Walter Von Der Vogelweide

Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170c. 1230) was a Minnesänger who composed and performed love-songs and political songs (" Sprüche") in Middle High German. Walther has been described as the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundred or so love-songs are widely regarded as the pinnacle of Minnesang, the medieval German love lyric, and his innovations breathed new life into the tradition of courtly love. He was also the first political poet to write in German, with a considerable body of encomium, satire, invective, and moralising.

Little is known about Walther's life. He was a travelling singer who performed for patrons at various princely courts in the states of the Holy Roman Empire. He is particularly associated with the Babenberg court in Vienna. Later in life he was given a small fief by the future Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II.

His work was widely celebrated in his time and in succeeding generations—for the Meistersingers he was a songwriter to emulate—and this is reflected in the exceptional preservation of his work in 32 manuscripts from all parts of the High German area. The largest single collection is found in the Codex Manesse, which includes around 90% of his known songs. However, most Minnesang manuscripts preserve only the texts, and only a handful of Walther's melodies survive.

Notable songs include the love-song "Under der linden", the contemplative " Elegy", and the religious ''Palästinalied'', for which the melody has survived.

Life history

For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese: "" ('To Walther the singer of the Vogelweide five shillings for a fur coat.') The main sources of information about him are his own poems and occasional references by contemporary Minnesingers. He was a knight, but probably not a wealthy or landed one. His surname, von der Vogelweide, suggests that he had no grant of land, since ('the bird-pasture') seems to refer to a general geographic feature, not a specific place. He probably was knighted for military bravery and was a retainer in a wealthy, noble household before beginning his travels.

Birthplace

Walther's birthplace remains unknown, and given the lack of documentary evidence, it will probably never be known exactly. There is little chance of deriving it from his name; in his day there were many so-called in the vicinity of castles and towns, where hawks were caught for hawking or songbirds for people's homes. For this reason, it must be assumed that the singer did not obtain his name primarily for superregional communication, because it could not be used for an unambiguous assignment. Other persons of the high nobility and poets who traveled with their masters used the unambiguous name of their ownership or their place of origin; therefore, the name was meaningful only in the near vicinity, where only one Vogelweide existed or it was understood as a metaphoric surname of the singer. Pen-names were usual for poets of the 12th and 13th century, whereas Minnesingers in principle were known by their noble family name which was used to sign documents.

In 1974, Helmut Hörner identified a farmhouse mentioned in 1556 as "" in the ''urbarium'' of the domain Rappottenstein. At this time it belonged to the ''Amt Traunstein'', now within the municipality Schönbach in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel. Its existence had already been mentioned without comment in 1911 by Alois Plesser, who also did not know its precise location. Hörner proved that the still-existing farmhouse ''Weid'' is indeed the mentioned and collected arguments for Walther being born in the Waldviertel ("Forest Quarter"). He published this in his 1974 book ''(800 years Traunstein)'', pointing out that Walther says ''"'"'' ("In Austria t this time only Lower Austria and Vienna">Lower_Austria.html" ;"title="t this time only Lower Austria">t this time only Lower Austria and Vienna I learned to sing and to speak"). A tradition says that Walther, one of the ten ''Old Masters'', was a Landherr (land owner) from Bohemia proper">Bohemia