The German tradition of courtly lyric and secular monophony that flourished particularly in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. Though it is in many ways merely the German branch of the genre represented by the troubadours and trouvères in France, it has substantial independent features. The musical history of Minnesang is a particularly controversial subject because the melodies survive largely in manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries (see Sources, MS, §III, 5).
2. Origins and ‘courtly love’.
5. The melodies and their sources.
6. Evidence for performing practice.
BURKHARD KIPPENBERG/R
The name ‘minnesinger’ appears for the first time in the work of Hartmann von Aue (Minnesangs Frühling, 218.21; c1189); the word ‘minnesanc’ is substantially later, being first found in Walther von der Vogelweide (W 66.31; c1230); and ‘minneliet’ is used by Neidhart von Reuental (85.33; after 1230). Reaching its peak in the years of the Hohenstaufen emperors, the tradition grew alongside early Gothic architecture, the great religious movements of the time (particularly the Albigensians) which culminated in the crusades, and the brilliant rise of scholasticism. Just as in France, German Minnesang was cultivated by the travelling musicians but particularly by the nobility; and the intensity of the tradition shows the central role it must have played in the cultural and social life at court. This could happen only with the rise of a separate, carefully cultivated life style and new social obligations among the nobility coming together with the ethical duty to provide guidelines for their secular existence.
The Minnedienst – servitude to love – is the central motif of this aristocratic poetry and must be understood in terms of the feudal system. Alongside the inevitable components, the inferior social position in court of the professional singers as well as of the noble ministeriales among whose ranks most Minnesinger were found, there is the knight’s courteous striving for the grace and favour of a lady, one who is a respected (and unreachable) member of the courtly society to whom the singer fully yields himself – at least in the fiction created by the ideology and poetic conventions of Minne. Within this concept of an inferior position is mirrored the idea of feudal dependence to which even the nobility were subject. Ministeriales, the vassals of the king and the great landlords, were bound to faithfulness, to service and to military duty; the fief they held in return for this was hereditary from the time of Konrad II. And it is perhaps from that context that many of the fundamental motifs of Minnesang – dienen, triuwe, zuht and staete – take their full meaning. Equally, the repertory contains many concepts taken from religious contexts – hulde, genade – thus emphasizing also the musical connection of Minnesang with the church.
Music and dancing were important components of courtly life, and the performance of epics and songs played a major role. The performer had normally created both the poetry and the music that he sang to the assembled company with instrumental accompaniment. But although this is one of the earliest repertories in which the poet is regularly named, the poetry is well separated from biographical detail: it takes place largely in the imagination, in a generalized fiction, and it is only after the factually documentable political songs of Walther von der Vogelweide that it becomes possible, in the more derivative later Minnesang, to begin to read biographical or historical fact in the poetry. Therefore many historical questions such as chronology, particularly of Walther’s or Reinmar’s poetry, and the mutual influences of single poets or groups of poets must remain unresolved. Further questions are made difficult by the nature of the sources: the earlier manuscripts tend to contain poetry alone; and it is therefore possible to overestimate the value of the few scattered early musical fragments as well as the much later large manuscripts with music.
Although the German Minnesang tradition contains indigenous features and characteristic forms, its dependence on other western European song is predominant. The search for its origin is no longer limited to Provence and northern France since jarchas have been found in Cairo, at the extreme edge of the Romanic area (see Stern, F1953); but even so Provençal lyric poetry is still unquestionably the oldest vernacular tradition of its kind in Europe. It had an exceptionally strong effect over the whole West, and much in the German Minnesang is nothing more than a direct imitation of this art. From the beginning of the 12th century there was a fully formed tradition; for discussion of its origins and contexts see Troubadours, trouvères, §I, 4.
Central to the German tradition is the idea of Minne, a word coming from the Old High German minna and including the concepts of ‘mindfulness’ and ‘remembrance’ but best translated in English with the much contested but useful phrase ‘courtly love’. It corresponds also to the late classical Latin amor. The verb minnen (Old High German minnôn) means ‘to love’ or ‘to be complaisant’ in both religious and secular senses. Minne therefore has both spiritual and sensual qualities, and it is possible to see within Middle High German literature a development from the earlier primarily spiritual and emotional use to a more sensual one in the later Middle Ages.
During the peak era of Minnesang Minne represented an ideal spiritual relationship between the man (ritter, man) and the lady (frouwe, wîp), also called hôhiu minne (high Minne), first by Friedrich von Hûsen (before 1190) and later also by Walther von der Vogelweide; it was a sensual force determined by the nature of courtly society and culture. By contrast, nideriu minne (low Minne) was the more outright demand by a man for physical possession of a woman. But the spiritual nature of earlier Minnesang makes it impossible to inflict the widely accepted characterization of ‘low Minne’ on, for example, Walther von der Vogelweide’s Mädchenlieder (girls’ songs).
Liebe (‘love’) represents fulfilment, acceptance, but normally includes the spiritual as well as the physical relationship of man and woman, though it can stand for the spiritual alone; it is, however, a less common word. A constantly repeated fundamental motif in Minnesang is the knight’s longing for an unreachable woman, the lament over this unbridgeable chasm, and at the same time the spiritual optimism (vröide) which results in the sensual character-developing force of Minne, service of a woman without any reward.
Of the three main categories of Minnesang, the Lied, the Spruch and the Leich, only the Leich is clearly identifiable in formal terms: it is not strophic but a through-composed form with a highly developed and complex metrical structure, containing repetition either in pairs of lines (AABBCC …) or in groups of lines (AABBCC … AABBCC …), often framed by individual opening and closing lines (ABBCCDDEE … X). The earliest known example in German seems to be the Kreuzleich of Heinrich von Rugge (c1190), but the form remained in use throughout the Minnesang era and beyond (see Lai). In the 13th century it reached full flowering with such poets as Ulrich von Winterstetten (five), Der Tannhäuser (six), Konrad von Würzburg (two) etc., while later figures representing the transition to Meistergesang, such as Hadlaub (three) and Frauenlob (three), also fully exploited the form.
