Bound in red leather, the chronicle presents the history of Mecklenburg and its obotrite princes on 232 leaves in more than 26,000 rhymes in Middle High German. In 1378 Duke Albrecht II. of Mecklenburg commissioned the work from Ernst von Kirchberg, who mainly used the Slavonic chronicle of Helmold von Bosau, but also other chronicles and documents from the princely and Doberan monastery archives. The depiction of a mythical past and the return of the Mecklenburg royal house to an alleged royal family underscored the duke's claim to be on a par with kings. A tribute to his own reign, however, is missing in the manuscript. With the death of Albrecht II in 1379, the work was interrupted and the work, which only lasted until the death of Henry II in 1329, remained unfinished.

Mecklenburgian Rhymed Chronicle
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