Walther von der Vogelweide, best of the Minnesinger and greatest German poet of the middle ages, was born about 1160, probably in Tyrol; but the place of his birth is unknown, nor has it been proved where the Vogelweide was from which he took his name. In 1180-98 he was at Vienna, at the court of the Dukes of Austria, and in high favour there; later we find him at Mainz and Magdeburg; in 1204 he outshone his rivals in the great poetical contest at the Wartburg (see MINNESINGER). He sided with the Guelph emperor Otto IV. till his cause was utterly lost, but afterwards made friends with the victorious Hohenstaufen, Frederick II., who gave the poet a small estate. Here he died about 1230, and was buried in the cathedral of Würzburg. Love was his main theme, as that of the other Minnesinger, and he sang both sweetly and with warm human feelings in varied and artistic forms of verse. But he could also stir the hearts of his contemporaries by his patriotic pride in the Fatherland, by his praise of justice, and his support of national duty. He was even regarded by some as having exercised by his verse a too great influence on public feeling in political matters. He was also famous as an inditer of weighty proverbs and maxims.
There are editions of his works by Lachmann (1827), Wackernagel and Rieger (1862), Pfeiffer (1864), Wilmanns (1883), and Paul (1882); translations by Simrock, Weiske, Schröter, Wenzel, and others; and monographs on Walther by Uhland (1822), Pfeiffer (1860), Rieger (1863), Menzel (1865), and Wilmanns (1882), as well as a full bibliography by Leo (1880).