lessness of
the lover. The lady is entreated for grace (Huld); she encourages the
knight or keeps him at a distance; love ceases to be pure, feelings
become fantastically exaggerated; the veneration of woman becomes
morbid, sometimes even senseless; love is often allegorized; a magic
charm envelops the singer; the world surrounding him is changed, his
nature passes the natural bounds; melancholy, ever the legacy of German
nature even in the midst of joy, prompts the desire that the epitaph on
his tomb should record how faithful he was to his lady. He dreams,
perchance, that a rose tree with two blooming branches embraces him and
interprets the dream as a fulfilment of his secret desire. This
fantastic unnaturalness of the super-realization of love had a
demoralizing effect upon both men and women: it developed mock lovers
and mock love.

Thus the love cult gradually degenerated. This was especially due to the
fact that married women were in most cases the object of minne. French
customs and thought entered more and more into German life. When the
consummation of love appeared hopeless because of obstacles of a moral
or social nature, the lovers, perchance, indulged themselves in a
perverse mutual satisfaction of a puerile nature, such as the exchange
of their undergarments for a night. Wolfram von Eschenbach relates that
Gahmuret used to wear the shirt of his beloved Herzeloide over his armor
in battle.

With the development of heraldry, the knight wore the colors of his lady
love. He fought in tournament of real war for his lady. Frequently
ladies imposed services and even hard and dangerous exploits upon their
importuning lovers, either to test their love, or for the sake of
sensation, or even to keep obstinate lovers at a distance. We must not
believe that the knights went out cheerfully. "Let no one inquire," says
Hartmann von der Aue, "after the cause of my journey. I confess frankly:
love bade me to vow the crusade and now commands me to undertake the
journey. It cannot be helped, and an oath must not be broken. Many a one
boasts of what he has done from love, but where are deeds? I hear only
words.... This is love indeed, if one for its sake expatriates himself.
Behold, how it drives me from home! Truly, if Sultan Saladin still lived
and all his army, they would not move me one pace from Franconia! Yet
only the body crosses the sea, the heart remains behind with the beloved
one." But the reward of love (_Minnes