WARTBURG, WAR 05' THE, the name given both to a grave poetic contest, which is represented to have taken place on the Wartburg, and also to a poem in the Middle High-German dialect, which commemorates the event. At the time when the aforesaid dialect had attained its highest literary development, and its poets enjoyed a brilliant reputation, Hermann, the munificent Landgraf of Thuringia, had made his court a sort of refuge or home for the irritable race, as well as for many other people. It could hardly fail, under the circumstances, that quarrels and jealousies should abound; and, in fact, allusions to these are sufficiently distinct in several of the most distinguished writers who lived at the Thuringian court—e. g., in Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide. But soon after the conception of these things underwent a sort of mythical transformation, and the occasional temporary and natural rivalries of the poets were changed into a particular and premeditated contest for superiority in poetic skill; and to the list of those poets who actually had intercourse with each other at Eisenach wero now added others partly historical, and in part purely fictitious characters—e.g , the virtuous Schreiber, Bitterolf, Reinmar (subsequently confounded with Reinmar von Zweter), the almost mythical Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and the wholly mythical Mas ter Klingsor, the Transylvanian magician and astrologer. On the basis of this historico mythical tradition, and under the formal influences of the then much admired songs of emulation, riddle-contests, and ecclesiastical plays, there was composed, about the year 1300, a strange, obscure, unharmonious poem in two parts, called Icriee von Wartburg.
In the first of these, executed in a long and artistically managed measure, and entitled Tone des Farsten von Thuringia, Heinrich von Ofterdingen challenges the other poets to a i contest verse—the fate of the vanquished to be death—and ,asserts the excellence of Leopold, duke of Austria, over all the other princes. Victory, however, inclining to the Eisenachers, Heinrich calls in Klingsor to his aid, who, on his part, fights his verse battle against Wolfram by the assistance or evil spirits, with riddles and dark science. With distinct reference to Klingsor's " black art," the simpler and shorter measure of this second part is called Sclncurze Ton. Throughout the whole poem, which may be regarded as the first attempt at a secular drama, but which is rather an intermediate link between the lyric contest and the drama, one may trace an unmistakable imitation of Wolfram's style of poetry. The author is unknown. From the inequality of the style one is disposed to conclude that several hands were employed iu its composition. The poem, which has been much overrated in modern times, does not seem to have exercised any particular influence on literature. In a prose form the story of the Wartburg con test first appears—in the Thuringian chronicles—after the beginning of the 14th c., and probably owes its origin to the poem. The poem was printed in a separate edition by Ettnffiller (Ilmenau, 1830), and is also to be found in Bodmer's and Von der Hagen's collection of the Minnesinger. —See Von Plotz, Veber den Stingerkrieg auf Wartburg (Weimar, 1851).