Lied and Spruch are closer to one another, however: modern scholarship largely accepts but continues to discuss the received distinction according to content and form (see Spruch). A social division whereby the travelling musician sang Spruch whereas the nobleman sang Minnelied is valid for the early period but ceases to hold towards the end of the 12th century with Walther von der Vogelweide, who was a master of both genres. On the other hand the most useful division of Walther’s extensive lyric output seems to be between the single stanzas in Spruch form with elements of the travelling musician and the more noble multi-stanza Minnelieder. Hugo Kuhn has been followed by many modern scholars in considering a series of Spruch stanzas to the same melody (the so-called Spruchlied) as having been written a stanza at a time over a period of years. Several later poets wrote both Minnelied and Spruch, among them Neidhart von Reuental, Frauenlob and Wizlâv, while Reinmar von Brennenberg even wrote examples of both to a single melody.
For this stanzaic poetry a method of construction was employed that is particular to the Germanic repertory. Each stanza had a metrical and poetic scheme, known as a Ton; this also incorporated the melody, which was inseparable from the metrical-rhyme scheme. For Minnelied and related categories it is assumed that a new Ton was generally created for each song, but for Spruch poetry many stanzas were written in the same Ton, not just by the creator of the Ton but also, later on, by authors who employed older Töne, citing the name of the Ton at the beginning of their derivative poems (see also Ton (i)).
Compact four-line stanzas or stanzas with four long lines more in the manner of epic poetry (Kürnberger) are characteristic of early Minnesang; in the subsequent era of classic Minnesang canzone form (otherwise called bar form) was preferred for both Lied and Spruch, though other types of stanza existed; finally, in the course of the 13th century there was an astonishing expansion of forms and formal techniques with refrains, internal rhyme, linking rhyme and other features to which the melody could add a further structural dimension. In particular the canzone form was developed in many varied ways (see Bar form); it should however be emphasized that the presence of canzone form in the poetry did not necessarily imply music in the same form (see Paul and Glier, F1961, esp. p.88) so it is important to qualify all formal descriptions as being musical or poetic. In this, as in so much else, the lack of melodies in many cases and the lack of metre for the melodies that do survive have tended to focus metrical research onto the text and many of the received formal categories were devised by modern scholarship on the basis of textual form alone; and while a fuller knowledge of Minnesang music together with its context within early European secular monophony in general has brought some perspective to the subject, it remains true that questions concerning upbeats to lines, line ends, rests and so on remain unresolved.
In terms of their content the songs can be classified as follows. Spruch poetry divides into two main groups, the religious and the political; further there is a group of social criticism, often commenting on the generosity of a patron; and others may be classified as ethical and philosophical.
Minnesang proper is normally categorized according to content: (1) the strict Minnelied is normally the song of a man, describing his own happiness, sadness or longing in love, and is often introduced by a description of nature and the time of year; (2) the Frauenstrophe or Frauenlied, the song of a woman, belongs particularly to the early years of Minnesang but is otherwise found in many parts of the world (cantigas de amigo) portraying the woman’s longing; in the (3) Wechsel (‘exchange’) stanzas from the man and the woman alternate, not in dialogue, but rather explaining to the listener their respective views of a situation; (4) the Tagelied, closely related to the Provençal Alba and many similar types across the world describing the parting of lovers at dawn, awoken by the watchman’s warning, is the only genre within Minnesang that enabled an apparently objective description of sensual love; (5) the pastourelle of Latin and French medieval poetry is relatively rare in its purest form in Minnesang, but appears in Walther von der Vogelweide’s Under der linden; (6) the Tanzlied (dance-song, round-dance) is most clearly represented in songs of Neidhart von Reuental but appears in songs of different content; finally (7) the Kreuzlied (crusade song), found particularly in the work of Hartmann von Aue, Friedrich von Hûsen, Walther von der Vogelweide and others, describes the experience of renunciation of the world on a crusade but contains rich overtones of other genres.
The development of Minnesang may perhaps be followed in terms of five very approximate chronological periods.
(1) According to the earliest evidence of Minnesang (c1150–80) the tradition began with simple straightforward love songs in a folksong-like manner. Based on dance-songs and other types of folksong with unconventional and directly experienced content, this earlier phase from the area round the Danube remains quite different from the Provençal model later adopted and is therefore independent of the strict stylization of high Minnesang. Frauenstrophe, Tagelied and Wechsel are common in these years. Long poetic lines after the manner of the epic and rhyming lines with four main accents are common, often with freer metre and assonance. The poems are for the most part single stanzas and are anonymous: the most famous names are Kürnberger and Dietmar von Aist – yet the latter has only two poems from this early date and they are quite different from the rest of his work in both style and content.
(2) Romanic influence characterizes the next generation (c1165–1290): the impact of the growing troubadour and trouvère traditions is first clearly recognizable in the dactylic verses surviving under the name of ‘Heinrich’ (VI) (seefig.1), but is more traditionally associated with the wedding of Heinrich’s father, Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, to Beatrice of Burgundy (9 June 1156), who had the trouvère Guiot de Provins in her retinue. An important symptom of the change is the position of the man (rather than the woman) as the longing, yearning partner; and the love becomes less overtly sensual, more contemplative. Bar form seems also to grow at this point and to have been borrowed from the troubadours with a carefully differentiated rhyme scheme and form in the Abgesang. This new artistic, rhetorical and musical impulse from the west evidently created stylistic ideas of a hitherto unimagined range. Earlier representatives of this generation, whose music must largely be reconstructed from contrafacta, are Rudolf von Fenis-Neuenburg from Switzerland (then the kingdom of Arelat), Friedrich von Hûsen from the lower Rhineland and Hendrik van Veldeke.
