The Cambridge Songs are preserved - many of them uniquely - in a famous eleventh-century manuscript held in Cambridge University Library. Composed in Germany, mostly in Latin but with some vernacular sections, these lyrics are most notable for the variety they display in both genre and form. As one of the earliest examples of medieval secular song-writing they are a key part of the canon of European literature. This 1915 edition was the first to reproduce the complete text with facing-page transcriptions. Karl Breul, originally from Berlin, became the first university lecturer in German in 1884, and remained the most eminent Germanist at Cambridge until his death in 1932. His edition continues to be of value to medievalists today both as a source for the study of these remarkable poems and as a record of Breul's achievement in scholarship and palaeography.
