Meistersinger

Meistersinger (German, “mastersinger”), members of the German guilds for poets and musicians of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Meistersinger were craftsmen of the middle classes who continued the traditions of the noble-born minnesingers (see Minnesinger). The most famous was Hans Sachs. Meistersinger guilds flourished in the large cities of Germany. Each guild was organized in distinct grades, ranging from the apprentice Schüler and Schulfreunde (who were merely familiar with the rules of composition), through journeymen Sänger (“singers”) and Dichter (“poets”), to Meister (who invented new melodies). Although the Meistersinger movement played a large part in the lives of middle-class Germans, it had little lasting literary and musical value because of mechanical requirements for composition and other rigid, arbitrary rules. The 19th-century opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner accurately portrays Meistersinger customs.