(3) The golden age of German Minnesang is generally agreed to belong to those years (c1180–1230) when the influence of the new Romance poetries was united with the indigenous tradition in a courtly art – a development sometimes related to Friedrich Barbarossa’s international festival in 1184 at Mainz. Bar form and dactylic rhythm became the most common technical features; but the whole form was now more varied and complex. Pure (exact) rhyme was now required, and the anacrusis was no longer added sporadically but became a regulated part of the metre; syllabic lines became predominant. The content, motifs and metaphors were now largely romanic; and knightly Minne was the central theme. Reinmar von Hagenau, Heinrich von Morungen and Hartmann von Aue were the most important poets; in addition Albrecht von Johannsdorf from Bavaria, Heinrich von Rugge from Swabia, Ulrich von Gutenburg from Rhenish Franconia, Bernger von Horheim and Bligger von Steinach should also be mentioned. But Walther von der Vogelweide represents the very peak of Minnesang, his all-embracing, superbly independent invention being conceptually, stylistically and formally beyond any classification and standing as a model for subsequent generations.
(4) The following years (c1230–1300) show an extraordinary expansion of Minnesang with the Spruch also being cultivated more systematically. Two main traditions may be identified: many poets continued the courtly tradition, albeit in a more mannerized style, following Walther von der Vogelweide. These included Ulrich von Liechtenstein, Reinmar von Brennenberg, Reinmar von Zweter, Friedrich von Sunnenburg and Meister Alexander. On the other hand Neidhart von reuental (d c1250), though a contemporary of Walther, led towards a new realism with his pointed style, often using rustic wit with positively coarse undertones and ironic parody. The use of a highly idealized fiction based on the courtly classical Minnesang is characteristic of this generation; it need on no account be considered derivative for it was a thoroughly creative transitional era also characterized by a return to realism and to parody as well as a retreat from the Romance influences of the preceding generation and a stronger alliance with indigenous traditions. Der Tannhäuser, Geltar and Der von Scharfenberg are the prime representatives of this second group. Poets who occupy a position between the two extremes include Burkhard von Hohenfels, Gottfried von Neifen, Ulrich von Winterstetten and Wizlâv iii von rügen. This generation closes impressively with the comprehensive and productive Frauenlob (fig.2).
(5) With the 14th century, in a changed political and social ambience with growing national consciousness and the rise of the towns and of the bourgeoisie, Minnesang finally retreated from its courtly idealism while still retaining much of its traditional sense. So the learned but not particularly gifted Hugo von Montfort (d 1423), whose poems were set to music by Bürk Mangolt, sang no more of unattainable women but of his own wife. Spiritual and didactic material came to the forefront, as did the geblümte Stil (florid style) that had already been cultivated by Burkhard von Hohenfels and Wizlâv von Rügen and was further developed by Heinrich von Mügeln (d after 1371): the transition to Meistergesang was inevitable. The musically important songs of the Monk of Salzburg (late 14th century) owe only a small part of their range to Minnesang. A century after the end of Minnesang Oswald von Wolkenstein (d 1445), the ‘last courtly singer’, continued the tradition, but he must be considered the herald of a new epoch in musical and literary history.
No certain information survives as to the earlier scribal stages that led to the relatively late manuscripts for the texts and the music of Minnesang. Presumably the poets themselves or other singers and musicians collected repertory on single leaves or in volumes that were circulated and copied. Yet oral transmission must also have been extremely important. Only about 1300 did the literary era begin owing to the initiative of collectors, amateurs and patrons, such as the Zurich town councillor Rüedeger Manesse. But even then texts were copied much more than music, as in the three major manuscripts, A (Kleine Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, D-HEu pal.germ.357, late 13th century), B (Weingartner Liederhandschrift, D-Sl HB XIII, 1, early 14th century with 25 illustrations) and C (Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, or Manessische Handschrift, D-HEu pal.germ.848, c1320, with 138 magnificent illustrations) as well as E (Würzburger Handschrift, D-Mu 2° cod.ms.731, mid-14th century); in addition there is a large number of smaller manuscripts, equally without music.
By contrast with the text transmission and with the rich legacy of trouvère melodies, the musical transmission of early and high Minnesang (c1150–1300) is extremely slender except for the songs of Neidhart von Reuental; only with the latest representatives of Minnesang such as Hugo von Montfort, the Monk of Salzburg and Oswald von Wolkenstein, who were conscious of standing at the end of a vanishing tradition and concerned to preserve their art, were melodies regularly written down, often in manuscripts prepared by the poets themselves. Subsequently, in the Meistersinger guilds it became a regular practice to write down songs.
Apart from the non-diastematic neumes for a few Middle High German poems in the Carmina burana manuscript (D-Mbs Clm 4660/4660a), for a single song of Walther von der Vogelweide in A-KR 127 (VII.18) and for the anonymous Rôsen ûf der heide in D-ERu B5 (1655) – all of which are only subjectively transcribable – there are essentially three groups of musical sources for Minnesang:
(1) The musical manuscripts of Minnesang, mostly from the 14th and 15th centuries. Music from the earlier generation (before c1230) appears only in the Münster fragment (D-MÜsa VII.51), with one complete melody for Walther von der Vogelweide, and in the Neidhart sources, particularly D-Bsb Mgf 779, A-Wn suppl.3344, D-F germ.oct.18 and Sterzing manuscript (I-STE); but even among these the 56 Neidhart and pseudo-Neidhart songs represent a new departure from the courtly Minnesang in both poetic and musical respects for they have a dancing, folksong-like style. The four major manuscripts, the Jenaer Liederhandschrift (D-Ju E l.f.101), the Wiener Leichhandschrift (A-Wn 2701), the Colmar manuscript (D-Mbs Cgm 4997) and its sister manuscript formerly at Donaueschingen (D-KA Donaueschingen 120), are largely taken up with Meistergesang and in any case do not always seem entirely reliable. Further manuscripts include fragments related to the Jenaer Liederhandschrift at Basle (CH-Bu N.I.3, 145), a fragment with the anonymous spring song Ich sezte minen vuz (D-Bsb Mgq 981; seefig.3) and perhaps also some of the 12 anonymous folksong-like melodies in D-Bsb Mgq 922. (For a table summarizing the sources and their notation, see Kippenberg, G1962, p.46; see also Sources, MS, §III, 5.)
