If one takes the term digression literally, it is a deviation from the regular course of the narrative, and in fact the digression is centrally determined by its quality of difference: In the courtly novel, it suspends the order of narration and allows the narrator to adopt an alternative speech posture, in which he usually addresses his audience directly with various topics. The study is initially aimed at a specialist medievalist audience, but also serves a broader interest in the development of the vernacular novel and its narrator figure.