German Minnesinger from the 13th century
Heinrich von Morungen (died 1222) was a Minnesinger, whose 35 surviving Middle High German songs are dated on both literary and biographical grounds to around the period 1190–1200. Alongside Walter von der Vogelweide and Reinmar he is regarded as one of the most important Minnesänger: he was "the most colourful, passionate, tender and musical of the Minnesänger" and his work "marks a new and brilliantly effective stage in the development of the German lyric."
Life.
Morungen is identified with the "Hendricus de Morungen" who is mentioned in two charters of Dietrich I, Margrave of Meissen. This "Hendricus" presumably originated from the castle of Morungen near Sangerhausen in Saxony-Anhalt, a location consistent with the language of the songs. As a "retired knight" ("miles emeritus") he received from his patron Dietrich, also a patron of Walter von der Vogelweide, a pension for his "high personal merits" ("alta suae vitae merita"). In 1213 he transferred this to the monastery of St Thomas in Leipzig, which he entered himself in 1217. According to a 16th century source based on the records of the monastery, he died there in 1222. The same source reports a certainly apocryphal story of a visit to India.
In the Late Middle Ages, there was extant a ballad of "Der edele Möringer" ("The Noble Moringer"), which transferred to Heinrich von Morungen the stock theme of the return of a husband believed lost.
Works.
Manuscript tradition.
The manuscript tradition preserves 115 strophes of Morungen's, constituting 35 songs. He is represented in the three main Minnesang manuscripts:.
Four other manuscripts have small amounts of additional material:
Themes.
An essential theme in Morungen's work is the demonic nature of "Minne", the Middle High German word for this type of love, which for the mediaeval writers was embodied by the ancient classical goddess of love, Venus. "Minne" is experienced partly as a magical, pathological, even fatal power, but also as a religious and mystical experience.
Morungen is a very graphic lyricist: he particularly often makes use of images of shining (sun, moon, evening star, gold, jewels, mirror) as comparisons by which to describe the lady who is being sung and praised.
In form and content the poems are influenced by the Provençal troubadour lyric: dactylic rhythms and through-rhymes ("Durchreimung") occur frequently. Motifs in the content have also been taken over from the same source: for example, the motif, otherwise rare in German Minnesang, of the "notice of termination of the service of love" (Lied XXVII), the roots of which are to be found in classical literature (for example Ovid).
Legacy.
Although Morungen is explicitly named in the works of later poets more rarely than Walther or Reinmar, his surviving corpus of 35 songs is larger than that of any contemporary Minnesänger other than these two, and his influence on the Minnesang tradition was considerable.
Notes.
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