MINWESING'ER. The common name for those German poets who flourished at the vari ous feudal courts of Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The themes of the minnesingers are first epic, then mainly religions in inspiration. They also described the beau ties of nature. More often than the troubadours they were of noble birth, but, like the trouba dours; they roved from court to court. INlinne poetry has three epochs. In the first, a little after 1150, lyric poetry begins to free itself from the epic; the second is its brilliant period; the third. beginning about 1300, marks its decline and the rise of the meistergesang, cultivated by the meistersinger (q.v.). The minnesingers em ploy either the verse with four heats, or the long line with rhymes in pairs, and often their songs are only a strophe long. Remnants of old Ger man poetry show that the chanted long line and the rhymed verse with a regular beat were collaterally employed. The former was better suited to heroic songs or narrative; the latter, being lively, fitted the lyric. The oldest extant love songs in German are in rhymed verses with fourfold arsis. or they are in the long line. Not seldom variety was obtained by the intro duction of an 'orphan' or rhymeless verse, or by having long and short lines in one and the same strophe. The ditties of early singers such as Dittmar von Gist, von Kiirenberg, Meinloh von Seveningen, and the burgraves of Regensburg and Rietenburg, are marked by simplicity of thought, by absence of repining, and by the use of as sona Hee. The minnesingers. like the troubadours (q.v.), throve in the heyday of chivalry. How deeply each of the minnesingers was influenced by the troubadours, and to what degree they drew upon the traditions and customs of their own land, or finally to what extent they imitated once genuine emotions or spoke from their hearts, is often extremely prohlematical. Certainly. the oldest poems utter true experience. though we must allow for the fiction which presents the lover and his lady in colloquy. Sonic of the most ancient German poems are put into wo man's mouth, but we can scarcely conehode that women were therefore among the minnesingers, though several ladies, as, for instance, the Count ess of Dia, wrote love poems in Provencal.
With the more artful verses of the Burgrave Rietenburg. Provencal influence becomes clear. To all people ashore meant love, lint to the lord lier poets or to those who song in their halls minne had an exalted significance. Platonic love had ousted the older and far more genuine sentiment between men and women. We shall find that the minnesingcrs were merely doing what had been done a little sooner by the trouba dours, but the minnesong was not so brilliant, though it was almost as artificial as the poems written in the best period (1100-1260) of Pro vencal literature (q.v.). The Germans culti
vated such forms as were popular in Southern France, as the love-poem proper, the sirrentes (q.v.) and the (q.v.). Like the trouha dour, the minnesinger sang the praises of Ilk lady, who was often his patron's wife. Of her he made an earthly angel, and whatsoever boon she might grant him was his bliss. The minne singer, whose dialect puts them on the western boundary of Germany first show French in fluence. Provencal influence is earliest tible in Friedrich von a Franconian from the Rhine. The lactylie rhythm bears wit ness also to a romantic origin. Minnesingers who used it. a'c're, besides Friedrich von Hansen, Heinrich von Veldeke, Heinrich von Morungen, Hartmann von Aue, Walther von der Vogelweide, Itildhold von Schwangau, and Ulrich von Liech tenstein.
With Friedrich von Hansen we first meet the Crusading song. Walther von der Vogelweide gave the fullest utterance to the minnesong. In him we find both courtly and popular elements. Walther also modeled poems after romantic pat terns. Austria was the centre of court poetry. There Reinmar had lived and there had learned his art. Neidhart had first composed for peasants songs and dances, but his ambi tions tendencies displeased them and he turned to the Court. With Walther and Neidhart the road goes in twain, and each had his followers. Princes had been the troubadours. So it was in Germany, where Henry VI. and Conradin were singing in the south, while farther north were Duke Henry IL of Anhalt, Margrave otho IV. of Brandenburg, and Henry III. of Consult : Pfaff. Der Minnesang des 1.?. his Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, no date) ; "Der Meistergesang," in Schriften zur Geseh ieh tc der Diehtung und Nage. vol. v. (Stuttgart, 1R70),; Scherer, Deutsche Studien (Vienna, 1870, 1874) ; Burdach, Reimnar der Alte and IValther rim der logelweide ( Leipzig, 1850) ; Lyon, und Meistc•rgesa»g (ib., 1883) Leehleitner, Der deutsche ilinvegesang 1\Wolfemiiittel. 1893) ; Grimm, Gcsehichte der Minnesinger (Paderborn, 1897). For the history of the German poetry consult Poethe's edition of the Ce Reinmars rwc Zwettr ( Leipzig, 15;-17). For a general collection consult von der Hagen. Minnesinger (ib., I835) : for a selection consult Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdiehter des I?. his 1j. Jahrhunderts (:ld ed., Stuttgart. 1893).