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1G4
AND
By Karl Blind.
The German nation, which is not a political product of to-day, as someappear to think, but which was knit together nearly a thousand years
ago, in a union far more efficient than the incomplete one at present
existing, has, like its western neighbour, enjoyed an early literary
development. A rugged, heroic poetry, and some religious chaunts,
which have come down to us in a fragmentary form, mark the most
ancient time. Between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, Ger
many has had her minnesinger, or troubadours. After that, a school of
meistersinger flourished in the towns, until that gigantic cataclysm
occurred—the Thirty Years’ War, during which the nation’s life-blood
ebbed out whilst its soul was panting for spiritual freedom.
Then the ‘princes,’1 who by law were mere provincial governors, but
who had for some time past aspired to sovereignty and endeavoured to
set up particular dynasties, began to tear the Empire to shreds. The
popular forces which in the various Republican (Eidgenossen) Leagues,
and in the War of the Peasants during the Reformation movement,
had sought to reorganise the nation on a democratic basis, were no
longer in the field. The princes thus had it all their own way; and
Germany who once had undoubtedly been an indivisible union—not a
mere confederacy of sovereign states, but a real Union—became split
up into a medley of petty principalities over whom merely a shadow of
Imperial rule flitted, until that shadow, too, was formally done away
with in 1806, when the Corsican conqueror lorded it over Continental
Europe.
During the colossal misfortune which befel Germany in consequence
of the terrible struggle of the seventeenth century, it seemed for a while1
as if her intellectual light were extinguished. Her very language, with
1 Fiirsten, which originally did not mean sovereign rulers, but simply the first or
foremost of the high aristocracy—a meaning that word still had at Luther’s time.
�GERMAN TROUBADOURS.
165
its combined strength and aptitude for musical development, becamebarbarised. It sank down to the level of a rude dialect. Only gradually,,
oui’ literature, which had had so promising a beginning, recovered the
lost ground, but at last attained once more a development the extent,
beauty, grandeur, and richness of which is now universally acknowledged
even by a nation in which an unapproachable poetical master-mind has
risen.
There is a great break between the Master-singer epoch and the litera
ture of which Goethe and Schiller are the foremost representatives. Yetz
Goethe was, as he himself confesses, deeply indebted to that particular
poet of the Master-singer school who is best known by name, though
not by his works, namely, to Hans Sachs, the much-vilified ‘ shoemaking
rhymester’ of Nuremberg. ‘ In order to find a congenial poetical soil on
which we could plant our foot, in order to discover an element on which
we could breathe freely’—says the author of Wahrheit und Dichtung—
‘we had to go back a few centuries, when solid capabilities rose splendidly
from a chaotic condition; and thus we entered into friendly intercourse;
with the poetry of those bygone ages. The minne-singers were too far
removed from us. We would first have had to study their language
and that did not suit us. Our object was to live, and not to learn..
Hans Sachs, the truly masterly poet, was nearest to us. A genuine talent,,
although not in the manner of those knights and courtiers; but a quaint
citizen, even as we boasted of being ! His didactic realism agreed with
our tendency; and we used, on many occasions, his easy rhythm, his
facile rhyme.’
So Goethe, who, moreover, in his ‘ Poetical Mission of Hans Sachs,’1
has fervently sung the praise of the citizen poet, uttering strange curses
against ‘the folk that would not acknowledge their master,’ and con
demning them to ‘ be banished into the frog-pond,’ instead of dwelling
on the serene heights where genuine bards throne in glory.
If a Goethe could thus speak of a master-singer, that often-despised
school of town’s-poets may, after all, merit some notion. The proper
judgment of the rise and origin of the Meister-singer is, however, gene
rally obscured at the very outset by the unduly sharp division made between
their early representatives and the chivalric Minstrels of Love. Minnesong and Master-song are reckoned to bear their antagonistic difference
in their very appellations. Yet, the apparently distinctive name of
£ Meister’ was applied already to poets in the period in which we gene
rally assume that the German troubadours flourished. On the other
hand, the word 1 minne-singer ’ is of quite recent date. It was Bodmer
who first used it in the last century : and this comparatively new word
1 Hans Sachsens poetische Sendung.
�16G
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
then gave rise to 'an over-strained division-line which is detrimental to
a proper understanding. Grimm at least, the great authority, has deci
dedly laid it down’as his’opinion that the Troubadour-song and the Master
song in Germany are not only not to be thus divided, but that they have
a close affinity in their essential points. Docen and von der Hagen
■have upheld the contrary view. ‘The Minne andMeister-song,’—Grimm
says ‘ are one plant, which at first was sweet; which in its older age
•developed into a degree of acerbity; and which at last necessarily became
woody. But unless we go back to the days of its youth, we shall never
comprehend the branches and twigs which have sprouted forth from it.’
