CHAPTER VII.

THE MASTERSINGERS.

Let us turn now to the poetry which, if it is not the best of this period of decline, is at any rate the most characteristic,—the work of the Mastersingers. When the race of Minnesingers came to an end, they were not without heirs. Men of knightly station no longer rode from castle to castle prepared to sing, with lute in hand, the praises of ladies. There were, however, wandering minstrels, whose merit had become very inferior, and whose repute was of the worst. At tournaments the rough play of arms. was sometimes interrupted by songs sung by the heralds or their assistants. At the festivals of the peasants there were poets who, in a similar way, performed a humbler office. At weddings, baptisms, and other family festivals in the cities, especially Nuremberg, poets, dressed in white cloaks and decorated with badges of silver,3 took part in the celebration. At the end of the thirteenth century, among the last of the Minnesingers, lived Heinrich Frauenlob, a poet already mentioned. He has all the faults of a time of decay, an overweening opin

1 Wappendichter.

2 Pritschenmeister. Spruchsprecher.

ion of himself, hopelessness with respect to the world, complaint of misappreciation,- a fantastic, hair-splitting over-refinement, instead of the simple, unconscious nature of poets like Walther von der Vogelweide. From some real or fancied praise of women, from which perhaps came his name, he was held by them in high honor. In the old cathedral of Mainz, where his grave is shown, a bas-relief represents the poet's coffin borne on the shoulders of women. Tradition says he was really so buried, and libations of wine so liberally poured out that the church swam with it. Nothing that Frauenlob has left justifies such especial observances in his honor. He it was who, by establishing some sort of a school in which men of the higher class were taught the rules of singing and poetry, is said to stand at the transition point where the class of noble minstrels pass over into the Mastersingers, although certain unauthenticated statements give an earlier date.

The disposition to write and sing developed into a strange passion among the handicraftsmen of the towns, spreading from city to city until there was scarcely one not affected by it; in Southern Germany its manifestations were especially numerous and grotesque. Although the poetry of the Minnesingers shades into that of the Mastersingers by imperceptible gradations, some points of contrast may be noticed the former was cultivated by the nobles, and became a profession; the latter by burghers and their workmen, and was only a curious form of amusement; in the minnelieder the greatest freedom prevailed as to subject and form; the Master

singers, however, worked according to very definite laws. In each school these laws were carefully written down; although there was rarely formal connection between the Mastersingers of different cities, the rules in each case varied but little; the singers went from city to city, engaging in contests without suffering embarrassment. The collection of laws was called the "Tabulatur." Three "Merker," or umpires, were presidents in each school, who at festivals sat upon a stage, with a Bible close at hand. The churches were the most frequent places of assembling; sometimes the festival took place in the town hall, sometimes in the open air. In Wagner's opera of the "Mastersingers," in which the old life is closely reproduced, the Mastersingers are represented as marching in procession into the church of Saint Katherine, in Nuremberg, where a contest takes place in which the victor is to receive the hand of the beautiful daughter of a goldsmith. Again, a festival takes place in a broad meadow in the outskirts of the city, the minstrels and the trade-guilds entering to a glorious march. The shoemakers sing a song in honor of Saint Crispin, who stole leather from the rich to make shoes for the poor; the tailors celebrate a hero of their trade who, during a siege, sewing himself up in goat-skins, performed such antics on the city walls that the frightened enemy withdrew. At length the handsome hero of the piece sings his way to victory, and maid and lover are happily united.1

1 The Nation.

The Mastersingers cared little or nothing for the inner import of their songs, giving an absurd attention to the outward form. In the schools there were various grades, as in freemasonry. Those who were successful had the privilege of decking themselves magnificently in the paraphernalia of the order. A silver chain, with a badge representing King David, adorned the neck; wreaths of silk were placed upon the head. In the richer cities. the decorations were splendid, and to have gained them was the greatest of honors, not alone to the individual, but to his family and guild; the officials of the order nodded approval, and the throng of burghers and their wives present gave the heartiest applause. Some of the names of favorite airs that have come down to us are very fantastic:1 "The Striped-saffron Flower-tune of Hans Findeisen,"

The English Tin-tune of Caspar Enderles,' "The Blood-gleaming Wire-tune of Jobst Zolner," "The Many-colored Coat-tune of F. Fromer." The taste is grotesque enough, yet it possessed the world wonderfully. The shoemaker would leave his awl and waxed-end, the tailor hang up his shears, the blacksmith forsake hammer and anvil,- all listening to, or taking part in, the curious stupidity. Developing in obscure ways, the mastersinging was at the height of its popularity in the century of the Reformation; from that time it declined, lingering,

1 Die gestreift-Safran-Blümleinweis Hans Findeisens, die Englische-Zinnweis Kaspars Enderles, die blut-glänzende Drathweis Jobst Zolners, die Vielfarb-Rockweis F. Fromers.

however, into our own age. As late as 1770 a festival was held at Nuremberg;. at Ulm, as late as 1838, four old masters were still living. These resigned, in that year, their tabulatur and paraphernalia to the Lieder-Kranz, and announced that the long succession of Mastersingers had come to an end.

The Mastersingers did much good, though not in ways that they intended. It is to be noticed that precisely those cities in which they most flourished were the cities which most zealously accepted the Reformation. We may be sure it was not a chance coincidence. The mastersinging indicated a certain intellectual activity. The Bible, moreover, was always close by the umpires when they were discharging their office; every member of a mastersinging guild must have a reputation for honesty and piety, and to this was due in part the superior morality which distinguished the citizen from the noble. The number of names of individuals is very small which even the elaborate accounts have thought it worth while to preserve from among the crowd of Mastersingers. Of these I need to consider only one, and that one rather for what he did outside of mastersinging than for the work in which he conformed to the Tabulatur. He seems indeed to have felt himself its triviality, and based his title to fame on other foundations.

Of the cities honorably prominent, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as seats of blooming trade, and strong and brilliant life of every kind, no one equals Nuremberg. It stood, full of thrift and cul