MIN'NESINGERS, the most ancient school of German poets, whose name is derived from the old German word minne (lore.) The songs and fame of the Pro vençal troubadours appear to have pen etrated into Germany under the first emperors of the house of Hollenstauffen ; in whose time the crusades and the fre quent Italian wars combined to bring their nation, seated as it is in the centre of Europe, to closer communication with those surrounding it. The minnesingers imitated in German the strains of those early poets, and, like them, made love their principal subject ; which was eele twated with much of pedantry and false e,oneelts, but, at the same time, not with out generous and chivalric feeling. The verses of the minnesingers are in the old Swabian dialect of the high German, which, under the Hohenstanffens, them selves of Swabian race, was the court lan guage. As was the case with the trouba dours, the minnesingers belonged to two different classes : there were among them many knights, princes, and even sove reigns ; while there was also another class of more professional poets—wandering minstrels, who attached themselves to the persons of the distinguished chiefs, or wandered from court to court. The oldest
of the minnesingers known to us is Henry of Vebleek, about 1170. During the re in abider of the 12th and first half of the 13th century, this school of poets flourish ed; afterwards it gradually declined, and was succeeded by the less chivalrous and homelier school of the master-singers. I We possess the of more than 300 poets, and pieces of the composition of a large proportion of them. who sang daring the short period in question.
MFICOlt, in law, an heir male or fe male, under the age of twenty-one.—In logic, the second proposition of a regular syllogism.---.1n music, signifies less, and is applied to certain or intervals which differ from others of the same de nomination by half a tone.
miNoitTry, in law, a state of being under age. Also the smaller uumber of persons who give their cotes on any ques tions, particularly in parliament : oppos ed to majority.