During the sway of the Troubadours, the love of poetry and song spread over Europe, and Germany was directly influenced by them. The Minnesingers were a similar class of knightly lyrists. Their favorite meeting-place was the Wartburg, near Eisenach, at the Court of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia. Among the most celebrated of these poet-singers were Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Heinrich Schreiber and Heinrich von Zwetschin. The influence of the Minnesingers was greatest in the thirteenth century, and rapidly died out in the following. They were succeeded by the Mastersingers who were of the burgher class, and included in their ranks schoolmasters, clerks and mechanics. The foremost Mastersinger was Hans Sachs, the famous poet-cobbler, who lived in Nuremberg in the sixteenth century. The music of the Mastersingers was in general heavy and expressionless, very much like church psalmody. Wagner has immortalized both classes of mediæval singers in his “Tannhäuser” and “Mastersingers,” but the true source of his inspiration was not their music, but the poetic and dramatic characteristics of the picturesque life of those days. The folk-songs were more rhythmical and melodious than either the Minnesongs or Mastersongs. It is certain that as an element of influence in the practice and development of music in the latter part of the Middle Ages and at the time of the Reformation, popular music in Germany had risen to an eminence hardly second to the Gregorian song. Some of the music of the Minnesingers was a direct outgrowth from the folk-songs. Their poems were composed principally to interest those who lived at court, but the music, so far as it had melodic character, was imitated and developed from the melodies of the people. A rude and simple instrumental accompaniment was characteristic of these productions. The element of declamation, too, must have been very important, for even up to the thirteenth century the “singing” and the “saying” of poetry were identical in meaning. The folk-songs had great influence, as we have seen, on the melodic invention of composers of the Reformation. Other influences were potent, however, in determining the various forms of composition. The development of counterpoint in the Netherlands, and the higher _a capella_ church style in Italy, were important for Germany. Attempts were made to treat secular melodies in the elaborate style of the Netherlanders, with the melody in the tenor, accompanied by several contrapuntal parts.