| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
TROUBADOURS AND M1NNE-SINGERS 341
The Trouveres, were, as before intimated, the poet-musicians of North France. They wrote in a much more matter-of-fact manner than the troubadours, and wrote in the Langue cVoil, while the latter wrote in the Langus d'oc; two tongues as dissimilar as French and Italian, or English and Dutch.
There existed lady troubadours and trouveres; the works of some of them are extant, and do not in any way compare unfavorably with those of the other sex. Of course there are several solitary cases where the Norman poet would write a love song, and the Provencal a fable, but the general tendency was as above indicated.
Contemporary with the troubadours and trouveres, there arose in Germany, a similar order of singers, whose productions have been preserved, even more copiously than those of the southrons.
The minne-singers began their career in Ger-many, under the glorious reign of Barbarossa, (Frederic I.) in the last half of the twelfth century. The first name which we meet with is Henry of Veldig, yet it is a singular fact that he, the first of a new order of singers, begins by complaining of the decadence of the true minne-lied (love-song.) The word minne-singer means simply love-singer, i. e.—singer of love-songs. "We give here, a verse of this early love-song, and have endeavored to give a translation, preserving the original metre (as nearly literal as possible") below it. |
||