The Burghers, being not only shrewd and practical, but prevented by business reasons from wandering the earth in search of fair ladies, organized their music in very formal fashion. They held regular singing contests at which aspiring musicians were heard and criticized. When these aspirants had proved their ability both to compose and to sing to the satisfaction of their elders they were admitted as Mastersingers. But the examination was rigid and the organization or guild of the Mastersingers was jealous. Inasmuch as it controlled the acceptance or rejection of candidates, it could set the rules. And, being thus constantly called upon to exercise its superiority, it tended to solidify its artistic principles into set rules of the most rigid character. The verses of each type of song must be organized in a set way. The music had to be made in accordance with the accepted practice. Certain transitions and ornaments were prohibited--not only regarded as less desirable than others, but ruled out under all circumstances. At the trials, which were usually held in the churches, the candidate’s song was judged by from one to four judges, called Markers, who were concealed from his view by a curtain. The judgment was delivered not according to the _beauty_ of the song, but strictly according to the number of mistakes the singer had made, with reference to the rules of the guild. It is hardly to be wondered at, then, that the songs of the Meistersingers were dry and uninspired. To musical learning they may have contributed something. But to the art of music, on its poetical side, they gave next to nothing. They show, however, a certain clumsy fancy, as in the titles of the following songs: ‘Maidenly Grace,’ ‘The Nightingale,’ ‘The Glutton,’ ‘A Monkey Tune,’ and ‘The Pointed Arrow.’ The institution of the Mastersong, beginning in Mayence in the fourteenth century, spread over the greater part of Germany, as far as the Baltic Sea, and flourished for nearly four centuries. One guild was in existence at Ulm as late as 1839. The most famous of all the guilds is of course that of Nuremberg, one of the richest German cities of late mediæval times. And the most famous of the Mastersingers is the Nuremberg poet, Hans Sachs, ‘_Schumacher und Poet dazu_.’ Sachs, like Wolfram von Eschenbach, is a landmark in German literature. His output of vigorous homely poems was enormous, and the support he gave to the Lutheran Reformation in its early days contributed in no small measure to its propagation among the simple people.