Even the usual separation into ‘ chivalric’ poets and ‘civic’poets must
be accepted with some caution. Among the crowd of lyric bards whose
songs have been handed down to us in that famous collection attributed
to Riidger von Maness, the splendid manuscript of which is still, in spite
-of the Peace of Frankfort, retained by the French, there are not a few
singers of humble descent and calling. We there meet with a clerk, a
schoolmaster, a fisherman, a smith, and other mechanics—even a poet
■of the much persecuted race of the Hebrews, namely, the Jew Siisskind,
of Trimberg. That which we possess of him, is poetry of a more abstract,
philosophical character, a kind of Solomonic wisdom, not untinged with
melancholy. In the midst of priestly fanaticism, he sings of the free
dom of thought. ‘ Thought penetrates through stone and steel; Thought
travels quicker over the field than the quickest glance of eyes ; Thought
rises high up in the air above the soaring eagle.’ No doubt, this Jewish
Marquis Posa had, as he himself relates, at last to leave the poetic art,
finding little favour among its noble patrons. In bitter disappointment
he- complains that he is travelling on the fool’s high-road (ich var ilf der
toren vart), and says he will give it up, grow a long beard of gray hairs,
live in the manner of the old Jews, clad in a long mantle, with a capa’
■cious hood, walking along with lowly gait, and trying to forget that he
had ever sung at courts.
The vast majority of those whom we now call minne-singers were no
doubt of noble descent. Some of our emperors were befriended by the
muse. Even Henry VI., that iron ruler, is reckoned among the trouba
dours ; his lay : ‘ Ich grueze mit gesang die suezen, die ich vermiden niht
wil, noch enmac ’ is one of the most touching :
I greet with song that sweetest lady
Whom I can ne’er forget;
Though many a day is past and gone
Since face to face we met.
Frederick II, too, another German ruler of the Suabian house of
Hohenstaufen, struck the lyre; but as he composed in the Italian
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
167
tongue, he cannot be included among our own troubadours. Great
depth of feeling marks his song: i Di dolor mi conviene cantare.' An
excellent English translation, under the title of ‘ My Lady in Bondage,’
is to be found in ‘ The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo D’Alcamo to
Dante Alghieri,’ by G. D. Rossetti. Some have fancied to see in this
song of the free-thinking German emperor an allusion to the captivity of
the Church, a Symbolisation of religious ideas. This view is undoubtedly
a most erroneous one; Frederick’s lay has as much to do with the
Church as the Song of Solomon has.
But though king-emperors, dukes, princes and counts, had a slight part
in the literary productions of that age, the main strength of the minnesinging brotherhood resided in men of less ambitious descent, who had
sprung from the lower nobility, and who were generally gifted with very
small worldy goods, if with any at all. Uhland, in his otherwise so
beautiful Tale of German Poesy (Mahrchen), which describes the dif
ferent periods of our literature in a charming Dornröschen allegory, calls
German poesy a ‘princely child,’1 and a ‘princess.’ The great connois
seur of our ancient literature, who knew better when he wrote in prose,
allowed himself, in his ‘ Tale,’ to be beguiled into this mis-statement
by the seduction which the Dornröschen myth naturally offered. The
truth is, the mass of our early lyric bards were, in rank, only removed a
degree from the generality of freemen. Some of them pass even wrongly
1 Zwo macht’ge Feen nahten
Dem schönen Fürstenkind;
An seine Wiege traten
Sie mit dem Angebind ....
Und als es kam zu Jahren,
Ward es die schönste Frau,
Mit langen, goldnen Haaren,
Mit Augen dunkelblau ....
Viel stolze Ritter gingen
Der Holden Dienste nach:
Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Sie gingen in Stahl und Eisen,
Goldharfen iij der Hand;
Die Fürstin war zu preisen,
Die solche Diener fand.
Von alter Städte Mauern
Der Wiederhall erklang ;
Die Bürger und die Bauern
Erhüben frischen Sang.
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
as members of the nobiliary order. For instance, it is by no moanssure that Walter von der Vogelweide was of aristocratic origin; the con
trary is more probable in fact. Again, as I have above remarked, there
were, among the poets of that period, not a few whose civic character is.
beyond question. These circumstances have to be mentioned, in order
to show how difficult it is to draw a strong line of demarcation between
minnesinger and meistersinger, at least in the intermediary stage dur
ing which they blend, whilst afterwards no doubt a change occurs—im
perceptible at first, and only later of the most pronounced kind.