(2) A substantial body of indirect musical transmission appears among the ‘inferred melodies’ (erschlossene Melodien): a number of texts are related to troubadour or trouvère songs in their form and content and seem to be contrafacta, so it is possible to take the original melody which the poet perhaps also used and to give it to the German poem. As a result of the energetic and thorough work of Spanke, Frank, Gennrich and Aarburg among others, over 30 cases of such contrafacta have been produced with greater or lesser degrees of certainty.
(3) Of questionable value for the study of this early period are manuscripts of Meistergesang from the 16th and 17th centuries which often contain melodies ascribed to earlier poets, among them Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Tannhäuser, Marner, Reinmar von Zweter and Konrad von Würzburg. But the melodies are apparently changed and provided with new texts. Minnesang scholarship can use them only with the utmost caution.
Any attempt to imagine the performance of Minnesang must begin by considering the rich instrumental practice of minstrelsy as recorded in a profusion of visual representations, in legal or administrative documents and within the poetry. This vital tradition must inevitably have affected the daily life of all classes in spite of the social disadvantage under which the performers laboured. Minstrels, jongleurs and travelling clerics with a variegated range of instruments and sometimes with extreme virtuosity took part in all kinds of festivities at court, in the countryside and at other secular occasions. The rondeau, the virelai and the estampie all contain some evidence of their music-making which did not care much for theories and rules or for written records but exerted a strong influence over courtly song forms in France and Germany as a result of its example and of the active and varied part it took in those song forms.
Textual evidence suggests that the vocal and instrumental abilities of the troubadours, trouvères and Minnesinger were often very good, sometimes excellent. Often additional musicians were employed to sing the song or to accompany it on instruments (seefig.2; see also Flute,fig.8); and it is recorded that Rumzlant, for example, had his songs performed by a singerlîn. Sometimes instrumentalists were sent to other courts in order that they might spread knowledge of their patron’s creations.
For the accompaniment all kinds of instruments seem to have been used. Here virtuosity was presumably important and the most varied performing styles may have been exploited. Thus Gotfrid von Strassburg praising Walther von der Vogelweide’s singing drew attention to his skill in diminution (wandelieren) and in instrumental accompaniment (organieren). Equally he made the mythical figure Tristan accompany his schanzune (chanson) on the harp, showing how at that time a singer who was also a practised musician would master various styles:
er sanc diu leichnotelin
britunsche und galoise,
latinsche und franzoise
so suoze mit dem munde,
daz nieman wizzen kunde,
wederez süezer waere
oder bas lobebaere
sin harpfen oder sin singen
(‘He sang the Leich melodies in Breton and Gaelic, Latin and French [styles] so sweetly with his voice that nobody could tell which of the two was sweeter or more praiseworthy: his harp playing or his singing.’ Tristan, ll.3626–33.) And Isolde had mastered the playing of bowed instruments in the French fashion:
si videlt ir stampenie,
leiche und so vremediu notelin,
diu niemer vremeder kunden sin,
in franzoiser wise
von Sanze und San Dinise
(‘She fiddled her estampies, Leichs and melodies so strange that they could never be stranger; and she followed the French manner of Saintes and St Denis’. Tristan, ll.8058–62.) Normally the melody covered a 10th or an 11th, only rarely reaching two octaves. But the notation is sometimes in a relatively high tessitura: Ulrich von Liehtenstein even wrote that many fiddlers would thank him for choosing such high pitches (Frauendienst, l.1373).
Eustache Deschamps, writing much later (L’art de dictier, 1392), distinguished musique naturelle (‘leiz, sirventois de Nostre Dame, chançons royaulx, pastourelles, ballades, virelais, rondeaux’) from musique artificielle (mensural polyphony), emphasizing that musique naturelle had no fixed rules and could not be learnt but depended entirely on natural talent. This seems to reflect the commonly made distinction between cantor and musicus, between ars (music according to the schools) and usus (practical music). Courtly singers on the whole were probably more practitioners, but may have had varied theoretical backgrounds: Gotfrid praised Tristan’s hantspil (playing ability with his hands) as well as his ability as a schuollist (theoretician); on the other hand Ulrich von Liehtenstein, when he had been sent melodies by a lady with the request that he should write new poems for them, first had them sung to him by a musician, and afterwards the songs he had composed for the lady had to be written down, both text and melody, by an expert. But many of the surviving Minnesang melodies, particularly the through-composed Leichs, bear witness to considerable technical skill. The representatives of the less regulated Minnesang had various attitudes towards church music: Rumzlant and Gervelin, representing an older and less sophisticated tradition in northern Germany, expressed disapproval of the south German Marner who probably had church training and of the middle German Meissner whose singing they found strange because of its reliance on solmization and church modes.
Various notational problems present both palaeographical and historical difficulties. Not only individual copying errors, but also frequent changes of tonality (major to minor, leading note to finalis or confinalis) and suggestions and changes of mode, imply that all the manuscripts were copied partly by ear. Yet the parallel existence of several versions of melodies (rather more in the French repertory than in the German) cannot always be explained in terms of errors or limitations in the notation; they can also be seen as a normal and perhaps thoroughly legitimate symptom of largely oral transmission in which a song was performed by several singers and variants could arise in performance, or even be added by the individual artist. Repeatedly these questions make it important to bear in mind that the relationship of notation to musical reality was then rather different from what it is today. In the same way, a variable instrumental accompaniment could have caused this, because it was doubtless natural for the instrumentalist to show his skill with devices and embellishments that were quite independent of any musical notation.
