!!!Minnesang

Minnesong (Minnesang), poetic-musical art form dealing with courtly 
love (approx. 1160 to the early 15th century), not based on actual 
experience but on formalisation, which formed part of a broader 
literary treatment of various aspects of love on the part of medieval 
nobility. The first minnesongs were created about 1160 in Germany and 
especially in Austria. Unlike the (earlier) French lovesongs of 
Provençal troubadours, the oldest German-language lovesongs 
derived from the tradition of indigenous vernacular literature. The 
early courtly minnesingers include the poet Der von  Kuerenberg,  
Dietmar von Aist and the Burgrave of Regensburg. Around 1170 the 
Minnesang of the Danube area gave way to its Romance-inspired 
counterpart associated with the Hohenstaufen court of Friedrich 
Barbarossa and Heinich VI, which also developed the concept of 
Hohe Minne, in which the knight pines for an inaccessible noble lady 
without any hope of finding a hearing. A subsequent conflict about the 
idea of Hohe Minne reached its climax at the Vienna court of the 
Babenbergs around 1200 in the dispute between  Reinmar der Alte and  
Walther von der Vogelweide ("Walther-Reinmar feud"), with Waltherr von 
der Vogelweide sharply criticising the concept and promoting the idea 
of mutual love independent of differences in rank or standing (Niedere 
Minne). In the late Middle Ages (from 1210) the critical stance 
against Hohe Minne gained momentum, particularly in the work of  
Neidhart von Reuental, the originator of satirical village poetry. 
Austrian minnesingers around and after Neidhart included  Tannhaeuser, 
Zachaeus von Himmelberg, Heinrich von Lienz, Konrad von Suoneck, 
Ulrich von Sachsendorf, Leuthold von Saeben, Rubin, Walther von Metze, 
Rudolf von Stadeck,  Friedrich von Sonnenburg, Freidank, Reimar der 
Videlere, Hartmann von Starkenberg, der von Scharpfenberg,  Herrand 
von Wildonie and  Ulrich von Liechtenstein.  Reinmar von Zweter, 
Brother  Wernher and the poet Marner stood at the threshold of a new 
era characterised by the gradual transition to  Meistersang.  Hugo von 
Montfort and  Oswald von Wolkenstein were the minnesingers who 
achieved a last revival of the forms and motifs of minnesong; their 
œuvre was marked by a subjectivism that clearly turned away from 
the more anonymous concept of minnesong.

\\
Minnesongs have for the most part been handed down in collective 
manuscripts, the most important of which are the Grosses Heidelberger 
Handschrift (1st half of the 14th century), the Kleines Heidelberger 
Handschrift (13th century), the Weingartner Liederhandschrift (ca. 
1300) and the Jenaer Handschrift (with musical notation, ca. 1310).

\\
Editions: Des Minnesanges Fruehling, ed. by K. Lachmann and M. Haupt 
1857; 2%%sup nd/%  ed. by H. Moser and H. Tervooren. %%sup 38/%1977; 
Fr. H. v. d. Hagen, Minnesinger, 4 vols., 1838; 
C. v. Kraus, Deutsche Liederdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts, 
%%sup 2/%1978.

!Literature
P. Dronke, Die Lyrik des Mitellalters, 1977.


%%language
[Back to the Austrian Version|AEIOU/Minnesang|class='wikipage austrian']
%%

[{FreezeArticle author='AEIOU' template='Lexikon_1995_englisch'}]
[{ALLOW view All}][{ALLOW comment All}][{ALLOW edit FreezeAdmin}]