Meistersingers
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Meistersingers. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
mis'ter-sing-ers, a name adopted by certain associations of German singers who flourished chiefly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These associations may be described as musical guilds formed on the pattern of craft guilds. They were formed by music-loving citizens of the Free Cities . Guilds of this sort arose in Strasburg, Augsburg, Mainz, Nuremberg, and other German cities. They appear to have been societies of would-be poets. They met originally, it may be, to listen to the songs of the minnesingers. They were people of poetical inclinations and were ambitious to compose poetry. The composition of a song, original in its make-up, if not in matter, was made a requisite for admission. Poets' clubs, literary clubs, these guilds may be called. The great mass of poetry produced was rude and of little value. The songs were lyrical and were sung to music. A code of thirty-two rules governing their composition has been preserved. The meistersingers were rather a convivial lot, given to freedom of discussion. They were not encouraged by the church. A guild existed at Ulm until 1839. The most celebrated meistersinger is Hans Sachs, a peasant shoemaker of Nuremberg. It was his pride that he had composed 4,275 meister songs. See Sachs
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a society of German citizens formed in the 13th century for the cultivation of poetry. It is believed to have arisen at Mayence, whence it spread to Augsburg, Nuremwas incorporated by berg, etc. It Charles IV. in 1378. Among the most famous of them were Hans Sachs, Henry of Meissen, Frauenlob, Regenbogen, Hadlaub, and Muscatblut. The meistersingers were the successors of the minnesingers. Their poems were often satiric, "Reynard the Fox" and "Tyl Owl-glass" are attributed to them.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The outline both accounts give still holds: singing guilds of German townsmen, a written code of rules, Hans Sachs of Nuremberg as the great name, and the last school at Ulm winding up in 1839. What has gone is the origin story. Modern scholarship treats Collier's 1378 incorporation by Charles IV, and the neat descent from the minnesingers, as later legend rather than history; the guilds proper are now dated to the 15th and 16th centuries, with Mainz and the "twelve old masters" a founding myth the singers told about themselves. Collier's attribution of "Reynard the Fox" and "Tyl Owl-glass" to the Meistersingers has also been dropped, both belonging to separate prose and beast-epic traditions, while the surviving Meisterlieder, once dismissed as "rude and of little value," have been catalogued in their thousands and Sachs himself taken seriously as a poet and dramatist rather than a curiosity.
Written for this edition, 2026.