So it is impossible to say how far the occasional appearance of melismas, for example in Wizlâv or Meister Alexander, and the later increase of melismatic melodies with Hugo von Montfort and the early Meistersinger are really a new development of the ‘florid’ style or whether they are rather – at least in part – a different, more detailed approach to notation (and to notational technique). It seems likely that the earliest Minnesang notation, before the big collective manuscripts, used extremely varied techniques, some of them considerably simplifying the music. There was probably a certain degree of freedom not visible in the notation inasmuch as the close interchange of vocal practice and instrumental sound has always been one of the determining factors in the development of stylistic tendencies. In this context one may note the anonymous spring song in the fragment D-Bsb Mgq 981 (fig.3), remarkable because of its rich melismas but perhaps only a special case of more fully written-out notation which, copied by an experienced copyist, could well give a more reliable record of the musical reality of Minnesang.
The surviving notation for Minnesang is extremely varied and sometimes changes even within a single manuscript. Yet there is another reason why no uniform transcription technique can be established: the question of rhythm is still unsolved and will probably remain so.
The earliest sources in non-diastematic neumes (D-Mbs Clm 4660, A-KR 127) do not even give clear information as to pitch, so no transcription can reasonably hope to be more than approximate. In the remaining sources the melodic shape is usually unambiguous; but there are variant readings in different manuscripts. This results partly from the chronological distance between the composition of the original and its copying, partly from the inherent variability within a primarily oral tradition, and partly from the incompatibility of that notation and ours. The principle of ‘musical textual criticism’ (musikalische Textkritik, Gennrich) that reconstructs an ‘original form’ from the various surviving versions of a melody (as has been done successfully with literary texts) must be considered highly questionable for this branch of medieval monody.
One must, for instance, consider conscious changes made by the scribes who mostly belonged to a later generation, were instructed in musical theory and may therefore themselves have produced a ‘critical’ edition. More recent scholarship sees only a limited relationship between text and melody, with a certain freedom to vary or even exchange the melodies (Räkel).
Embellishment, particularly as concerns the plica, is still little understood. Riemann’s idea of replacing plicae and melismas with embellishment signs from the Baroque is now considered historically misleading; but his error led Runge to transcribe all the puncta as plicae in his edition of the Colmar manuscript, which is notated entirely in virgae and puncta.
The rhythm is not specified in the notation of Minnesang. This has caused considerable polemic and controversy among scholars. For primarily syllabic melodies editors have tended to adopt the principle that speech rhythm (of the verse metre) should provide the basis for an interpretation of the musical rhythm. But for poetry with alternating accented and unaccented syllables this amounts basically to the possibility of either duple or triple time (spondee, trochee or iamb). Even dactylic verses allow of a duple interpretation, although by analogy with certain mensural pieces in the trouvère repertory one could perhaps accept a dotted triple rhythm in some cases. But a particular problem lies in finding an appropriate rhythm for line ends and melodic cadences.
In discussions of rhythm it is obvious that one must consider not only the structure of the text but the shape of the melody, particularly its melismatic sections. Beginning with a consideration of both, musicologists and literary historians have been striving since the 1950s to join forces in reaching an understanding of Minnesang that is free from the dogmas of earlier years. So scholars have agreed, for instance, that the categories of line and line ends put forth in Andreas Heusler’s Deutsche Versgeschichte (1925–9) cannot simply be applied to the rhythmic interpretation of the melodies as well.
Modern scholarship is inclined to give the melismas a much stronger melodic importance and even to give them a structural function, which can be seen in their regular appearance on accented syllables at particular places in the line. This discovery supports other arguments against a strictly uniform rhythmic structure in the music. And in these melismatic outgrowths, which represent independent elements in the strict structure of the line, some scholars have seen the influence of Gregorian chant, particularly where it consisted of a festive elaboration of a cadence. Direct evidence for some connection between Minnesang and the liturgy may be found in the addition ‘EVOVAE’ at the end of the melody of the anonymous song Ich sezte minen vuz (fig.3) and in Leichs of Frauenlob.
It is often difficult to decide whether such melismas are vocal or instrumental preludes and interludes; and the problem is not always solved for the editor by the appearance of a continued text syllable beneath such apparently instrumental sections (e.g. in D-Bsb Mgq 922 or in Hugo von Montfort’s manuscript at Heidelberg). Further difficulties arise in text underlay when the melody is written down apart from the text (e.g. in the Neidhart manuscript D-Bsb Mgf 799).
Reviewing the history of Minnesang scholarship from the viewpoint of the constantly controversial question of its rhythm, one can see that it is clearly characterized by a change in evaluation of the sources: the first editors (von der Hagen, 1838; K.K. Müller, 1896; Mayer and Rietsch, 1896) were concerned primarily to produce an accurate reproduction of the written signs (facsimile). After early unsuccessful attempts to interpret the rhythms (Burney, Forkel, Fétis, Coussemaker) scholars began from 1900 to see the transcription of medieval monody into modern notation as their main aim, tacitly transferring contemporary notation and barring into the Middle Ages and attempting to close the ‘information gap’ in the sources with rhythmic theories. One of these theories attempted a free chant-like ‘rhetorical’ rhythm (Molitor, 1910–11). Another followed the metre of the text: Runge first publicized this theory (Die Sangesweisen der Colmarer Handschrift, 1896), and was followed by Saran (Die Jenaer Liederhandschrift, 1901), who expanded the idea with his exclusively metrical scheme and stated that his transcriptions were intended primarily to reproduce the metrical scheme of the poetry but not necessarily the musical results. Riemann also attempted to work from the poetic metre, but in his attempts to subject the melodies to his theories of Vierhebigkeit often overruled the facts of literary scansion; yet his exaggerated theories were limited to theoretical publications, not included in actual editions. Then the theories of ‘modal rhythm’ arose, transcribing the melodies according to the medieval teaching of the six rhythmic modes, following the lead set by Aubry and Beck with troubadour and trouvère melodies; for Minnesang this theory influenced practically all publications from about 1925 to 1960. Yet more recently (and following a lead already clear in Schmieder’s edition of Neidhart in 1930) scholarship has largely discarded the schematic use of modern notation with barring, time signatures and modern note values, seeing the unqualified use of modal theory with more and more scepticism (Reichert, Anglès, Kippenberg, Jammers etc).