The master-singers regarded themselves as the continuators of the old
poetry. Among the 1 Twelve Masters ’ who, the legend says, founded
the poetical schools in the cities, Frauenlob, Klingsor, Walter von der
Vogelweide, the Marner, and Reinmar von Zweter are named—all un
doubtedly troubadours, although by no means all belonging to the nobili
ary order. I need not say that this alleged formal foundation of a
master-singer guild is as much a myth as Arthur’s Round Table. Chrono
logically, the Twelve Masters could not have acted together ; nor
could they have done what the fable relates, in the reign of Otto the
Great under whom the event is said to have taken place. Nevertheless,,
even that myth shows that the Meister-singer felt some contact with their
predecessors. And indeed there are, among what are now called the
Minne-singer, several who are remarkably like some of the later didac
tic, sententious master-singers. Again, among the towns’-poets, especially
among those who are reckoned as precursors of the school, some by far
excel, in fervour and chivalric colouring, their aristocratic prototypes. The
master-singers called their own art ‘ die holdselige Kzmstfl an appellation
reminding us of the ‘ science gaye ’ of the Provençal troubadours, among,
which latter however—in the words of Gorres—‘the ardent breath of
Moorish poetry is felt,’ whilst among the minne-singer, and still more
among the majority of the meister-singer, a colder tone prevails.
Territorially also, the Master-song coincides with the Minne-song.
It extended from the Upper Rhine, from Alsace, then a very cradle of
German culture, into Franconia, Bavaria, Thuringia, and partly alsoLowei' Germany, or Saxony, as it was then called. It was mainly the
South and the West on which both forms of poetry grew up—the one sprout
ing forth from the other. At Toulouse also, as Grimm remarks, the last
remnants of Provençal poetry, the jeuxfloraux, lingered on the same spot
where they had flourished of old.
And even as the later master-singers composed their lays according
to set rules, so we find 1 rules ’ and ‘ masters ’ already among the chivalric
poets in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Nor could it well be
otherwise if we remembei- the form and figure of the Poetic Art of those
early ages. Now-a-days, in thinking of poems, we have a notion
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
169
of some book that is to be read, of some production composed in the
solitude of a study, and destined to be conveyed into the mind of others
through the medium of the eye. But the minne-singer were yet bards
in the ancient Orphic fashion. They really sang; their delivery was
essentially a chaunting one. Hence the birds on the flowery meadow
play such a part in their lays. Hence those poets, not quite inaptly,
Called themselves ‘ nightingales.’ In this respect also, the two poetic cir
cles have a point of contact which ought to be kept in mind, for the
Meister-Singer, like their predecessors, never delivered their productions
■Otherwise than in singing. Their name, therefore, was not a mere figure
of speech.
Germany was then, even in a higher degree than now, a country full
•of song. The melodies, some of which have been preserved, were simple
•enough; but the whole nation delighted in the repetition of those strains ;
•and song, which was but another word for poetry, was almost invariably
•connected with dance. Dance, among all nations of ancient time, is
not simply an amusement, but at the same time an act of consecration :
in the earliest ages a religious, sacrificial performance. It is as if the
harmony of the many-winded movements had been considered an image
•of the variegated, and yet orderly, cycle of Nature ; of the recurrence,
rafter many changes, of the same phenomena on this planet, as well as on
th® starry skies.
A 1 wandering society ’ (fahrende diet) of minne-singer consisted, at
least, of the poet, the declamator (sager), the fiddler, and the dancer.
When the poet himself was unable to sing, he was represented by another,
called the little songster (das singerlein). A player on some wind-instru
ment (blasgeselle) is also mentioned by some of the minne-singer; he
probably played on the flute. Now, in order to get a proper conception
of the character of these migratory poetical associations, we must dismiss
the remembrance of our modern manners and views, and rather think
of the most ancient Greek, or, for the sake of that, Teutonic life, and we
■shall at once look upon the matter in a very different light. It will be
seen at a glance that where such a co-operation was required as is indi
cated by the appellations of the various members of a i Fahrende Diet,’ a
sort of poetical school would gradually be formed, with distinct rules—
a «school in which there would be masters and pupils, and various
■degrees.
i From whom have you learnt your art ? ’ asks Klingsor, in wrathful
■contempt, his rival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, during the famous Tourna
ment of Song known as the Wartburg Contest, in which the rival minne
singer were represented as contending for the palm. The ironical ques
tion can only be understood when one knows that the then united arts
•of poetry and of singing were already at that time taught in regular
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
school, or guild, fashion, even as was later the case among the burgher
poets. Klingsor is probably but a mythic personage, a sort of early
medieval Faust. But the author of the ‘Wartburg War’ has certainly
not put an anachronistic remark into his mouth.
There were many gradations in these poetical fellowships. The high
born dukes and members of ruling houses who occasionally turned to theharp, did not, of course, belong to the singer class properly speaking.
The veritable singers, or poets, according to the customs of the age, led
a migratory life, going from one court, or nobleman’s mansion, to the
other, expecting reward for what they gave. Their poetry is by them
selves called ‘courtly song’ fiovdicher sang). The expression had, how
ever, not the unpleasant meaning that would now be evoked by the term
‘courtly.’ Hof, from which ‘hovelich’ (courtly) is derived, then meant
any country seat. The word is even now used in Germany as well for a
prince’s court as for a peasant freeholder’s dwelling. The habit of taking
reward, wages (gniete), for their poems, was openly acknowledged by
these minstrels. So distinguished a poet as Walter von der Vogelweide
did not scruple to say that he expected his ‘ wages.’ Still, in the
beautiful lay in which he sings the praise of German women—
German men are nobly bred;
E’en as angels our women are ....
