Friedrich von Hausen

(ca. 1160–ca. 1200)

   Friedrich von Hausen was one of the few Middle High German COURTLY LOVE poets whose biography is relatively well known. He seems to have been active between 1171 and 1190 and was the son of Walther von Hausen, a man of lower nobility located somewhere in the area between Bingen on the Rhine and the Palatinate. Friedrich was in the service of powerful German bishops and kings and participated in the Third Crusade, during which he died on May 6, 1190, after a fall from his horse, shortly before the death of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, near Philomelium in Asia Minor. Friedrich was the leading Rhenish love poet of his time and is credited with having introduced the concept of esoteric, unrequited love to his German contemporaries. Friedrich drew inspiration both from Provençal and northern French poetry, creating contrafacta (adaptations of music from other songs for his own text), and drawing from native German sources. His 17 songs, primarily preserved in the famous Weingartner Liederhandschrift (MS. B) and the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (MS. C), consist of wooing songs and crusade songs. The latter genre treats a lover’s painful decision to go on a crusade although he has to leave his beloved behind. Here, cast in the image of a struggle between body and heart, courtly love competes with love for God.Whereas nature motifs are mostly missing, Friedrich heavily relies on introspection, reflection, and the critical examination of emotions. Some of the characteristic themes in his poetry are his lady’s kiss as the highest reward for the man; love that began in childhood; his songs as messengers for his lady; the heart as a hermit’s cell; the comparison of his love for his lady with the love between Dido and Aeneas; and military metaphors for love.

   Bibliography

   ■ Bekker,Hugo. Friedrich von Hausen: Inquiries into His Poetry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977.

   ■ Des Minnesangs Frühling. Edited by Hugo Moser and Helmut Tervooren. 38th ed. Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1988.

   ■ Sayce, Olive. The Medieval German Lyric 1150–1300: The Development of Its Themes and Forms in Their European Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

   Albrecht Classen