Rejection of the earlier and sometimes rather dogmatically held theories admittedly brings with it a realization that very little is known about the rhythm of Minnesang: so the transcriber must limit himself carefully to a notation that is fundamentally neutral in rhythm (either simple note heads or a series of crotchets or quavers without precise values), adding signs to mark the poetic accents, the cadences, the ligatures and so on (Jammers).
Minnesang, §7: Transcription problems
A Major text editions. B Major music editions. C General. D Literature. E The concerto of ‘Minne’. F Forms and genres. G Music.
F.H. von der Hagen, ed.: Minnesinger: deutsche Liederdichter des 12., 13. und des 14. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1838–61/R)
K. Lachmann and M.Haupt, eds.: Des Minnesangs Frühling (Leipzig, 1857, rev. 38/1988 by H. Moser and H. Tervooren)
K. Bartsch: Meisterlieder der Kolmarer Handschrift (Stuttgart, 1862/R)
K. Bartsch, ed.: Die Schweizer Minnesänger (Frauenfeld, 1886/R, rev. 2/1990 by M. Schiendorfer)
H. Brinkmann, ed.: Liebeslyrik der deutschen Frühe in zeitlicher Folge (Düsseldorf, 1952)
C. von Kraus, ed.: Deutsche Liederdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1952–8, rev. 2/1978 by G. Kornrumpf)
O. Sayce, ed.: Poets of the Minnesang (Oxford, 1967)
U. Müller, ed.: Die grosse Heidelberger ‘Manessische’ Liederhandschrift (Göppingen,1971) [facs.]
E. and H. Kiepe, eds.: Gedichte 1300–1500, Epoche der deutschen Lyrik, ed. W. Killy, ii (Munich, 1972)
G. Schweikle, ed.: Die Frühe Minnelyrik (Darmstadt, 1972); repr. as Mittelhochdeutsche Minnelyrik, i (Stuttgart, 1993)
W. Höver and E.Kiepe, eds.: Gedichte von den Anfängen bis 1300, Epoche der deutschen Lyrik, ed. W. Killy, i (Munich, 1972)
K.K. Müller, ed.: Die Jenaer Liederhandschrift (Jena, 1896) [facs.]
P. Runge, ed.: Die Sangesweisen der Colmarer Handschrift und die Liederhandschrift Donaueschingen (Leipzig, 1896/R)
F.A. Mayer and H.Rietsch: Die Mondsee–Wiener Liederhandschrift und der Mönch von Salzburg (Berlin, 1896)
G. Holz, F.Saran and E. Bernoulli, eds.: Die Jenaer Liederhandschrift (Leipzig, 1901/R)
R. Molitor: ‘Die Lieder des Münsterischen Fragmentes’, SIMG, xii (1910–11), 475–500
H. Rietsch, ed.: Gesänge von Frauenlob, Reinmar v. Zweter und Alexander, DTÖ, xli, Jg.xx/2 (1913/R)
I. Frank and W.Müller-Blattau, eds.: Trouvères und Minnesänger (Saarbrücken, 1952–6)
H. Kuhn: Minnesang des 13. Jahrhunderts [melodies ed. G. Reichert] (Tübingen, 1953, rev. 2/1962)
F. Gennrich: Mittelhochdeutsche Liedkunst: 24 Melodien zu mittelhochdeutschen Liedern (Darmstadt, 1954)
F. Gennrich: Die Jenaer Liederhandschrift: Faksimile-Ausgabe ihrer Melodien, SMM, xi (1963)
E. Jammers: Ausgewählte Melodien des Minnesangs: Einführung, Erläuterung und Übertragung (Tübingen, 1963)
F. Gennrich, ed.: Die Colmarer Liederhandschrift: Faksimile-Ausgabe ihrer Melodien, SMM, xviii (1967)
H. Moser and J.Müller-Blattau: Deutsche Lieder des Mittelalters: von Walther von der Vogelweide bis zum Lochamer Liederbuch: Texte und Melodien (Stuttgart, 1968)
R.J. Taylor, ed.: The Art of the Minnesinger (Cardiff, 1968)
H. Tervooren and U.Müller: Die Jenaer Liederhandschrift in Abbildung, mit einem Anhang: die Basler und Wolfenbüttler Fragmente (Göppingen,1972)
U. Müller, F.V.Spechtler and H. Brunner, eds.: Die Kolmarer Liederhandschrift der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München (cgm 4997) (Göppingen, 1976) [facs.]
