Heinrich von Morungen

Heinrich von Morungen (died 1222)[1] was a Minnesinger, whose 35 surviving Middle High German songs are dated on both literary and biographical grounds to around the period 1190–1200.

[7][8] In the Late Middle Ages, there was extant a ballad of Der edele Möringer ("The Noble Moringer"), which transferred to Heinrich von Morungen the stock theme of the return of a husband believed lost.

Morungen is a very graphic lyricist: he particularly often makes use of images of shining (sun, moon, evening star, gold, jewels, mirror) as comparisons by which to describe the lady who is being sung and praised.

In form and content the poems are influenced by the Provençal troubadour lyric: dactylic rhythms and through-rhymes (Durchreimung) occur frequently.

Although Morungen is explicitly named in the works of later poets more rarely than Walther or Reinmar, his surviving corpus of 35 songs is larger than that of any contemporary Minnesänger other than these two, and his influence on the Minnesang tradition was considerable.