Learning about the German Minnesingers and Participating at Mayfair with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Learning about the German Minnesingers and Participating at Mayfair with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
“The German lyricists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were men of knightly rank who sang the praise of women, the joy and pain of love, the happiness of springtime, the beauty of flowers, the sweet music of birds” wrote Calvin Thomas in The History of the German Language (Google Books page 77, Book page number 92)
The poetry, mostly written by the knights, that Thomas refers to paid homage to unobtainable yet nubile ladies or Minne; minne is the origin of the word minnesingers, or love singers.
Southern France with its troubadours is the source that Thomas cites as the source for minnesingers, but Northern France’s trouvères may have been a conduit of the troubadour tradition or a source of stories itself for some German-language songs and tales.
The minnesingers, or nightingales as they liked to be called according to Thomas, used May Day, the herald of spring, for their assignations, passing of notes, and attention getting. Once again my daughter’s Waldorf School kept alive the tradition of the Minnesingers in a most lovely way; a May Day picnic.
We did Californian things like barbecue wild boar sausage made in Carmel Valley on one grill and organic peppers, carrots, and celery for dipping in tamari sauce on another grill. A cake walk was held in the park’s gazebo, and we set up all our age-appropriate games all around the park.
All the little girls received flower garlands to wear in their hair like white and yellow crowns. A very tall May Pole stood in the center of the park with white ribbons swirling in the wind. The children caught the ribbons and walked around the May Pole without tangling the ribbons. (They had been practicing.) Their walk was accompanied by recorder music and song.
Sheet music with lyrics helped out those of us who had not been taught by a minnesinger.
Thomas writes that each minnesinger had “[h]is stanza with its tune…. a Ton , and professional honor required that a man’s Ton be respected as his property.” (Google books, page 85 and Book page number 100). This practice appears to be an early form of copyright.
Tunes were becoming property, but good stories were shared out in the medieval era. The most famous of the shared stories are the Arthurian Romances. The stories entered Germany as Parzival written by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
While they seem to deal with love, they represent a love that is different from that portrayed by the Minnesingers. Parzival seeks the Holy Grail, Christ’s cup which represents holy love. Parzival begins naively and ends as a wise man through his own efforts including mistakes.
Learning to succeed through your own efforts is a powerful lesson to express to sixth graders, but I was impressed with how Waldorf Schools dealt with this lesson as a system. Several schools worked together to hold a Medieval Games at the end of the school year.
Children at my daughter’s school began running one mile every day before class to get into good physical shape. They practiced the games they would compete in such as tug-of-war, archery, shot put, and javelin throwing.
In their sewing class, they made crests representing families to sew onto their tunics. I told my daughter on the way to school, “Win, lose, or draw, you will be in great shape at the end of the year!”
On the day of the Medieval Games at the Marin County Waldorf School outside San Francisco, all the kids tried to lose a little at tug-of-war to get muddy. I helped hose down kids after their bouts in the “boue,” or mud. I quizzed them about their family crests and the courtly songs they would compose that day.
As I read Thomas’ book The History of the German Language now, I hope the children from that day will all have inhered some poetry along with the mud to them. Thomas writes that Esenbach’s Parzival is the work of a poet; Esenbach “saw visions and thought in symbols…”
Communicating symbols through metaphor and/or simile in poetry or prose is a skill that makes complex ideas concrete.
The ability of the German language to make intellectual concepts into objects you can see, feel, handle, and experience through metaphor and simile truly makes it not only a tool for communicating technical ideas, but a language that merits its place in schools and universities for the beauty of the ideas it conveys and its form. I wish it had been taught in my daughter Florence's Waldorf School.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
 |
| Ruth Paget Photo |
