MEISTERSINGER, mis't(7r-sing-er. The name given to those artistic poets, usually not of noble birth, who. as the immediate follow e•s of the minnesinger, cultivated artistic poetry in contradistinction from the folk song. The word meister (derived, like English 'master,' from Latin mugister) means a poet who has studied, as all laymen did, in church schools. Accordingly the meiste•singers were distinguished from the common minstrels. They also formed guild or caste. The meistersingers were wont to trace their origin hack to 'the twelve old masters.' Various legends arose, explanatory of their origin. One Spangenberg even thought was a meistersinger. David, also, was looked upon as a patron in whose time hun dreds of meisters were supposed to have taught 4000 scholars, and Solomon also was reckoned in. Furthermore. the minnesingers were reck oned as members of their caste, but, as a matter of faet, they were different in many ways. Individual meistersingers out of modesty called themselves 'lovers of art' ( Liebhaber der Kunst), and the whole body of them named themselves the 'honorable' or 'praiseworthy so ciety.' We may suppose that associations existed as early as 1200. Heinrich von Meissen, called Franenloh, may have had a school of song at Mainz. We cannot, be sure of a regular school till 1450 in Augsburg. lint the meistergesang had flourished in the fourteenth century at Mainz, Strassburg„ Colmar, and Frankfort : in the fifteenth, at Nuremberg; later still it flour ished in Breslau, Garlitz, and Danzig. In 1492 Strassburg had the first school founded by writ ten statutes, and Nuremberg had what became. thanks to Richard Wagner, best known to this generation. The last school died out at Mem mingen in 1844.
Each school had for the head mastersinger a chair called drr Kiinste Ntuhl (chair of the arts), or, as in Nuremberg, the Mcisterstohl Imas.ter's chair). In England this was called 'the bard's seat.' Later the singer seems simply to have stood in the midst of his hearers. To enter the guild a candidate had to pass an examination before four markers. usually in a church. He must devise sonic new arrangement or a new melody (Weise) without infringing any rule. One of the markers determined whether the theme was right, another whether the versifica tion was right, and the others looked to rhyme and melody. fine need hardly add that, in a school whose whole attention was given to tech nicalities, the possible mistakes were limited by set rules. The success of a mastersoug hung upon its conformity with these rules. Indeed, the very essence became a formula or a series of formulas. The Tabulator o• tablature. a. term borrowed from music, and not found among the earliest documents, signified a. bit of music writ ten not with notes, but with letters or figures.
designed to initiate the student into vocal or instrumental music. This code had to be mas tered by whoever wished to be a meistersinger. In order to teach scholars more easily the con tent of the code. it was drawn up in short poems. In fine, it was a. book of rules, the text-book of the meistergesang.
The school had inside and outside members, called by divers names. There were patrons, servants, and toasters or companions, as well as learners o• apprentices; often there was a di rector. Meetings were held on festivals. chiefly on Sunday after service and in the church. Very often the singers met at an inn. Prizes were awarded. and those who sang ill were fined. The prize was sometimes money, sometimes a crown, as at Nuremberg in the time of Flans Sachs. Flowers had also an important part in these competitions. Often in the older days one singer would hang up a wreath as a challenge and as a reward for victory. Finally may be mentioned the fact that the meistersinger often wore a costume which was not seldom motley and which was often sumptuous.
The Tabulator dealt with three matters: (1) The kinds of poems and the parts of a. meisterge sang; (2) permissible rhymes; (3) the mistakes, which are the main business. and have to do (a) with errors of delivery, of melody. of struc ture and of opinion; (b) chiefly, however. with errors of rhyme or mangling of words or caco phony.
The various songs were divided into three strophes. and each strophe was divided into two 8tollen and a diseant or bgcsang. Plate gives a long list of the various features of rhythm and rhyme in this uomplicated poetry, in all of which we observe a singular likeness to the technicalities invented or slavishly aped by the lesser, and indeed often enough by the Letter. poets two centuries earlier in Southern France. The best feature of the meistersinger's art was that it throve among the humbler folk, refined them, gave them a sense of nationality, opened the way for the artistic treatment of better themes, and spread widely the Icl•c of artistic mu-dc anionv those who needed most a sense of form. Consult: Orinim, rimer den Olden Meish ry, sling ingen, 1S11); Plate. "Die Kunstansdriteke der Itleistersinger." in Strassburger Studien, vol. iii. (Strassburg.
188s) 3.1artin. "Frkundfiches fiber die siinger zu Stras-burg," in Strassburger Studien (lb_ 1 S').32 I ; Streinz. "Der Aleistergesang in AIiih rem" in Sievers's lIcito•ific (Halle, 1891) ; Cyria cus Spangenberg, Von d, r usica und den ',Tsang, rn, written in 158-1. ed. by A. von Keller St tittgart , Nurnberg, r Meistersinger proloholle ed. by Drescher. in I hek des lit t(-rarischen l'ereins in Stuttgart ( Mut tgart , 1 St)g) ; Alec, her Mristerycsang in Gcsehieh lc and Kunst (Leipzig, 1901).