grasp immemorial heirlooms which for ages have fallen to Teuton children, as they come from the cradle to the knee of the story-telling mother.

CHAPTER V.

THE MINNESINGERS.

The poetry which has been considered in the three preceding chapters, — that based upon the popular legends, and which, though neglected by the courts, was loved among the folk, possesses, as has been said, at the present time, more interest than any other poetry of the age of the Hohenstauffen. A vast body of literature, however, has come down from the period, of a different kind, much of it worthy of study. The term minne has various meanings, the oldest and best being that of kind remembrance of a friend. In the worthiest of the minnesongs, to which we now proceed, the word is used in this sense; but it acquired at last a licentious signification, to which many of the songs correspond. The Minnesingers proper are those who sing lyrical poems in honor of minne, or love. The name came, however, to have a wide application, embracing many who did not sing of love at all. The poets of the Hohenstauffen period already considered, who wrote the Nibelungen Lied, Gudrun, and the Animal Epic, were, taking the term in its widest sense, Minnesingers, although the designation is more properly borne by the more elegant poets of the courts and castles. Nearly two hundred bards are known to whom the name can be given.

So

far as they were court poets they were imitators of the Troubadours, with whose songs they became acquainted when, in the time of the crusades, the chivalry of France swept eastward through Germany toward the Holy Land. Great attention was paid by the Minnesingers to the outward form of their verses, it being considered important that new combinations of rhyme and rhythm should be constantly invented. The songs are as various in character as the individual singers. Nithart pleases himself with narrating for his high-born hearers his adventures among the peasants, his tricks upon them, the suffering he himself undergoes in return, as he dances and laughs among the village girls and their lovers. The school-master of Esslingen satirizes the ambition of an unpopular potentate: "The king can nobody resist. Therefore, take care, O God! that he does not creep into Thy power; and be watchful, O Peter! that he does not get the gate of Heaven into his hands." Konrad of Würzburg praises the Virgin Mary in a rhapsody which, though affected and overloaded with ornament, is not without beauty. "As the sun shines through glass without doing it injury, so was the Holy Virgin pierced through by God. She is like a crystal or a beryl, which remains cold while the sun kindles a taper through it. She is like the dew, to which in the bright meadow the sunny look of God comes, drying it away. As the unicorn cannot be hunted, but comes of its own accord to a pure maid, and, resting on her lap, goes to sleep, so has Christ come to her. Sun and moon receive their splendor

from her. Twelve stars are her throne, and the moon her foot-stool. She is exalted like the cypress in Zion and the cedar on Lebanon; her virtue towers like the palm in Cadiz; she is a living paradise of the noblest flowers; her sweet fragrance is pleasanter than balsam and musk." Regenbogen, once a smith, one of the later Minnesingers, utters sturdy prophecies which show that the Reformation was already in the air. The kaiser will cause right to be appreciated, convert the Jews, and scourge the arrogance of the priests. He will destroy the cloisters, cause the nuns to marry, and make them useful in the world. Then will come good times." His contemporary, Frauenlob, who is the link between the Minnesingers and the Mastersingers, by whom they were succeeded, sings poetry full of the praise of women, and of a mystical piety.

In thousandfold repetition the Minnesingers celebrated love. Sometimes the watchman set to warn the lovers of coming danger utters his admonition. Sometimes the messenger sings his errand. There is often mention of natural objects, of the beauty of the earth and skies in spring and summer, but in a stiff, conventional way, which makes it doubtful whether there was among them much genuine appreciation of the earth's fairness. To see the lyrical Minnesingers at their best, let us study somewhat carefully the noblest of the figures which we encounter in the great company, -Walther von der Vogelweide. He was probably a Swiss, of a family

1 Kurz.

beneath the class of nobles, a contemporary of the Emperor Frederick II., in the first part of the thirteenth century. He spent some years in Austria, and being at length neglected by the court, began a life of wandering, during which he went, as he says, from the Elbe to the Rhine and to Hungary, from the Drave to the Po and the Seine. He is said to have taken part in the contest of the minstrels at the Wartburg, in which those vanquished were to be put to death, a festival much celebrated in song, but whose historic truth is doubted. Like his contemporaries generally, he was carried away by the crusading spirit, urging his emperor to assume the cross, and himself taking part. His character was most manly, and in many things he was far beyond his time. He was especially bold in his denunciations of extravagant papal claims and other abuses of the Church. His influence, within and without Germany, became so great that the emperor, recognizing his merits, gave him a property and a title. Tired of wandering, he had begged pathetically for a home. Pity me," he cries to the emperor, "that when my art is so rich I am allowed to go poor. If I could warm myself on my own hearth, how would I then sing of the birds and the flowers and of love! And if a beautiful wife offer me sweet affection, I would cause lilies and roses to spring forth from her cheeks. Now I come late and ride early. Guest, woe to thee, woe! The host may well sing of the green turf. He only who has a hearth of his own can cause his song to sound forth joyfully." His grant was of small value, and he

66