1058 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Lettres. 
Austria. Who the author Wernher was is not known. The 
only apparently definite knowledge we have of his station in 
life is that which he himself gives at the end of the poem, 
namely, that he was a Garienaere, or gardener, and even this 
title may have been assumed. The knowledge of classical and 
legendary lore that he displays in the poem suggests that he had 
read much of the literature of the day,—though he may have 
gathered this knowledge from wandering minstrels—and his 
bits of homely philosophy, which remind one occasionally of 
Poor Richard, indicate that he was a good observer of human 
nature and life. 
On account of this knowledge and philosophy it has been 
argued that, since he was a gardener, he must have been con¬ 
nected with a convent garden. Keinz 1 argues that he was the 
“pater” gardener of the convent of Panshofen, located in the 
district indicated above. His arguments are not conclusive, 
however, and are rather strongly contradicted by the fact that 
in lines 780-781 the old peasant states rather doggedly that 
he gives the church an exact tithe, and not a penny more, and 
Would not take a priest into his house over night. 
Panzer 2 tries to prove that, if the author was not a knight, 
he was at any rate a troubadour who wrote for the benefit of 
the occupants of the castles. He bases his supposition on the 
fact that the poet derides the peasant boy who strives beyond 
his station, and on the description of the tournaments and 
court customs of old. The complaints against present-day 
knighthood, and the uncomplimentary comparison of the knight 
of today with his fathers 3 Panzer calls an “apparent artistic 
error,” overlooking the fact that such an error would, at the 
very least, cause the summary expulsion of the guilty poet from 
the castle. 
Reasoning from the character of the poem, its general ten- 
1 L. c., pp. 9 ff. 
2 Cf. Panzer’s edition of the poem, Halle a. S. 1906, pp. xi, xii. 
K. Schiffmann, expresses the same view; cf. Zeitschrift fur osterreich- 
ische Gymnasien, LV., 8, pp. 709 ff. 
3 LI. 913-1035. (Line references to the poem are based on Panzer’s 
edition.) 
