With 36 manuscripts, the Nibelungenlied appears to have been one of the most popular works of the German Middle Ages and seems to have found a very broad audience.[62] The poem is quoted by Wolfram von Eschenbach in his Parzival and Willehalm and likely inspired his use of stanzas in his unfinished Titurel.[63] The manuscript witnesses and medieval references to the Nibelungenlied show that medieval recipients were most interested in the Nibelungenlied as the story of the destruction of the Burgundians; the first half of the poem was often shortened or otherwise summarized.[64] The Ambraser Heldenbuch titles its copy of the Nibelungenlied with "Ditz Puech heysset Chrimhilt" (this book is named "Kriemhild"), showing that she was seen as the most important character.[65]
The areas of medieval interest seem in particular to have been the inescapability of the slaughter at the end of the poem and Kriemhild and Hagen's culpability or innocence. The earliest attested reception of the Nibelungenlied, the Nibelungenklage, which was likely written only shortly afterwards, shows an attempt both to make sense of the horror of the destruction and to absolve Kriemhild of blame. The C version of the Nibelungenlied, redacted around the same time as the Klage, shows a similar strategy.[66] The presence of the Nibelungenklage in all manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied shows that the ending of the Nibelungenlied itself was evidently unsatisfying to its primary audience without some attempt to explain these two "scandalous" elements.[67] The Rosengarten zu Worms, on the other hand, demonizes Kriemhild thoroughly, while the late-medieval Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid takes her side even more strongly.[68]
As the first Middle High German heroic poem to be written, the Nibelungenlied can be said to have founded an entire genre of Middle High German literature. As a result, other Middle High German heroic poems are sometimes described as "post-Nibelungian" ("nachnibelungisch").[69] The majority of these epics revolve around the hero Dietrich von Bern, who plays a secondary role in the Nibelungenlied: it is likely that his presence there inspired these new poems.[70] Many of the following heroic epics appear to respond to aspects of the Nibelungenlied: the Kudrun (c. 1250), for instance, has been described as a reply to the Nibelungenlied that reverses the heroic tragedy of the previous poem. Kudrun herself is sometimes seen as a direct reversal of Kriemhild, as she makes peace among warring factions rather than driving them to their deaths.[71] No Middle High German heroic epic after the Nibelungenlied maintains the tragic heroic atmosphere that characterized earlier Germanic heroic poetry, and the later poems are often further hybridized with elements of chivalric romance.[72]
Reception of the Nibelungenlied ceases after the fifteenth century: the work is last copied in manuscript as part of the Ambraser Heldenbuch around 1508, and its last mention is by the Viennese historian Wolfgang Lazius in two works from 1554 and 1557 respectively.[73] It was not printed and appears to have been forgotten. The Nibelungen saga, however, was not forgotten completely; the Rosengarten zu Worms was printed as part of the printed Heldenbuch until 1590 and inspired several plays in the early seventeenth century, while Hürnen Seyfrid continued to be printed into the nineteenth century in a prose version.[74]
