Heinrich von Morungen


Heinrich von Morungen 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" he received from his patron Dietrich, also a patron of Walter von der Vogelweide, a pension for his "high personal merits". 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, 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:.
  • MS A has 29 strophes under Morungen's name, though three of these are ascribed to Ulrich von Singenberg in MS C.
  • MS B has 25 strophes under Morungen's name and three under Dietmar von Aist's.
  • MS C has by far the largest collection, with 104 strophes under Morungen's name. Of these 43 appear in the "Tross Fragment", which is based on C.
Four other manuscripts have small amounts of additional material:
  • MS E has eight strophes of Morungen's under the names of Walther von der Vogelweide and Reinmar.
  • MS M has a single anonymous strophe matching one in C. It is the only Morungen text with neumes.
  • MS p has four strophes of Morungen's.
  • MS S has three strophes of the song "Sîn hiez mir nie widersagen", including one strophe not in any other MS. At the end of this song on folio 78r of MS C a space large enough for a single strophe has been left, which may have been intended for the additional strophe.

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 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 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", the roots of which are to be found in classical literature.

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.

Editions

Translations

  • Text of eight songs with parallel English translation.

Facsimiles

  • Digital facsimiles of Heinrich von Morungen's lyrics in the
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