E. Jammers, ed.: Die sangbaren Melodien zu Dichtungen der Manessischen Liederhandschrift (Wiesbaden, 1979)
H. Heinen, ed.: Mutabilität im Minnesang: mehrfach überlieferte Lieder des 12. und frühen 13. Jahrhunderts (Göppingen, 1989)
I. Kasten, ed. and M.Kuhn, trans.: Deutsche Lyrik des frühen und hohen Mittelalters (Frankfurt, 1995)
MGG2(H. Brunner)
H. Brinkmann: Entstehungsgeschichte des Minnesangs (Halle, 1926/R)
F. Gennrich: ‘Zur Ursprungsfrage des Minnesangs: ein literarhistorischmusikwissenschaftlicher Beitrag’, DVLG, vii (1929), 187–228
H. Spanke: Deutsche und französische Dichtung des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1943)
T. Frings: Minnesinger und Troubadours (Berlin, 1949); repr. in Fromm (1961), 1–57
L. Spitzer: ‘The Mozarabic Lyric and Theodor Frings’ Theories’, Comparative Literature, iv (1952), 1–22
H. de Boor: Die höfische Literatur: Vorbereitung, Blüte, Ausklang, 1170–1250,Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, ed. H. de Boor and R. Newald, ii (Munich, 1953, rev. 11/1991 by U. Hennig)
P.F. Ganz: ‘The “Cancionerillo Mozarabe” and the Origin of the Middle High German “Frauenlied”’, Modern Language Review, xlviii (1953), 301–9
R. Kienast: ‘Die deutschsprachige Lyrik des Mittelalters’, Deutsche Philologie im Aufriss, ed. W. Stammler, ii (Berlin, 1954, 2/1960), 1–132
H. Kuhn: Dichtung und Welt im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1959)
T. Frings: Die Anfänge der europäischen Liebesdichtung im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1960); repr. in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur [Halle], xci (1969–71), 473–96
H. Fromm, ed.: Der deutsche Minnesang: Aufsätze zu seiner Erforschung (Darmstadt, 1961/R–85)
R.W. Linker: Music of the Minnesinger and Early Meistersinger: a Bibliography (Chapel Hill, NC, 1962)
J. Bumke: Die romanisch-deutschen Literaturbeziehungen im Mittelalter (Heidelberg, 1967), esp, 41ff, 94ff [incl. bibliography]
R. Grimminger: Poetik des frühen Minnesangs (Munich, 1969)
H. Tervooren: Bibliographie zum Minnesang und zu den Dichtern aus ‘Des Minnesangs Frühling’ (Berlin, 1969)
H. Moser, ed.: Mittelhochdeutsche Spruchdichtung (Darmstadt, 1972)
P. Wapnewski: Waz ist minne: Studien zur mittelhochdeutschen Lyrik (Munich, 1975)
H.-H.S. Räkel: Der deutsche Minnesang (Munich, 1986)
J. Stevens: Words and Music in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1986)
D. Sittig: Vyl wonders machet minne: das deutsche Liebeslied in der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts (Göppingen, 1987)
G. Schweikle: Minnesang (Stuttgart, 1989, 2/1995)
H. Tervooren, ed.: Gedichte und Interpretationen: Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1993)
F.-J. Holznagel: Wege in die Schriftlichkeit: Untersuchungen und Materialen zur Überlieferung der mettelhochdeutschen Lyrik (Tübingen, 1995)
B. Weber: Oeuvre-Zusammensetzungen bei den Minnesängern des 13. Jahrhunderts (Goppingen, 1995)
L. Uhland: ‘Der Minnesang’, Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage, v (Stuttgart, 1870), 111–282
F. Grimme: ‘Freiherren, Ministerialen und Stadtadelige im XIII. Jahrhundert: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Minnesinger’, Alemannia, xxiv (1897), 97–141
F.R. Schröder: ‘Der Minnesang: I die Forschung, II das Problem’, Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift, xxi (1933), 161–87, 257–90
M. Ittenbach: Der frühe deutsche Minnesang: Strophenfügung und Dichtersprache (Halle, 1939)
M.F. Richey: Essays on the Mediaeval German Love Lyric (Oxford, 1943, 2/1969)
H. Thomas: ‘Die jüngere deutsche Minnesangforschung’, Wirkendes Wort, vii (1956–7), 269–86
G. Jungbluth: ‘Neue Forschungen zur mittelhochdeutschen Lyrik’, Euphorion, li (1957), 192–221
W. Salmen: Der fahrende Musiker im europäischen Mittelalter (Kassel, 1960)
J. Bumke: Studien zum Ritterbegriff im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg, 1964, Eng. trans., 1982)
P. Dronke: The Medieval Lyric (London, 1968, 3/1996)
H. Brunner: ‘Das deutsche Liebeslied um 1400’, 600-Jahrfeier Oswalds von Wolkenstein: Seis am Schlern 1977, 105–46
O. Sayce: The Medieval German Lyric, 1150–1300 (Oxford, 1982)
H. Bernger and others, eds.: Lyrik des Mittelalters: Probleme und Interpretation (Stuttgart, 1983)
T. Cramer: Was hilfet âne sinne kunst? Lyrik im 13. Jahrhundert: Studien zu ihrer Ästhetik (Berlin, 1998)
E. Wechssler: Das Kulturproblem des Minnesangs: Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Renaissance, i: Minnesang und Christentum (Halle, 1909/R)
A. Closs: ‘Minnesang and its Spiritual Background’, Medusa’s Mirror: Studies in German Literature (London, 1957), 43–56
H. Kolb: Der Begriff der Minne und das Entstehen der höfischen Lyrik (Tübingen,1958)
W. Spiewok: ‘Minneidee und feudalhöfisches Frauenbild: ein Beitrag zu den Massstäben literarhistorischer Wertung im Mittelalter’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Greifswald, gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, xii (1963), 481–90
D. Wiercinski: Minne: Herkunft und Anwendungsschichten eines Wortes (Cologne, 1964)
U. Liebertz-Grün: Zur Soziologie des ‘amour courtois’ (Heidelberg, 1977)
I. Kasten: Frauendienst bei Trobadors und Minnesängern im 12. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg, 1986)
