisdom of life. L., whose work is the first secular epic composition in the German language dependent on a foreign source, and in which the influence of the style of popular epic is evident, may be counted among the first precursors of chivalric poetry in Germany.