STRICKER, DER. - A wandering German poet, of whom it is known only that he was native to Franconia and lived in Austria around 1250.
Besides a poem on Charlemagne, he composed the chivalric poem Daniel von dem blühenden Tal, in which, adopting Hartmann’s style, drawing on traditional motifs, and citing Alberico da Besançon as his guarantor, he elaborated an Arthurian legend. He is better known, however, as a burlesque poet, for his Schwalnke or jesting tales and his Bitpel or parables of satirical tendency, and especially as the author of that collection of jests attributed to the Priest Amis, a type of clever swindler who begins with harmless pranks and ends by deceiving even his bishop by means of false relics or by pretending, through suitable tricks, to work miracles. S. may be regarded as a precursor of that satirical poetry which, while professing a moral purpose, directed its mockery against entire social classes and which later culminated in the famous Till Eulenspiegel.