OF LITERATURE. 



xlv 



sharpened ; their very climate, improved by the re- 

 moval of forests and morasses and the introduction 

 of new modes of cultivation, poured a mellowing 

 sunshine into the souls of men ; and their princes 

 and chiefs, charmed with lessons they had learned 

 abroad, promoted the acquisition of foreign graces 

 in mental as well as physical culture. The 

 example of the Provengal troubadours was not 

 lost upon their north-eastern neighbours. Yet 

 the Germans, while they took from them the 

 mould of their love-poetry, did not cease to 

 manifest, in its substance, proofs of that indepen- 

 dence, for which the Teutonic muse had previously 

 been famous. With regard to the outward garb of 

 song, their metres were immediately matured to 

 a degree of harmony that still pleases the ear ; 

 but, notwithstanding a certain enlargement of 

 their vocabulary out of that of their masters, the 

 first change wrought upon their language was 

 little else than one of dialect. Hitherto, from 

 the reign of Charlemagne, the Frankish form of 

 the German tongue had been most cherished. 

 The poetical panegyric on Hanno, Archbishop 

 of Cologne ; a curious medley, which carries us, 

 in forty -nine strophes, from the creation down to 

 the death of that prelate in 1075 ; is written in 

 Frankish. But when a Swabian dynasty, the 

 house of Hohenstaufen, mounted the Imperial 

 throne, their native dialect, more soft and refined 

 than the Frankish, took precedence of it in courts 

 and literature. From 1138, the date of the ac- 

 cession of Conrad the third, to about the year 

 1346, was the age of the Swabian MINNESINGERS. 

 Three hundred of that tuneful band are 

 known to us. Emperors and kings, dukes and 

 counts, knights and barons, were among the 

 foremost to compete in song. Poetical tourna- 

 ments were held in lists crowded with the 

 best blood of Germany. They chanted the 

 praises of wine : they gave vent to all the 

 dreams and longings of untamed fancy : they 

 told of the pains and joys, the sighs and smiles 

 of love, with a truth and tenderness that fitly 

 baptized them with the very name of the passion * 

 so portrayed. Not that other themes were 

 entirely overlooked by the Minnesingers. Fa- 

 bles and spiritual hymns, heroic and didactic 

 poetry, were occasionally produced by them. 

 HENRY OF VAtDECK,f after the precedent of an 

 old French work, wrote a half-version, half- 

 paraphrase, of the JRneid ; taking care to em- 

 bellish Virgil with romantic episodes in a taste 

 somewhat different from that of his original. 

 The trouveres, in addition to the troubadours, 

 became favourite models ; and the Round Table, 



Minne signifies love in German. f A. D. 1170 120T. 



the Paladins, the Trojan war, and the deeds of 

 Alexander the Great, made their appearance in 

 German verse. 



But the Minnesingers always shone most in 

 their erotic poetry. Tender and thrilling to the 

 last, it would hardly have died of mere exhaus- 

 tion, from constantly dwelling on one fertile 

 topic, had not political changes altered the 

 aspect of Germany. The death of Frederick II., 

 in 1250, was followed by twenty-three years of 

 confusion, and by a melancholy depravation of 

 the character of the German nobles. No more 

 crusades, no more chivalry, no more delight in 

 minstrelsy, dignified their order. Feudal vio- 

 lence prevailed on every side : all intercourse 

 with foreign poets was abandoned : the knight 

 sank into the military robber : Swabia, once the 

 seat of taste and happiness, fell into decay. 

 And, though Rudolph of HabsburgJ repressed 

 violence with a strenuous arm, neither this able 

 monarch, nor his immediate successors, had 

 leisure to patronise the peaceful arts. The pro- 

 mulgation of the Golden Bull, in 1356, bestowed 

 on Germany a settled constitution ; but by that 

 time the inclination to romance had vanished ; 

 and, since the gentle contests of poetry were 

 prized no more, and sterner realities or other 

 pleasures had driven the art away from palaces 

 and castles, it is rather surprising that, amid so 

 many discouragements, a few Minnesingers should 

 have lingered on so long, than that their career 

 should then have closed for ever. 



The MEMTERSANGERS were their degenerate 

 successors. Never so faintly, as when struck by 

 them, sounded the harp of Germany. They sang 

 to it, moreover, in a tongue that was now griev- 

 ously corrupted. Even the love -poets had 

 incorporated with the German language a gra- 

 dually-increasing number of Provengal, French, 

 and Latin words. After their decline, both the 

 adoption of foreign phraseology became more 

 habitual, and the rising demands of the philo- 

 sopher, the lawyer, and the mystic, for a fresh 

 coinage of terms, while they held out the prospect 

 of a rich and teeming future for the German 

 tongue, gave birth in the mean while to an un- 

 couth jargon, ill adapted for either poetry or 

 prose. The first of these, falling entirely into 

 plebeian hands, and putting on a trade-like 

 exterior, became in very truth a craft and not an 

 inspiration. The Meistersangers congregated in 

 towns, such as Mayence, Nuremberg, and Stras- 

 burg : they had their corporate statutes, meet- 

 ings, ceremonies, and privileges ; their thirty-two 

 prohibitory articles ; their choice of scriptural, 



t A. D. 1273. 



