Category Archives: Minnesingers


Conrad von Kirchberg: “Even if on desert waste”

Excerpt, “Lays of the Minnesingers or German Troubadours of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” London, 1825.

Rodolph of Hapsburgh succeeded to the Imperial crown in 1273 ; and, though the flame which the fostering care of the Suabian princes had nourished continued, to a certain extent, to burn on till the close of the century, it is plain that it was gradually expiring. About the period of Rodolph’s accession, we find Conrad of Wurtzburg, one of the most highly gifted of the Minnesingers, lamenting over the declining popularity of his art in the following plaintive lines, which are introductory to his history of the Trojan war.

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