Who knows the past and present way,
Oh Woe! how well complain he may
Since every virtue now has perished.”
Almost all the lays of the minne-singers were written in the Swabian dialect which was then the court language of Germany. As a rule, their grace and elegance of diction was superior to that of the troubadours. They did not, like the latter, hire accompanists, or jongleurs, but played their own accompaniments on a viol. As in the South, emperors, princes, and knights, were proud to be known as minne-singers.
There exists a little epigram (ascribed to Frederic II.,) which we are tempted to reproduce, as it gives an insight to the qualities which were esteemed at that time.
“I like a cavalier Frances,[272]
And a Catalonian dame;
The courtesy of the Genoese
And Castilian dignity
The Provence songs,[273] my ears to please,