K. Bartsch: ‘Der Strophenbau in der deutschen Lyrik’, Germania, ii (1857), 257–98
R.M. Meyer: Grundlagen des mittelhochdeutschen Strophenbaus (Strasbourg, 1886)
R. Weissenfels: Der daktylische Rhythmus bei den Minnesängern (Halle, 1886)
W. Wilmanns: Untersuchungen zur mittelhochdeutschen Metrik (Bonn, 1888)
K. Plenio: ‘Bausteine zur altdeutschen Strophik’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, xlii (1917), 411–502; xliii (1918), 56–99
A. Heusler: Deutsche Versgeschichte (Berlin, 1925–9/R)
H. Brinkmann: Zu Wesen und Form mittelalterlicher Dichtung (Halle, 1928/R)
W. Bücheler: Französische Einflüsse auf den Strophenbau und die Strophenbindung bei den deutschen Minnesängern (Dillingen, 1930)
F. Gennrich: ‘Das Formproblem des Minnesangs: ein Beitrag zur Erforschung des Strophenbaues der mittelalterlichen Lyrik’, DVLG, ix (1931), 285–349
W. Fischer: Der stollige Strophenbau im Minnesang (Halle, 1932)
F. Gennrich: Grundriss einer Formenlehre des mittelalterlichen Liedes (Halle, 1932/R)
H. de Boor: ‘Langzeilen und lange Zeilen in Minnesangs Frühling’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, lviii (1933), 1–49
M. Ittenbach: Der frühe deutsche Minnesang: Strophenfügung und Dichtersprache (Halle, 1939)
C. von Kraus: Des Minnesangs Frühling: Untersuchungen (Leipzig, 1939/R)
H. Kuhn: Minnesangs Wende (Tübingen, 1952, 2/1967)
S.M. Stern, ed.: Les chansons mozarabes: les vers finaux (kharjas) en espagnol dans le muwashshahs arabes et hébreux (Palermo, 1953/R)
H. Moser: ‘Minnesang und Spruchdichtung? Über die Arten der hochmittelalterlichen deutschen Lyrik’, Euphorion, l (1956), 370–87
H. Moser: ‘Die hochmittelalterliche deutsche “Spruchdichtung” als übernationale und nationale Erscheinung’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, lxxvi (1957), 241–68
U. Pretzel: ‘Deutsche Verskunst: mit einem Beitrag über altdeutsche Strophik von H. Thomas’, Deutsche Philologie im Aufriss, ed. W. Stammler, iii (Berlin, 1957, 2/1962), 2357–546 [incl. bibliography]
F.-W. Wentzlaff-Eggebert: Kreuzzugsdichtung des Mittelalters: Studien zu ihrer geschichtlichen und dichterischen Wirklichkeit (Berlin, 1960)
O. Paul and I.Glier: Deutsche Metrik (Munich, 4/1961, 9/1974)
K.H. Bertau: Sangverslyrik: über Gestalt und Geschichtlichkeit mittelhochdeutscher Lyrik am Beispiel des Leichs (Göttingen, 1964)
H. Tervooren: Einzelstrophe oder Strophenbindung? Untersuchungen zur Lyrik der Jenaer Handschrift (Bonn, 1967)
K. Ruh: ‘Mittelhochdeutsche Spruchdichtung als gattungsgeschichtliches Problem’, DVLG, xlii (1968), 309–24
A.H. Touber: Deutsche Strophenformen des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1975)
S. Ranawake: Höfische Strophenkunst (Munich, 1976)
S.C. Brinkmann: Die deutschsprachige Pastourelle, 13. bis 16. Jahrhundert (Göppingen, 1985)
H. Riemann: ‘Die Melodik der (deutschen) Minnesänger’, Musikalisches Wochenblatt, xxviii (1897), 1–2, 17–18, 33–4, 45–6, 61–2, 389–90, 401–2, 413–14, 425–6, 437–8; xxix (1898), 353–4; xxxi (1900), 285–6, 309–10, 321–2, 333–4, 345–6; xxxiii (1902), 429–30, 441ff, 457–8, 469ff
F. Ludwig: ‘Zur “modalen Interpretation” von Melodien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, ZIMG, xi (1909–10), 379–82
H. Rietsch: ‘Einige Leitsätze für das ältere deutsche einstimmige Lied’, ZMw, vi (1923–4), 1–15
H.J. Moser: ‘Musikalische Probleme des deutschen Minnesangs’, Musikwissenschaftlicher Kongress: Basel 1924, 259–69
W. Lipphardt: ‘Neue Wege zur Erforschung der linienlosen Neumen’, Mf, i (1948), 121–39
W. Bittinger: Studien zur musikalischen Textkritik des mittelalterlichen Liedes (Würzburg,1953)
H. Husmann: ‘Das Prinzip der Silbenzählung im Lied des zentralen Mittelalters’, Mf, vi (1953), 8–23
F. Gennrich: ‘Grundsätzliches zur Rhythmik der mittelalterlichen Monodie’, Mf, vii (1954), 150–76
H. Husmann: ‘Das System der modalen Rhythmik’, AMw, xi (1954), 1–38
U. Aarburg: ‘Muster für die Edition mittelalterlicher Liedmelodien’, Mf, x (1957), 209–17
B. Kippenberg: Der Rhythmus im Minnesang (Munich, 1962)
R.J. Taylor: Die melodien der weltlichen Lieder des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1964)
R.J. Taylor: ‘Minnesang – wort unde wîse’, Essays in German Literature, i, ed. F. Norman (London, 1965), 1–28
U. Aarburg: ‘Probleme um die Melodien des Minnesangs’, Der Deutschunterricht, xix/2 (1967), 98–118
W. Lipphardt: ‘Über die Begriffe: Kontrafakt, Parodie, Travestie’, JbLH, xii (1967), 104–11
H.-H.S. Räkel: ‘Liedkontrafaktur im frühen Minnesang’, Probleme mittelalterlicher Überlieferung und Textkritik: Oxford 1966, ed. P.F. Ganz and W. Schröder (Berlin,1968), 96–117
B. Kippenberg: ‘Die Melodien des Minnesangs’, Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins, ed. T.G. Georgiades (Kassel, 1971), 62–92
H. Brunner: Die alten Meister: Studien zur Überlieferung und Rezeption der mittelhochdeutschen Sangspruchdichter im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1974)
E. Jammers: Aufzeichnungsweisen der einstimmigen ausserliturgischen Musik des Mittelalters, Palaeographie der Musik, i/4 (Cologne, 1975)
B. Stäblein: Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, iii/4 (Leipzig, 1975)
J.V. McMahon: The Music of Early Minnesang (Columbia, SC, 1990)