A Meistersinger was a member of a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 guild

Guild

A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song

Art song

An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....

 of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.

Guilds

The Meistersingers carried on and developed the traditions of the medieval Minnesingers. They belonged to the artisan and trading classes of the German towns, and regarded as their masters and the founders of their guild

Guild

A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 twelve poets of the Middle High German

Middle High German

Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...

 period, including Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...

, Konrad von Würzburg

Konrad von Würzburg

Konrad von Würzburg was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century.As little is known of his life as that of any other epic poet of the age. By birth probably a native of Würzburg, he seems to have spent part of his life in Strassburg and his later years in Basel, where he died...

, Reinmar von Zweter

Reinmar von Zweter

Reinmar von Zweter was a Middle High German poet of Spruchdichtung. The iconography in the Manesse Codex suggests that he may have been blind, since he is the only person represented in the manuscript with closed eyes and other people writing...

, and Heinrich Frauenlob

Heinrich Frauenlob

Heinrich Frauenlob , sometimes known as Henry of Meissen , was a Middle High German poet and minnesinger. The nickname Frauenlob means "praise of women" or "praise of Our Lady".-Biography:He was born in Meissen. He had great musical talents, and he held court positions in Prague...

. Frauenlob is said to have established the earliest Meistersinger school at Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

, early in the 14th century. The schools were established first in the upper Rhine district, then elsewhere. In the 14th century there were schools at Mainz, Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

, Frankfurt, Würzburg

Würzburg

Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....

, Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, and Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

; in the 15th at Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

 and Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

. Nuremberg, under the leadership of Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...

, became the most famous school in the 16th century, by which time Meistersinger schools had spread all over Germany and farther north, to Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

, Breslau Görlitz

Görlitz

Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...

, and Danzig.

Each guild had various classes of members, ranging from beginners, or Schüler (corresponding to trade apprentices), and Schulfreunde (who were equivalent to Gesellen or journeymen

Journeyman

A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

), to Meister. Meisters were poets who could both write new verses to existing melodies and invent new melodies. The poem was technically known as a Bar or Gesetz, the melody as a Ton or Weis. The songs were all sung without accompaniment.

Rules

The rules of the art were set down in the so-called Tabulatur or law-book of the guild. The Taulatur dealt with three matters: (1) The kinds of poems and the parts of a meistergesang; (2) permissible rhymes; (3) the mistakes, which are the main business, and have to do (a) with errors of delivery, of melody, of structure and of opinion; (b) chiefly, however, with errors of rhyme or mangling of words or cacophony. The poets paid much attention to the external forms of poetry: number of syllables, melody, etc. Poetry was to them a mechanical art that could be learned through diligent study, not something relying on divine inspiration.

Their songs cover a variety of strophic forms corresponding to the many new tunes which the Meistersingers invented and gave complicated names such as Gestreiftsafranblumleinweis (Little striped saffron flower melody), Fettdachsweis, Vielfrassweis (Melody of eating much), geblümte Paradiesweis (Flowery paradise melody), etc. More attention was paid to fitting the syllables to the melody than to the text's meaning, sentiment, or message. The various songs were divided into three strophe

Strophe

A strophe forms the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. In its original Greek setting, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music," as John Milton wrote in the preface to Samson Agonistes, with the strophe...

s, and each strophe was divided into two Stollen and a discant

Discant

Discant was a style of liturgical setting in the Middle Ages, associated with the development of the Notre Dame school of polyphony. It is a style of organum that includes a plainchant tenor part, with a "note against note" upper voice, moving in contrary motion...

 or Abgesang. Plate, in “Die Kunstausdrücke der Meistersinger,” gives a long list of the various features of rhythm and rhyme in this complicated poetry, in all of which can be observed a singular likeness to the technicalities invented or slavishly aped by the lesser, and even by the better, poets two centuries earlier in Southern France.

Meetings

The meetings took place either in the town hall (Rathaus

Rathaus

Rathaus is a German word literally translating as “council house”, meaning “city hall” or “town hall”. Many specific buildings are referred to as Rathaus even when spoken about in English.Some important Rathäuser are:* Rathaus Schöneberg...

) or, more frequently, on Sundays in the church. Three times a year, at Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

, Pentecost

Pentecost

Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...

, and Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

, special festivals and singing competitions were instituted. At such competitions or Schulsingen, judges (Merker) were appointed to criticize the competitors and note their offences against the rules of the Tabulatur. Prizes were awarded, and those who sang ill were fined. The prize was sometimes money, sometimes a crown, as at Nuremberg in the time of Hans Sachs. Flowers had also an important part in these competitions. Often in the older days one singer would hang up a wreath as a challenge and as a reward for victory. The meistersinger often wore a costume which was not seldom motley and which was often sumptuous.

In Nuremberg, where the master singers flourished particularly, the special festivals were opened with free singing, in which anybody might sing, though not belonging to the corporation. In this the choice of the subjects was left comparatively uncontrolled. Then followed the chief singing, when only those who belonged to the corporation were allowed to sing, and only on scriptural subjects. The judges sat behind a curtain. There were four: one watched whether the song was according to the text of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, which lay open before him; the second whether the prosody

Prosody (linguistics)

In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...

 was correct; the third criticized the rhymes; the fourth the tunes. Every fault was marked, and he who had fewest received the prize.

Cultural role

Meistersinger poetry played a large part in German town life of the 15th and 16th century. The tradition often reinforced German burgher values; as such, it was middle-class popular art rather than high art. The “Meistergesang” culminated in the 16th century and declined shortly thereafter. Meistersinger traditions lingered in southern Germany as late as the 19th century: a society in Ulm

Ulm

Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...

 dissolved in 1839; the last school died out at Memmingen

Memmingen

Memmingen is a town in the Bavarian administrative region of Swabia in Germany. It is the central economic, educational and administrative centre in the Danube-Iller region. To the west the town is flanked by the Iller, the river that marks the Baden-Württemberg border...

 in 1844.

Legacy

Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, in his musical drama Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...

of 1868, satirized the art of these early masters.