Virtue and pure love,
He who seeks for them,
May he come to our land so full of bliss—
0, long would I live therein !
the poet has the good taste (that is to say, according to the courtesy of
the time) of declaring that womankind is far too sublime for him to
expect any other ‘ wages ’ from them than amiable greetings (schone
grueze). The same Walter, some time afterwards, obtained a feudal
tenure in reward for his exertions during an election contest for the
German' crown. The poetical effusion in which he expresses his un
bounded gratitude for this liberal act of the ruler whom he had helped
to place on the Imperial Throne, is rather comic in its exuberance.
He says he no longer fears to ‘ feel frosty winter in his toes,’ nor does he
mind what wicked lords think of him. He now has ‘ air in summer, and
fuel in the cold season; ’ his neighbours consider him a most excellent
man, whereas formerly they looked quite bearishly at him. His poems,
once regarded as bitter, grumbling, and scolding utterances (his satires on
Church and State are here alluded to), are now thought quite clean and
fit for a court:
Icb was so voile scheltens, daz mm aten stanc;
Daz hat der kiinec gemachet reine, und dar zuo minen sane.
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
171
A rather realistic expression for a tender minne-singer ! But trouba
dour language, generally so fragrant, sometimes breaks out into utter
ances totally unfit for a modern drawing-room.
Between the various poetical associations, and the different rivals in the
art, angry feuds occasionally sprang up, according to the excitable
nature which has from olden times been attributed to the poetical
genius. The angriest words were exchanged between those who looked
down upon each other as being of an inferior degree in the poetical
guild. There were bards who carefully cultivated the ancient and purer
traditions ; others who descended to the lowest humdrum versification.
As taste degenerated in consequence of the nobility assuming more
and more a lansquenet and even robber character, and becoming,
therefore, unable to enjoy true poetry, the inferior caste of poet
asters rose to the surface. Even as the minstrels in England, and theConfrerie des Menestriers and the Troubadours in Northern and
Southern France, gradually became mere street-bawlers and jongleurs,
so also in Germany a gradual deterioration took place in the character of
the wandering bards. So-called ‘ sentence-savers ’ (spruch-sprecJier) and
court fools (liofschalke) began to introduce themselves in the castles and
mansions and to obtain the chief hold on the people at large. A great
many complaints are yet extant of later minne-singer, who utter their
grief at the decaying art.
They charge that decay upon the miserly habits which had grQwn up
among the nobility, as well as upon the increase of 1 court foolery.’
Thus Konrad von Wurzburg complains of these ‘ untutored fools ’ (kunstelose schalke), whom he calls a bastard cross-breed between a wolf and
a fox, and of whom he says that they steal from the real poets (the
kiinstereichen) both the language and the melody. In a symbolical
representation he leads True Art into a wood before the throne of Jus
tice. Clad in tattered, beggarly garments, True Art utters her griev
ance. The verdict of Justice is, that he who confers upon the vile
poetasters the rewards which rightfully belong to the veritable bards,,
shall for all time to come be shunned by Love.
Much stronger are the expressions of the minne-singer Boppo, with the
furname of ‘the Strong.’ He was famed for his bodily strength; nor
was his language deficient in massiveness. In abusing the inferior versifex
class, he runs through the whole animal kingdom, and through every
imaginable scolding term, in order to fix strange denominations upon
them—as for instance : herr esel, dunkelgut, ehrenneider, galgenschwengel,.
niemands freund, wiedehopf, schwalbennest, entenschnabel, affenzagel,
schandendeckebloss. That power which our language possesses of coiningnew terms, had evidently been concentrated in a remarkable degree in the
hands of Boppo, who, albeit a troubadour, is supposed to have originally
�172
GERMAN TROUBADOURS.
been a glass-blower, and who subjected his antagonists to a most unmer
ciful fire of vituperative appellations.
The Minne-song hadflourished in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth,
partly still in the fourteenth century. Even in the fifteenth we yet
meet with wandering poets ; but they are few and far between ; and the
castle-gates generally remain locked to them. The nobles change into
robber knights. The chase, plundering expeditions, petty feuds, and
gross carousals, are now their only occupations. The Empire is distracted
and convulsed by the aristocratic leagues of the 1 Cudgellers’ (Bengeler),
the ‘ Grim Lions,’ and other brigand associations of the nobility. Mean
while, in the towns, a new power rises. There, a spirit of freedom makes
its way ; there, trade and commerce expand; a lofty architecture combines
with the development of the pictorial art. In the towns, therefore,
Poetry also takes its refuge. The lyre is little heard now in the courts
and the castles; the bardic guilds are henceforth established in the
-cities.
