Minnesingers

a name given to the early lyric German poets, especially of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The name is derived from minne, meaning love. This was the predominant subject of their songs.

They correspond in a way to the troubadours of France, the gleemen of the Anglo-Saxons, the minstrels of the Normans, and the bards of Britain. Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of Germany, encouraged the minnesingers. They composed songs in praise of women and odes for occasions of public joy or distress, as well as ballads of love. The composer sang his own songs to the accompaniment of the viol. The composition of the minnesingers is supposed popularly to have been graceful and agreeable to the ear. Their native home was upper Austria. They wandered from castle to castle, even beyond the boundaries of Germany, singing their productions. The student of literature regrets that, with the invention of printing, the minne songs were not regarded worthy of preservation. Hymns, monkish legends, and paraphrases of the Scriptures completely suppressed the songs of the chivalrous minnesingers. The few songs preserved are considered a noble beginning of German literature. They compare favorably with the ballads of Great Britain. The minnesingers whose names the intelligent reader is most apt to meet are Walther von der Weide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Hartmann von der Aue.

Longfellow in his poem, Walther von der Vogelweid, relates a story of this poet to the effect that, at his death, he left his treasures to be used in feeding the birds daily on and about his grave.

See Meistersingers