Ulrich von Lichenstein was a medieval ministerialis (German noble serf) and a minnesanger.
Ulrich von Lichenstein was a medieval ministerialis (German noble serf) and a minnesanger (one who wrote and performed lyric songs). He was well known and a powerful leader in the eastern Alps region in the 13th century. He wrote about knights and nobles and how they could lead better lives. He wrote Frauendienst (Service of the Lady), a poretry collection in the order of chaste courtly love. This portrait of Ulrich from the Codex Manesse, a medieval songbook that dates to the early 1300s, shows him dressed as a knight. Above his helmet is the ancient Roman goddess of love Venus (Aphrodite in Greece) wearing a gold crown and holding a red arrow in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. The torch and arrow were conventional attributes of the goddess since ancient times. A red torch tops each of the horse's ears. Thus Ulrich is riding to fight with the symbolic crest of his courtly lady, the goddess of love. The figures at the bottom represent two sea dragons and two fish. The sea motif was common at the time to represent an unstable watery world that is filled with sin and the like. In the movie A Knight's Tale, the protagonist William enters a tournament under the name Ulrich von Lichenstein.
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Photo credit: © Ivy Close Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 13th, ages, aphrodite, century, courtly, german, goddess, greek, knight, knightly, lichenstein, love, lyric, medieval, middle, ministerialis, minnesanger, myth, noble, poet, roman, serf, tale, ulrich, venus, von