The transition is a gradual one. The old poetical forms remain at
first the same as before : the Master-song is, as it were, evolved from
the Troubadour song, and appears, at least in the beginning, so mixed
up with the latter that in some cases it is impossible to make a distinct
classification one way or the other. Even as in nature there is no abrupt
break in the forms of life, so also on the domain of intellectual develop
ment. The lines of division are generally less marked in reality than
we assume them to be for the sake of finding our way through the maze
of multiform phenomena. Epic poetry is, through a process of conden
sation, evolved from the ballad form, and gradually dissolves again into
the latter. The drama arises from the lyric strophe and antistrophe.
Chivalric poetry in Germany takes its rise from a previous populai and
monkish literature. The master-song, too, sprouts up from the ancient
stem: a later blossom, of less fragrancy, amidst the shed leaves of the
decaying minne-song. On the emblematic Tneistcrtafcl at Nuremberg,
the Rose Garden was depicted in which the errant chivalry once sang ;
and Hans Sachs, in the sixteenth century, still composed many of his
lays on the melodies of Walter von der Vogelweide and other trouba
dours.
•
Generally, Oswald von Wolkenstein and Hugo von Montfort are re
garded as the last representatives of the Minne-song ; Muscatbliit and
Michael Beheim, who lived at the end of the fourteenth and the begin
ning of the fifteen centuries, as the chief precursors of the Master-song.
Wolkenstein and Muscatbliit are the more important of the four. Their
poetical character, it seems to me, is almost invariably indicated in the
wrong way, even in standard works like those by Gervinus and
Vilmar. Both these eminent historians of our literature reckon Oswald
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
173
von Wolkenstein among those who once more raised the old troubadour
song, while they accuse Muscatbliit of affectation and triviality. I con
sider this statement a very unwarranted one. The opinion of Gervinus
that Muscatbliit was ‘ as far from the breath of free nature as his arti
ficial tone is from the artless strophes of Montfort,’ can at most be
applied to his Lays on The Virgin Mary. In them we meet with a com
plicated versification, an affected rhyme, an offensive superabundance of
imagery. Still, it ought not to be forgotten that even in this he kept
within the taste of his time. On the other hand we frequently find in
his productions a wealth of sentiment, rendered in such simple words
that it is not too much to say that some of his poems may be placed at
the side of the best of all times and nations.
Who has not admired Gretchen’s Song at the Spinning Wheel as a
true master-piece 1 On looking more closely, we meet, in ancient Ger
man literature, poems coming so near to it that we may assume without
disrespect that Goethe, who had studied the old Faust plays and bor
rowed much from them, had also embodied many a lyric jewel of that
time in his dramatic treasure. Has not Gretchen’s plaint: 1 My peace is
gone, my heart is sore ’ a striking affinity to a poem by Muscatbliit,1 in
which a lover thus pours forth his grief:
■ Herz, Muth unci Sinn
Sehnt sich dahin,
Wo meine Gewalt
So mannigfalt
Sich ganz hat hingekehret.
Mein freier Will’
1st worden still;
Mein stater Muth
Mich trau’ren thut:
Mein Herz ist ganz versehret.
I fear it will be found impossible to render in English the pathetic
simplicity of these quaint lines. The following 2 gives, however, some
idea of the poet’s power :
With grief o’erborne,
And anguish-torn,
My soul and heart
Would fain depart
Where each sad thought a captive dwells.
My once free will
Is quelled and still;
My constant breast
By woe oppressed;
My heart with hopeless mis’ry swells.
1 I give it but slightly changed in orthography, so as to render it more accessible
to the student of modern German.
2 I am indebted for this version, as well as for one or two others, to the kindness
of a friend, Miss Garnett.
VOL. III.—NO. XIV.
N
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
Somewhat in the tone of the popular Parting-songs (Scheidelieder), but
at the same time reminding one of Gretchen’s : (Ach neige, du Schmerzens
reiche,' are the following passages in the same poem by Muscatblüt :
Ach Gott, erkenn,
Warum und wenn
Ich sehnender Mann
Verdienet han,
Dass ich muss von ihr scheiden ....
Dass Lieb’ mit Leid
Von Liebe scheid’,
Das heisst doch wohl ein Leiden.
Denn Lieb ohne Leid nicht kann sein;
Lieb’ bringet Pein,
So Mann und Weib
Mit betrübtem Leib
Hie von einander scheiden.
Wie möcht mein Herz
In solchem Schmerz
Fröhlich sein,
Dass ich die Reine
Soll ewiglich vermeiden.
Ach, Scheiden, dass du je wardst erdacht;
Scheiden thut mich kränken.
Scheiden hat mich zu Sorgen gebracht,
Thut Muscatblüt bedenken.
Scheiden hat mich
Gemachet siech;
Scheiden will mich verderben.
Daran gedenk’, traut selig Weib !
