Was it the heedlessness of the compiler that associated the Jew with this merry company, in which he was as much out of place as a Gothic spire on a synagogue? Süsskind came by the privilege fairly. Throughout the middle ages the Jews of Germany were permeated with the culture of their native land, and were keenly concerned in the development of its poetry. A still more important circumstance is the spirit of tolerance and humanity that pervades Middle High German poetry. Wolfram von Eschenbach based his _Parzival_, the herald of "Nathan the Wise," on the idea of the brotherhood of man; Walther von der Vogelweide ranged Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans together as children of the one God; and Freidank, reflecting that God lets His sun shine on the confessors of all creeds, went so far as to repudiate the doctrine of the eternal damnation of Jews. This trend of thought, characterizing both Jews and Christians, suffices to explain how, in Germany, and at the very time in which the teachers of the Church were reviling "the mad Jews, who ought to be hewn down like dogs," it was possible for a Jew to be a minnesinger, a minstrel among minstrels, and abundantly accounts for Süsskind von Trimberg's association with knights and ladies. Süsskind, then, doubtless journeyed with his brother-poets from castle to castle; yet our imagination would be leading us astray, were we to accept literally the words of the enthusiastic historian Graetz, and with him believe that "on vine-clad hills, seated in the circle of noble knights and fair dames, a beaker of wine at his side, his lyre in his hand, he sang his polished verses of love's joys and trials, love's hopes and fears, and then awaited the largesses that bought his daily bread."[46] Süsskind's poems are not at all like the joyous, rollicking songs his mates carolled forth; they are sad and serious, tender and chaste. Of love there is not a word. A minnesinger and a Jew--irreconcilable opposites! A minnesinger must be a knight wooing his lady-love, whose colors he wears at the tournaments, and for whose sake he undertakes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The Jew's minstrelsy is a lament for Zion.