DESCRlPTIOiV? OF NATURE B\ THE MINNESINGERS* 47 



" The question, whether contact with Southern Italy, oi 

 the intercourse opened by means of the crusades with Asia 

 Minor, Syria, and Palestine, may not have enriched Germanic 

 poetry with new images of natural scenery, must be answered 

 generally in the negative, for we do not find that an acquaint- 

 ance with the East gave any different direction to the pro- 

 ductions of the Minnesingers. The Crusaders had little con- 

 nection with the Saracens, and differences ever reigned amon" 

 the various nations wdio were fighting for one common cause 

 One of the most ancient of the lyric poets was Friedrich vop 

 Hansen, who perished in the army of Barbai'ossa. His songs 

 contain many allusions to the Crusades, but they simply ex- 

 press religious views, or the pain of being separated from the 

 beloved of his heart. Neither he. nor any of those who took 

 part in the crusades, as Reinmar the elder, Rubin, Neidhardt, 

 and Ulrich von Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of 

 the country surrounding them. Reinmar came to Syria as a 

 pilgrim, and, as it would appear, in the retinue of Duke Leo- 

 pold VI. of Austria. He laments that he can not shake off^ 

 the thoughts of home, which draw his mind away from God 

 The date-tree is occasionally mentioned wdien reference is 

 made to the palm-branches which the pilgrims should bear 

 on their shoulders. I do not remember an instance in which 

 the noble scenery of Italy seems to have excited the imagina- 

 tive fancy of the Minnesingers wdio crossed the Alps. Wal- 

 ther von der Vogelw^eide, who had made distant travels, had, 

 however, not journeyed further into Italy than to the Po ; 

 but Freidank* had been in Rome, and yet he merely remarks 

 that grass grows on the palaces of those who once held sway 

 there.". 



The German Animal Ej^os, which must not be confound- 

 ed with the " animal fables" of the East, has arisen from 

 a habit of social familiarity with animals, and not from any 

 special purpose of giving a representation of them. This kind 

 of epos, of which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a 



* Vridankes Bescheidenheit, by Wilhelm Grirnm, 1834, s. 1. and cxxviii 

 I have taken all that refers to the German national Epos and the Min 

 nesiugers from a letter of Wilhelm Grimm to myself, dated October, 

 1845. In a veiy old Anglo-Saxon poem on the names of the Runes, 

 first made known by Hickes, we find the following characteristic de- 

 scription of the birch-tree: " Beorc is beautiful in its branches: it rus- 

 tles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and fro by the breath of 

 heaven." The greeting of the day is simple and noble: " The day ia 

 the messenger of the Lord, dear to man, the glorious liglit of God, a 



oy and trusting comfort to rich and poor, beneficent to all '," See, also. 



Vilhelm Grimm. Ueher Deutsche Rv^en, 1821, s. 94, 225, and 231. 



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