Is there a want of natural truthfulness, a want of deep feeling, in
this? Undoubtedly Gervinus’ Geschichte der Deutschen Dichtung has
rendered great service by showing the intimate connexion between the.
political and the intellectual life of the nation. But Gervinus has not, to
my knowledge, made very profound studies in our ancient writers. I
am afraid that in the case of Muscatbliit he rendered his verdict off
hand, without being intimately acquainted with the subject. The same
might be said with regard to the judgment he passed on Wolkenstein—
again a most erroneous one, giving a false notion both of Wolkenstein’s,
particular bent and of his general capabilities.
In saying this, I am surely far from endeavouring unduly to raise
Muscatbliit, the commoner, above Wolkenstein, the knight. Muscatbliit
certainly does not attract our sympathies by anything else than his lyric
merits. Whilst Walter von der Vogelweide boldy denounces papal
tyranny and priestly arrogance with a truly reformatory energy, Muscat
glut, the precursor of the Master-song, combines a voluptuous Mariolatry
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
175
with, an ardent hatred against all reformatory aspirations, for instance,
of the Hussites. It is true, the Czechian movement in Bohemia, even
at that time, created already much bitterness in Germany on national and
political grounds; and John Huss, besides being a reformer, was a
Representative of this Czechian, anti-German movement. But Muscatbliit
attacked the memory of Huss on Church grounds, giving his assent in
Äther a brutal manner to the fiendish act of the inquisitorial assembly
at Constance. With an allusion to the name of the Bohemian leader,
which in Czechian signifies 1 goose,’ he exclaimed : ‘ There is yet many
8» Unroasted gosling to be examined !’ 1 To examine,’ in those days, was
the technical term for ‘ putting on the rack ! ’
Altogether, some of the fore-runners of the Master-singer school were
rather characterised by this dark spirit of opposition to the reformatory
movement, which was strongly coming up long before Luther. How
ever, at Augsburg, about the middle of the fifteenth century, we already
find considerable enlightenment among the master-singer school there; for,
in a reactionary satire against the boldness of the towns, which dates
from that time, there is the following ironical praise of Augsburg :
.
Augsburg hat einen weisen Rath;
Das sieht man an ihrer kecken That
Im Singen, Dichten und Klaffen.
Sie haben errichtet eine Singschul,
Und setzen oben auf den Stuhl
Den, der übel redt von den Pfaffen.
Thus, heretical views already were a recommendation, in 1450, for
the position of chairman among the civic bards of that free town.
That was before Luther was born ! We here see the beginning of that
Protestant movement which afterwards became a very law to the master
singers ; the Bible, in opposition to the legendary cycle of the Catholic
- Church, serving them as a text-book and a guide in their poetical pro
ductions.
Michael Beheim, that other precursor of the Meister-singer school,
was one of the last wandering poets who tried their luck by singing at
courts. He however met with many rebuffs, and then, ill-humoured
and full of anger against those who would not be his patrons, broke out
I into pungent satires against the princes and the nobility. In this he
certainly was far from representing in any way the character of the later
k'meister-singer who never asked for princely or aristocratic favour, much
less for pecuniary reward from courts. Following their trade for a live
lihood, they sought in poetry, so far as they understood it, merely a
satisfaction for the mind and the heart, endeavouring to render their
I* schools ’ a means of raising the intellectual and moral standard of their
Qwn class and of the popular classes in general. As to Beheim’s effun
2
�176
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
sions, they were rather of that artificial and somewhat tasteless style
which Gervinus wrongly attributes to Muscatbliit. Yet it must not be
forgotten that even in such stiff and strangely-set devices as we meet
with, for instance, in his praise of a lady, who is said to be—
ein Balsamgarten
Der Lilien ein
Violensprengel,
Und auch. Zeitlos,’
Der Seligkeit Ruhm,
Maienblüthe,
rein,
Stengel,
Ros’,
Blum’,
Güte,
des Sommers Zier—
he is not too far removed from some troubadour prototypes.
On the contrary, how distant, in spirit and tone, is Oscar von Wol
kenstein from the Minne-poets, whilst yet it has been said of him that
he had continued the old chivalric song ! I, for my part, cannot con
ceive a more erroneous judgment. A few songs of a more delicate
nature there are no doubt to be found in Wolkenstein, who is a queer
mixture of a venturesome, heroic ritter, of a Don Quixote, and of a
Sancho Pansa. But the bulk of his poems, which fill a goodly volume,
is surely not of the nobler troubadour kind. His dancing songs espe
cially are of a broad-grinning comicality. There is a boorish bacchanalianism in them which sometimes verges upon satyr-like grossness, or
seeks relief in mere senseless outcries. What could be less like a minnesong than the poem which begins with the words ‘ Mine host, we feel a
jolly thirst,’ and in which one of the tamest verses, utterly untranslat
able in their unbridled hop-and-jump wildness, runs thus :
Pfeifauf, Heinzel, Lippel, Jäckel!
Frisch, froh, frei! Frisch, froh, frei 1 Frisch, froh, frei!
Zweit euch; rührt euch ; schnurra bäckel!
Hans, Luzei! Kunz, Katrei! Benz, Clarei!
Spring kälbrisch drunter, Jäckel!
