But in the early days of minnesong, modesty, chastity, and measure or moderation (diu maze) are concomitants of the ideal of womanhood. Love is then the extinction of self. Walter von der Vogelweide says: "True minne never entered false hearts!"
Even Gottfried von Strassburg, the poet of passion and sensual love, in this respect the very counterpart of Walter von der Vogelweide, sings:
"Of all the things of this our World,
On which the golden sunlight shines,
Not one is blessed as a wife
That vows her life and body sweet
And manners also to measure refined."
Measure, like the Greek kalokagathia of a gentleman, implies the harmony and the development of all the inner and outer virtues and charms. The sacredness of the relations between the sexes is originally almost of a religious nature. The lady of the knight's heart and the Holy Virgin are strangely blended.
There are among the lyrics of the Minnesingers many which are devoted entirely to religious topics, especially the glory of the Virgin, a specimen of which may here be given:
"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforter