er could well
say: "Minne is the gilding of love, a treasure above all virtue a
teacher of pure morals, companion of chastity and fidelity, the noblest
thing that is in the world, to which only woman can be compared. Minne
flees from the fool, associates with the wise; minne strengthens honor,
truth, and modesty." At the era of decadence of chivalry, however, minne
came to mean sexual enjoyment par excellence.

The life of love in the high society of Germany for the lower gentry,
according to Scherr, lived in their narrow, miserably equipped burgh
stalls on a very low level became, in the course of time, a perfectly
developed art and science; and Weinhold firmly believes that the
highborn lords and ladies at the German courts dialectically treated
interesting themes of love which may have had the forms of real courts
of love, in imitation of the French _Cour d'Amour_. It is true, however,
that some great Romance scholars deny their existence altogether. This
seems erroneous. We know that Queen Alinora (Eleanor), the ill-famed
consort of Henry II. (1154-1204), after her French divorce, was a high
authority in love affairs. Schiller in The _Maid of Orleans_ described
the nature and character of such a _Cour d'Amour_.

It is but natural that the minne of a knight was not always smooth
sailing: his springtide feelings were frequently tossed on the sea of
his lady's caprice; longing and suspense, "heaven-high exultation and
sadness unto death," to use Clarchen's words in Goethe's Egmont, held
him in a constant state of agitation. Tannhauser charmingly satirizes
woman's whims. She demands impossible things of her foolish suitor, who
is ever ready to serve: she asks him to have the Rhone River flow past
Nuernberg; to turn the Danube back toward the Rhine; or to build an ivory
palace, wheresoever she will, in the midst of a lake; or to bring her
the light of the moon; the salamander from the fire, or from Galilee the
mountain upon which Adam sat; in recompense of which she will bless him
with her sweet love! "If I bring her the great tree from India, or the
Holy Grail, which Parsifal guarded, or the apple which Paris adjudicated
to Venus, or the magic mantle which fits only faithful ladies, or the
ark of Noah from which he sent the doves, she will fulfill my most
ardent desires! Alas, the sharp rod was kept too far away from her when
a child!"

Some knights and Minnesingers console themselves by choosing other
subjects for t