Ju hei hei! Juhei! hei! Ju hei hei!
Or take the following bit of a nonsensical jumble of words ! Barringtwo or three lines, no meaning can be detected in them, except a fierce
animalism that breaks out into a .rapid utterance of inarticulate cries :—
Da zysly, musly,
fysly, fusly,
henne, klusly,
kumbt in’s husly,
werffen ain tusly,
susa, susly,
negena grusly
well wir sicher han.
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
177
Clerly, metzly,
elly, ketzly,
thuont ein setzly,
richt eur letzli,
tula hetzly,
trutza tretzly,
vacht das retzly,
der uns freud vergan.
Unless I greatly err, the minne-singers had a somewhat different
style.
In other poems, Wolkenstein, who on his adventurous expeditions in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, had become something of a linguist in a rather
unscientific sense, heaps together, in the absurdest manner, odds and
ends of various languages, so as to produce a perfect maze of gibberish.
A few biographical notes on this vagabond freelance, to whom in all
histories of our literature a totally wrong place is assigned, may per
haps prove of interest; the more so because in his character there is
such an eccentric medley of the old and the beginning modern time, a
mixture of chivalry and of very Nether-Dutch ‘ popular ’ ways and
manners.
He was a Tyrolese by birth, and lived between 1354 and 1423. As a
boy, he lost an eye by a shot; but with his other eye he peered only the
more deeply into the romantic ‘ ritter ’ literature of his time. At the
age of ten he left his father’s castle, in order to participate in a crusade
against the heathen Sclavonians in Prussia. His parents let him depart
without much ado ; for his support they handed him three-farthings and
a piece of bread. On the march he gained his livelihood as a groom.
At night the roystering boy slept in a stable-corner, or covered by the
starry canopy. For eight years he served as a common baggage-boy,
went through Prussia, Lithuania, Poland, Red Russia; became a cap
tive, was almost mortally wounded, went to Norway, Denmark, Sweden,
Flanders, England, Scotland, Ireland, mostly serving—in what later
became the lansquenet character—in various armies and countries. In
the company of German merchants he went through Poland to the
shores of the Black Sea, and into the Crimea; became a cook on board
ship, then a common boatswain ; saw Armenia and Persia ; sailed, again
as a ship’s cook, to Candia; took part in an expedition against the
Turks; fled from a lost battle, wandering through Dalmatia, and return
ing to the Tyrol, At the age of twenty-five, his hair had become grey ;
his face was deeplyffurrowed ; but he had learnt no less than ten lan
guages.
When he resolved to marry, he met with a tragi-comic misfortune.
Wooing a certain Sabina Jäger, a citizen’s daughter, he was told by her
�178
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
that, to prove his true love, he ought, as a first chivalric duty, to make
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Which he did; but on returning
he found Sabina Jäger married ! Later he turns up in the struggles of
the Tyrolese nobles against the dukes in Austria; then again in Spain,
Holland, England, Portugal; in a crusade against the Moors ; afterwards
as a wandering -singer in the Moorish Kingdom of Granada and in the
Provence. Meanwhile his castles had been burnt down; still, immediately afterwards, he celebrates a marriage. But his former love, Sabina
aforesaid, who now resided at the Court of Innsbruck, allures him to a
rendezvous under the pretext of a pilgrimage ; and as Don Quixote
Wolkenstein unsuspectingly meets her, she has him captured and bound,
in order to extort from him a ransom of six thousand gulden. The iron
fetters which the false fair one imposed upon him, made him a cripple
for life; nevertheless, after the death of his wife, we see him once more
in the field, and once more in captivity. For a long time he pines in
a loathsome dungeon. On issuing from it, he marries again ! Then he
goes to war against the Hussites. But at last he can move neither foot,
nor arm; neither walk, nor stand; and thus he dies an inglorious
death from dropsy. In the wars in which he played a part, he
always kept on the losing side—a born bird of ill-luck. Even after
his death, there was an evil star shining over his remains ; for on the
church, near which he was buried, being rebuilt, his tomb-stone became
accidentally transposed, and the whereabouts of his burial-place were
forgotten.
Such was the chequered career of the strange man -who erronously is
represented as one of the last 1 Minne ’ poets, but whose lays generally
resemble the troubadour style as much as a broom-stick does a forgetme-not.
However, Wolkenstein, as a poet, does not stand alone in this exuber
ant hilarity. Between Minne and Meister-song, we find a third element
interposing at that time—an element of gross joviality, which, strange
to say, makes its appearance even on clerical ground. This peculiar
phenomenon is to be observed in many spiritual Church poems of the
fifteenth century. Whilst the Minne-singer, when they yielded to re
ligious enthusiasm, exhibit a melancholy, brooding mood, a mystically
ardent adherence to sacred traditions; whilst the Meister-singer,
about the time of Hans Sachs, are characterised by a profound but
quiet profession of faith, there is, in that age of transition when
the Master-song only begins to rise, a certain hilarious form of spiritual
poetry.
