Konrad von Würzburg (1220–1287)
Born 1220 CE, died 1287 CE.
Konrad von Würzburg (c.1220-1230 – 31 August 1287) was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century. As his name suggests, Konrad hailed from the Franconian town of Würzburg. By the standards of medieval poets, his life is unusually well documented. He spent part of his life in Strasbourg and his later years in Basel, where he owned a house. The names of his wife and daughters are recorded. He died in Basel in 1287. Like Gottfried von Strassburg, whom he admired, but unlike most other poets from the time, Konrad did not belong to the nobility. His varied and voluminous literary work is comparatively free from the degeneration which set in so rapidly in Middle High German poetry during the 13th century. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[h]is style, although occasionally diffuse, is dignified in tone; his metre is clearly influenced by Gottfried's tendency to relieve the monotony of the epic-metre with ingenious variations, but it is always correct; his narratives—if we except Die halbe Birn, of which the authorship is doubtful—are free from coarseness, to which the popular poets at this time were prone, and, although mysticism and allegory
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