WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE, ftin trer e e.1165-c.1230 ) . A Middle High German minnesinger. Under Rein mar der Alte, Walther learned the art of 31inne song (see MINNESINCERS) at Vienna, where he seems to have remained till the confusion that followed the death of the German Em peror Henry VI, in 1197 and of the Austrian Duke Frederick the Catholic, in 1198, made him a wandering singer. Walther became a partisan of Philip, Duke of Swabia, who hail linen ehosen King in March. 1198. After Philip's assassination (1208) he was for a while in the service of the Landgrave 'Hermann of Thuringia. and he was influenced deeply by Saint Elizabeth of 11 ungary. Hy his songs he continued to influence the art and polities of his time, till at length Frederick 11., in recognition of his services to the German national cause, granted him an estate near Wiirzburg (1220). It was for this Emperor's long postponed Crusade that Walther wrote (c.1227) his noble He died at Wiirzburg, when his grave is still shown. In his poetry Walther passed from a period of introspeetive analysis, through a pro test the artistic conventions of traditional Alinneso»g to a virile criticism of literary senti mentality and social degeneracy, so that his maturer work is prevailingly ethical, politically or religiously didactic. Ills patriotism was
broadly German. Ile appears at his best in the iSpriiche, models of didactic compactness. His opponents called him a demagogue, and he PC1* Iaillly was a political ;igitator of unllinching courage, but he was also tlermany's greatest lyric poet before Goethe.
Walther's Works are edited by Lachmann (Berlin, 1827), Waekernagel and Riegel. (Gies sen, 1862), Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1864), Paul (Halle, 1682), and S\ ilmanus Ob., 1883). There are modern ( erinan versions by Sinirock (Berlin, 1833), Woiske (Halle, 1852), Sehriner (Jena. 1881), and Menzel (Plauen, 1888) : and Lircs by Ubland (Stuttgart, 1822), Menzel (Leipzig, 1865), Burdaeh 1850), Wilinanns (Bonn, 1882), and Sch6nbach (Berlin, 1895). Consult the Bibliography by IANI (Vienna, 1880), and Hornig, Glossarial(' ( (bled( inbu rg, IS11I.