Many of those clerical poems sound almost like a student’s Gaudeamus
igitur. Were it not known that they are Church songs, they might be
mistaken for satires against the clergy. The mixture of Latin and
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
179
German, in itself not unapt to produce a risible effect, is very much used
in those poems:
In dulci jubilo—
Nun singet und seid froh!
All unsre Wonne
Liegt in praesepio;
Sie leuchtet mehr als die Sonne
Matris in gremio ;
Qui est A et 0,
Qui est A et 0!
-
*
0 Jesu parvule,
Nach dir ist mir weh!
Tröst’ mir mein Gemüthe,
0 puer optime,
Durch aller Jungfrau’n Güte,
0 princeps glorise,
Trahe me post te !
Trahe me post te !
Mater et filia
Ist Jungfrau Maria.
Wir waren gar verdorben
Per nostra crimina:
Nun hat sie uns erworben
Coelorum gaudia.
Quanta gratia!
Quanta gratia!
Ubi sunt gaudia ?
Wo die Engel singen
Nova cantica,
Und die Glöcklein klingen
In regis curia.
*
Eia, qualia!
Eia, qualia!
This, surely, is not a very austere triumphal song on the birth of the
Saviour. A clerical May-song in honour of the Thom-crowned is also
extant, in which the faithful are invited to assemble under the Tree of
the Cross:
Unter des Kreuzes Aste,
Da schenkt man Cyperwein ;
Maria ist die Kellnerin,
Die Engel schenken ein ;
Da sollen die lieben Seelen
Von Minne trunken sein.
�180
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
Under tlie branches of the Cross
Is poured forth Cyprus wine ;
Maria bears the goblet round,
The angels pour the wine ;
There all dear souls shall drunken be
With juice of Love’s own vine.
In the 1 Bath-Song,’ another clerical lay, the pilgrimage of the faithful tothe Saviour is literally described as a journey to a Spa, nay as a
voyage to Baden-Baden. Even the effect of the water, the bleeding
nceessary for the cure, and other mundane matters, are strangely
mixed up with the religious subject. The five introductory verses,
run thus:
Wohlauf ! ini Geist gen Baden,
Ihr zarten Fraulein ;
Dahin hat uns geladen
Jesus der Herre mein.
Hie quillt der Gnaden Bronnen,
Der Freuden Morgenröth ’;
Da glänzt die ewige Sonne,
Und alles Leid zergeht.
Da hört man süss erklingen
Der Vögelein Getön,
Und auch die Engelein singen
Ihre Melodie gar schön.
Da führt Jesus den Tanz
Mit aller Mädchen Schaar ;
Da ist die Liebe ganz
Ohn’ alles Ende gar.
Da ist ein lieblich Kosen1
Und Lachen immermehr ;
Da kann die Seel ’ hofiren
Mit Freuden ohn’ alles Weh !
The following I believe to be a fair translation :—
Up ! haste to the Baden spring,
Ye tender maidens fair !
Jesus, our Lord and King,
Himself invites us there.
The well of grace supernal,
Joy’s rosy dawn is there ;
There shines a sun eternal—
Banished are pain and care.
1 Smiren, in the old text,
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
181
There soundeth, sweetly singing,
Of birds the harmony ;
There angels’ voices are ringing
Celestial melody.
There the Lord doth lead the measure
’Mid troops of damsels bright’;
And there the heavenly pleasure
Of love is infinite.
There caresses sweet are given,
And unending laughter is heard ;
There the souls may go a-courting,
With gladness undeterred.
And let it not be too hastily assumed that in these extraordinary
verses, 'which partake so strongly of the erotic character and even of
the erotic terminology, the spirit of the later pietists, or ‘ Mucker,’ is
already visible. On the contrary, strange as it may seem, the proba
bility rather is that this Bath-song, which describes the well, the dawn,
the crowd of young girls, and the chirping of the feathered songsters in
a region where all grief ceases, is a dim echo of the worship of the
Germanic Goddess of Love, whose place, after the introduction of
Christianity, was occupied by the Virgin Mary. In the Freia myth also,
we have the well of eternal rejuvenation—the rosy dawn which ever
lastingly pervades the region of this goddess—the crowd of children
that move joyously on a flowery meadow filled with the song of birds ;
in short, the whole outer structure of a legend in which afterwards only
names were changed.
In this way, ancient Germanic paganism, with its mystic poetical
charms, once more flickers up from beneath the Roman Catholic integu
ment, ere the Meistersinger intone the sadly serious chaunts of the
‘ Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’ :
0 sacred Head, surrounded
By crown of piercing thorn !
0 bleeding Head, so wounded,
Reviled and put to scorn !
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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German troubadours and master-singers
Creator
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Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 163-181 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 3 (April, 1872). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
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[British and Colonial Publishing]
Date
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[1872]
Identifier
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G5340
Subject
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Music
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (German troubadours and master-singers), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Germany
Singing
Songs
Troubadours