Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs (1494-1576), German poet, dramatist and composer, born in Nürnberg. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker in 1509, and later joined the guild of the Meistersinger, a group of poet-musicians of the merchant class. As a journeyman cobbler traveling in southern Germany and the Rhine country, Sachs met with Meistersinger guilds in many towns. In 1517, by having a tune of his approved, he became a master in the Nürnberg guild, and in 1519 he was made a master shoemaker. Sachs was sympathetic to the Reformation; his most famous poem, The Nightingale of Wittenberg (1523), was a defense of Martin Luther. He was a prolific poet, producing over 6000 songs, plays, and narrative poems, known for their lively humor and vivid representations of everyday life; he also composed several important Meistersinger melodies. Sachs is the central figure of the opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1867) by Richard Wagner.