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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MIC-MOL |
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MINNESINGERS (Ger. Minnesinger from Minne, love) , the name given to the German lyric poets of the 12th and 13th centuries. The term Minnesang, strictly applicable to the poems expressing the homage (Minnedienst) rendered by the knight to his mistress, is applied to the whole body of lyric poetry of the period, whether dealing with love, religion or politics. The idea of amour courtois, with its excessive worship of woman, its minute etiquette and its artificial sentiment, was introduced into German poetry from Provencal literature; but the German Minnesang was no slavish imitation of the poetry of the troubadours. Its tone was, on the whole, far healthier and more sincere, reflecting the difference between the simple conditions of German life and the older and corrupt civilization of Provence. The minnesinger usually belonged to the lower ranks of the nobility
1 See the Carmina Burana, ed. J. A. Schmeller, 4th ed., Breslau, 1964. and was first used in love poems by the Alsatian minnesinger Ulrich von Gutenberg. The origin of the native lyric, which flourished especially in Austria and Bavaria, is perhaps to be sought in the songs which accompanied dancing. These were not necessarily love songs, but celebrated the coming of spring , the gloom of winter &c., the commonplaces of Minnesang throughout the two centuries of its existence. The older lyrics, which date from the middle of the 12th century, are simple in form and written in the ordinary epic metres. The earliest minnesinger whose name has come down to us is Der von Kurenberg (ft. c. 116o), a scion of an Austrian knightly family whose castle lay on the Danube, west of Linz. These songs, however, contradict the root idea of Minnedienst, since the lady is the wooer, and the poet, at the most, an acquiescent lover. They take the form of laments for an absent lover, complaints of his faithlessness and the like. Among the other Austrian and south German lyrists who show small trace of foreign influence was Dietmar von Aist (d. c. 1171), though some of the songs attributed to him seem to be of later date. While the love-song remained in the hands of noble singers, the Spruch was cultivated by humbler poets. The elder of the two or three poets concealed under the name of Spervogel was a wandering singer who found patronage at the court of the burgraves of Regensburg, one of whom himself figures among the earlier minnesingers.The characteristic period of German Minnesang begins at the close of the 12th century with the establishment of the Provencal tradition in western Germany through the poems of Heinrich von Veldeke and Friedrich von Hansen. National elements abound in Veldeke's songs, although the amour courtois dominates the whole; Friedrich von Hansen (d. 1190) followed Provencal models closely. The long crusading song Sie darf wick des Ziken niet, is a good example of his powers. A close disciple of the troubadours Peire Vidal and Folquet de Marseille was the Swiss Cdunt Rudolf von Fenis.I The greatest name among the earlier minnesingers is that of Heinrich von Morungen, a Thuringian poet who lived on in popular story in the ballad of " The Noble Moringer." He brought great imaginative power to bear on the common subjects of Minnesang, and his poetry has a very modern note. The formal art and science of Minnesang reached full development in the subtle love-songs of Reinmar, the Alsatian " nightingale of Hagenau." Uhland aptly called him the " scholastic philosopher of unhappy love." As a metrist he developed a greater correctness of rhyme, and a better handling of German metres. He became a member of the court of Duke Leopold V. (d. 1194) of Austria, and there Walther von der Vogelweide (q.v.) was first his disciple, and then perhaps his rival. Walther, the greatest of medieval German lyric poets, had Reinmar's technical art, but in feeling was more nearly allied to Morungen. He raised the Spruch to the dignity of. a serious political poem, which proved a potent weapon against the policy of Innocent III. In 1202 at the court of Hermann, landgrave of Thuringia, he met Wolfram von Eschenbach, who is said to have taken part in the tourney of poets known as the Wartburgskrieg, made world-famous through Wagner's Tannhauser. The Tagelieder of Wolfram give him a high place in Minnesang, although his fame, like that of Heinrich von Veldeke and Hartmann von Aue, chiefly rests on his epics. A new stylecalled by Lachmann hofische Dorf poesiewas marked out by Neidhart von Reuental (d. c. 1240), who be-longed to the lesser Bavarian nobility
village
village
The Styrian poet Ulrich von Lichtenstein (d. c. 1275) unconsciously caricatured chivalry itself by his Frauendienst, in which he relates the absurd feats which he had undertaken at his lady's command, while Steinmar (f. 1276) deliberately parodiedI Rudolf II., count of Neuenburg (d. 1196), or, according to some, a nephew of his who died in 1257.court poetry in his praises of rustic beauty and good living. In the lays, songs and proverbs of Tannhauser something of both elements, of the court and the village, is to be found. He seems to have lived as a wandering singer until 1268,. and there very soon grew up round his name the Tannhauser myth which has so little foundation in his life or poetry. The Austrian poet Reinmar von Zweter (d. c. 126o) left some hundreds of Sprilche political or social in their import. Among the princes who practised Minnesang were the emperor Henry VI., though the two songs preserved under his name are of doubtful authenticity, Duke Henry IV. of Breslau (ft. 1270-1290), King Wenceslaus II. of Bohemia, the margrave Otto IV. of Brandenburg, Wizlaw IV., - prince of Riigen and the unhappy Conradin, the last of the house
The didactic motive came more and more to the front in the 13th century. The wandering Swabian poet Marner (d. c. 1270) cultivated especially the Spruch, laughed at the Provencal and courtly tradition, and there is no very great step from his learning and his feuds to the conditions of Meistersang. Heinrich von Meissen (1250-1319), known as " Frauenlob " (" ladies' praise "), was one of the last minnesingers, and his pedantry and virtuosity entitle him to be called the first meistersinger. M. Haupt, Des Minnesangs Friihling (3rd ed., edited F.. Vogt, Leipzig
Leipzig
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