Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/41

29 lives fall around the year 1200, were as German as their language, although they borrowed from abroad the form and matter of their compositions.

There could be no better Germans than the two most thoughtful of this group, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide. Most Germanically the former wrestled with that ancient theme, "from suffering, wisdom," which he pressed into the tale of Parzival. His great poem, achieved with toil and sweat, was mighty in its climaxes, and fit to strengthen the hearts of those men who through sorrow and loneliness and despair's temptations were growing "slowly wise."

The virtues which Wolfram praised and embodied in his hero were those praised in the verses, and even, one may think, strugglingly exemplified in the conduct, of Walther von der Vogelweide, most famous of Minnesingers, and a power in the German lands through his Sprüche, or verses personal and political. Less is known of his life than of his whole and manly views, his poetic fancies, his musings, his hopes, and great depressions. Many places have claimed the honour of his birth, which took place somewhat before 1170. He was poor, and through his youth and manhood moved about from castle to castle, and from court to court, seeking to win some recompense for his excellent verses and good company. Thus he learned much of men, "climbing another's stairs," with his fellows, at the Landgraf Hermann's Wartburg, or at the Austrian ducal Court.

Walther's Sprüche render his moods most surely, and reflect his outlook on the world. His charming Minnelieder bear more conventional evidence. The courtly German love-songs passing by this name were affected by the conceits and conventions of the Provençal poetry upon which they