Minnesang (German: [ˈmɪnəzaŋ] ; "Love song") was a tradition of German lyric- and song-writing that flourished in the Middle High German period (12th to 14th centuries). The name derives from minne, the Middle High German word for love, as that was Minnesang's main subject. People who wrote and performed Minnesang were known as Minnesänger (German: [ˈmɪnəˌzɛŋɐ] ), and a single song was called a Minnelied (German: [ˈmɪnəˌliːt] ). The Minnesänger are comparable to the Occitan troubadours and northern French trouvères, but they are "an original German contribution to courtly lyric."
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👉 Minnesang in the context of Middle High German literature
Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit (c. 1170 – c. 1230). This was the period of the blossoming of Minnesang, MHG lyric poetry, initially influenced by the French and Provençal tradition of courtly love song. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. again drawing on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating Arthurian material. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Minnesang
- 👉 Minnesang in the context of Middle High German literature
- Minnesang in the context of Troubadour
- Minnesang in the context of Codex Manesse
- Minnesang in the context of Wolfram von Eschenbach
- Minnesang in the context of Lieder
- Minnesang in the context of Liederhandschrift
Minnesang in the context of Troubadour
A troubadour (English: /ˈtruːbədɔːr, -dʊər/, French: [tʁubaduʁ] ; Occitan: trobador [tɾuβaˈðu] ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a trobairitz.
The troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread to the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his De vulgari eloquentia defined the troubadour lyric as fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and around the time of the Black Death (1348) and since died out.
Minnesang in the context of Codex Manesse
The Codex Manesse (also Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift or Pariser Handschrift) is a Liederhandschrift (a German term for a manuscript containing songs) which is the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German Minnesang poetry. It was written and illustrated between c. 1304 when the main part was completed, and c. 1340 with the addenda.
The codex was produced in Zürich (Switzerland), for the Manesse family.
Minnesang in the context of Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (German: [ˈvɔlfʁam fɔn ˈɛʃn̩bax]; c. 1160/80 – c. 1220) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Minnesang in the context of Lieder
In the Western classical music tradition, Lied (/liːd, liːt/ LEED, LEET, German: [liːt] ; pl. Lieder /ˈliːdər/ LEE-dər, German: [ˈliːdɐ] ; lit. 'song') is a term for setting poetry to music. The term is used for any kind of song in German, but among English speakers, lied is often used interchangeably with "art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages as well. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love.
The earliest Lieder date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, and can even refer to Minnesang from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss.
Minnesang in the context of Liederhandschrift
Liederhandschrift, German for Manuscript of the Songs, is the German term for a manuscript containing lieder (songs) of the German Middle Ages, dating from the late 12th to the 15th centuries. Of particular importance are the Minnesang manuscripts of the 13th to 14th centuries.
List of important Liederhandschriften: