So these troubadours and trouvères made the age of Chivalry romantic and beautiful to us who came long after them, in spite of much unpleasantness, prejudice, war, massacre and hardship. MINNESINGERS Along the river Rhine in Germany near that part of France where the trouvères sang, lived the Minnesingers. They sang love songs,—_minne_ was the old German word for love. Like the troubadours the minnesingers were of the nobility, but they rarely hired jongleurs or anybody to perform their songs; they sang them themselves, playing their own accompaniments on lutes or viels (viols). Many songs expressed adoration of the Virgin, and others praised deeds of chivalry. Differing from other minstrels, they made songs about Nature and Religion full of feeling, fancy and humor, but the minnesongs were not so light-hearted or fanciful as those of their French neighbors. They had marked rhythm, beauty of form and simplicity, and were more dramatic, telling the exploits of the Norse heroes in many a glorious story. Their story was far more important to them than the music which for a long time was like the stern plain song of the Church. “We should be glad they were what they were, for they seem to have paved the way for the great Protestant music of the 16th century,” says Waldo Selden Pratt in his _History of Music_. You can get an excellent idea of the minnesong in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s _Oh Thou Sublime Sweet Evening Star_, which Wagner wrote in the spirit of the ancient minnesingers in the opera _Tannhäuser_. Tannhäuser was a real minnesinger, taking part in a real song contest, held by the Landgraf (Count) of Thuringia, 1206–7, who offered his daughter Elizabeth’s hand to the winner, whatever his rank. We find Elizabeth also in Wagner’s _Tannhäuser_, so when you hear it you will know that it is history as well as beautiful music! How remarkable that, in the days of feudalism, when the nobles practically owned the so-called common people, talent for music and verse stood even above rank! After all there is no nobility like that of talent. Even in the 13th century this was understood, and to either commoner or peer winning the song tournament, the lady of rank was given in marriage. Wolfram von Eschenbach, the minnesinger, visited the courts and sang in many tournaments. Giving Wagner a character for the opera _Tannhäuser_ was not all he did as Eschenbach wrote a poem from which Wagner drew the story for his _Parsifal_. Walther von der Vogelweide, one of the most famous minnesingers, was so fond of birds, that when dying he asked for food and drink to be placed on his tomb every day for the birds. There are four holes carved in the tombstone; and pilgrims today, when they visit this singer’s grave, still scatter crumbs for them, who probably in their bird histories record that Walther loved song even as they!