Most celebrated of medieval German lyric poets. For all his fame, Walthers name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of PassauWalthero cantori de Vogelweide pro pellicio V. solidos longosTo Walther the singer of the Vogelweide five shillings to buy a fur coat, and the main sources of information about him are his own poems and occasional references by contemporary Minnesingers. It is clear from the title hêr (Herr, Sir) these give him, that he was of noble birth; but it is equally clear from his name Vogelweide (Lat. aviarium, a gathering place or preserve of birds) that he belonged not to the higher nobility, who took their titles from castles or villages, but to the nobility of service (Dienstadel), humble retainers of the great lords, who in wealth and position were little removed from non-noble free cultivators. For a long time the place of his birth was a matter of dispute, until Professor Franz Pfeiffer established beyond reasonable doubt that he was born in the Wipthal in Tirol, where, not far from the little town of Sterzing on the Eisak, a woodcalled the Vorder- und Hintervogelweidepreserves at least the name of his vanished home. This origin would account for what is known of Walthers early life. Tirol was at this time the home of several noted Minnesingers; and the court of Vienna, under the enlightened duke Frederick I. of the house of Babenberg, had become a centre of poetry and art. Here it was that the young poet learned his craft under the renowned master Reinmar the Old, whose death he afterwards lamented in two of his most beautiful lyrics; and in the open-handed duke he found his first patron. This happy period of his life, during which he produced the most charming and spontaneous of his love-lyrics, came to an end with the death of Duke Frederick in 1198. Henceforward Walther was a wanderer from court to court, singing for his lodging and his bread, and ever hoping that some patron would arise to save him from this jugglers life (gougelfuore) and the shame of ever playing the guest. For material success in this profession he was hardly calculated. His criticism of men and manners was scathing; and even when this did not touch his princely patrons, their underlings often took measures to rid themselves of so uncomfortable a censor. Thus he was forced to leave the court of the generous duke Bernhard of Carinthia (12021256); after an experience of the tumultuous household of the landgrave of Thuringia he warns those who have weak ears to give it a wide berth; and after three years at the court of Dietrich I. of Meissen (reigned 11951221) he complains that he had received for his services neither money nor praise. Walther was, in fact, a man of strong views; and it is this which gives him his main significance in history, as distinguished from his place in literature. From the moment when the death of the emperor Henry VI. (1197) opened the fateful struggle between empire and papacy, Walther threw himself ardently into the fray on the side of German independence and unity. Though his religious poems sufficiently prove the sincerity of his catholicism, he remained to the end of his days opposed to the extreme claims of the popes, whom he attacks with a bitterness which can only be justified by the strength of his patriotic feelings. His political poems begin with an appeal to Germany, written in 1198 at Vienna, against the disruptive ambitions of the princes:
Crown Philip with the Kaisers crown | |
And bid them vex thy peace no more. |
Historically interesting as Walthers political verses are, their merit has been not a little exaggerated by modern German critics, who saw their own imperial aspirations and anti-papal prejudices reflected in this patriotic poet of the middle ages. Of more lasting value are the beautiful lyrics, mainly dealing with love, which led his contemporaries to hail him as their master in song (unsers sanges meister). He is of course unequal. At his worst he does not rise above the tiresome conventionalities of his school. At his best he shows a spontaneity, a charm and a facility which his rivals sought in vain to emulate. His earlier lyrics are full of the joy of life, of feeling for nature and of the glory of love. Greatly daring, he even rescues love from the convention which had made it the prerogative of the nobly born, contrasts the titles woman (wîp) and lady (froûwe) to the disadvantage of the latter, and puts the most beautiful of his lyricsUnter der lindeninto the mouth of a simple girl. A certain seriousness, which is apparent under the joyousness of his earlier work, grew on him with years. Religious and didactic poems become more frequent; and his verses in praise of love turn at times to a protest against the laxer standards of an age demoralized by political unrest. Throughout his attitude is healthy and sane. He preaches the crusade; but at the same time he suggests the virtue of toleration, pointing out that in the worship of God
Christians, Jews and heathen all agree. |
Swer guotes wîbes liebe hât | |
Der schamt sich ieder missetât. 1 |
The Gedichte were edited by Karl Lachmann (1827). This edition of the great scholar was re-edited by M. Haupt (3rd ed., 1853). Walther v. d. Vogelweide, edited by Franz Pfeiffer, with introduction and notes (4th edition, by Karl Bartsch, Leipzig, 1873). Glossarium zu d. Gedichten Walthers, nebst e. Reimverzeichnis, by C. A. Hornig (Quedlinburg, 1844). There are translations into modern German by B. Obermann (1886), and into English verse Selected poems of Walter von der Vogelweide by W. Alison Phillips, with introduction and notes (London, 1896). The poem Unter der Linden, not included in the latter, was freely translated by T. L. Beddoes (Works, 1890), more closely by W. A. Phillips in the Nineteenth Century for July 1896 (ccxxxiii. p. 70). Leben u. Dichten Walthers von der Vogelweide, by Wilhelm Wilmanns (Bonn, 1882), is a valuable critical study of the poets life and works.