Neidhart's Nightmare

Neidhart von Reuenthal (ca. 1180-1240) was an eccentric living in the Middle Ages and one of the most successful minnesinger musicians. In his liberal texts and spirited melodies, he attacked the mediaeval system of values: his crude “Dörperdichtung” [“rustic poetry”] was deliberately naïve and generally intelligible for the general population instead of being exclusively composed for aristocratic circles. He caricatured the “high minne” of the noble courts and established a new type of minnesong with his “courtly village poetry” (Karl Lachmann). For this reason, he was ridiculed by Walther von der Vogelweide as a “croaking frog with his loud hue and cry”.The seething crowd in the dance halls and the belligerent presence of country bumpkins could erupt at any time in ecstatic physical activity which – as for example illustrated in the Codex Manesse dating from ca. 1300 – intimidated the poet through its nightmarish elements: Neidhart’s Nightmare (as in a nightmare situation from a horror film). Enjott Schneider