Boedder—“Die Meistersinger von Niirriberg.” 121 
found that the soulful minnesong exercised wonderful power in 
helping to check the brutality and violence of the knights. In the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries all the lower classes were in a 
state of ferment; a rush and race for gain, distinction and author¬ 
ity seized even the lowly, and . . . mutual jealousy, hostility, 
and persecution between the various ranks of society and the vari¬ 
ous crafts disfigured the middle classes of the time. Considering 
all the intensity of professional jealousy and the downright char¬ 
acter of this sort of people, what a solidity and soundness of nature 
must we presuppose to account for the fact that men united and 
segregated themselves in the collective guild of the singers, threw 
a common bond about the citizens, and educated them to a touching 
devotion to a purpose that was not infected by any selfishness, that 
kept aloof from baseness and vulgarity, and could only found 
friendship and mutual confidence. Even though the great ma¬ 
jority of artisans and craftsmen after their day’s work would re¬ 
pair to the ale-house, it was all the more, at a time when the physi¬ 
cal vices were so monstrously rampant, wholesome that at least a 
number of stalwart masters applied their hours and days of rest 
from labor to something worthier, in taking down the old art of 
the courts into their circle and essaying to arouse and keep alive 
an interest in it; for had not Hans Sachs so popularized the gra¬ 
cious art that around him there were two hundred and fifty mas¬ 
ters in Nuremberg? These would sit down after the hard work 
of the day and compose their songs, think out new tunes and prac¬ 
tice the old ones, copy everything in big books, and take joy in pre¬ 
serving for posterity what with love and gratitude they had in¬ 
herited from their predecessors. The dignity of the life and the 
unselfishness of these masters compensates us for their labored art. 
Heretofore poetry had begged for bread at the courts and even in 
its most flourishing period had not cast off the parasitic note to¬ 
ward Maecenases and patrons, but mastersong is the foundation of 
our modern independent poetry in this respect also, that it taught 
people how in the heartfelt practice of a fine pursuit, even with 
indifferent success, there is a felicity that needs no further reward. 
With what self-denial did the good masters devote themselves with¬ 
out any compensation to instructing their apprentices and pupils 
in the difficult tunes, depriving themselves of rest and sleep in 
order to have leisure to recruit and educate new votaries to their 
art, since the day was filled with their professional labors. And 
with what love did the pupil then look up to his master! 
