von Tepl Johannes

Writing in German in late medieval Bohemia, Johannes von Tepl is generally identified with Johannes von Saaz and is usually dated to around 1350 to about 1415. He is remembered as one of the earliest notable prose writers in Early New High German.

His reputation rests above all on Der Ackermann aus Böhmen (The Ploughman from Bohemia), a powerful debate in which a bereaved man argues with Death after the loss of his wife. The work is admired for combining grief, wit, moral argument, and a strikingly personal tone.

Very little about his life is securely documented, which is common for writers of his period. Even so, his surviving work has given him a lasting place in German literary history because it bridges medieval learning and a more direct, individual style of expression.