SOURCE: Northcott, Kenneth J. “Walter von der Vogelweide.” In European Writers: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by William T. H. Jackson, pp. 287-308. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983.

In the following essay, Northcott provides historical background and literary analyses of Walther's poems, which he groups into four categories: love, social, religious, and political.

Hêr Walther von der Vogelweide Swêr des vergæz', der tet mir leide. 

Sir Walther von der Vogelweide, I would be sorry if anyone were to forget him.

The lines quoted above were written by Hugo von Trimberg nearly a hundred years after the death of Walther—it is the modern custom when talking of medieval German poets to refer to them by their given names—and represent one in a long line of tributes that extends to the present day and attests to the worth of the greatest medieval German...