DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3825#0317
300 MASTERSINGERS.
minstrels had taken up the neglected 'geige:' but
why was the muse purely aristocratic? and why should
she refuse her inspiration, as the court did its honours,
to all but the nobility that proves its title by a due
pedigree of heraldic quarterings ?
Whatever cause we may choose to assign to the
phenomenon, certain it is that we must historically
record a vast and almost cheerless blank, which ex-
tends from the age of the Minnesingers almost to the
18th century, chequered with only few and rare alle-
viating exceptions. The characteristic of the Trou-
badour age was form and rule in every thing, sup-
ported by an excited tone of feeling in society, and
the caprice of the aristocracy. The protecting prin-
ciple was removed, and there ensued a disrespect of
the art which such patronage had forced beyond its
natural level. The vernacular tongues, too, for two or
three centuries rather retrograded than advanced on
the progress they had so rapidly made at their first cul-
tivation ; and they were not even assisted, but perhaps
retarded, by the increased taste for literary pursuits,
inasmuch as that taste was chiefly directed towards
classical objects. But the relics which are sprinkled
over the mass of desolation,—and particularly the
beautiful ballads and popular songs of this period,
which more or less belong to every country in Europe,
—show that the feelings which an artificial state of
society had prematurely excitedj and afterwards left to
minstrels had taken up the neglected 'geige:' but
why was the muse purely aristocratic? and why should
she refuse her inspiration, as the court did its honours,
to all but the nobility that proves its title by a due
pedigree of heraldic quarterings ?
Whatever cause we may choose to assign to the
phenomenon, certain it is that we must historically
record a vast and almost cheerless blank, which ex-
tends from the age of the Minnesingers almost to the
18th century, chequered with only few and rare alle-
viating exceptions. The characteristic of the Trou-
badour age was form and rule in every thing, sup-
ported by an excited tone of feeling in society, and
the caprice of the aristocracy. The protecting prin-
ciple was removed, and there ensued a disrespect of
the art which such patronage had forced beyond its
natural level. The vernacular tongues, too, for two or
three centuries rather retrograded than advanced on
the progress they had so rapidly made at their first cul-
tivation ; and they were not even assisted, but perhaps
retarded, by the increased taste for literary pursuits,
inasmuch as that taste was chiefly directed towards
classical objects. But the relics which are sprinkled
over the mass of desolation,—and particularly the
beautiful ballads and popular songs of this period,
which more or less belong to every country in Europe,
—show that the feelings which an artificial state of
society had prematurely excitedj and afterwards left to