megilp (megilp)

and v. See magilp. Meg i stanes (mej-is-tā'nēz), n. pl. [NL., IMG:content-0428.png:[blocks in formation] The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: The Century dictionary meistersänger = E. singer.] A mastersinger; specifically, a member of one of the societies or gilds formed during a period ranging from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century in the principal cities of Germany (the most celebrated at Nuremberg) for the cultivation of poetry and music. These societies were composed mostly of workingmen, and succeeded to the field occupied before their time by the Minnesänger, who had usually belonged to the aristocratic cla es. They founded schools in which their art, called Meistergesang, was taught according to strict rules con stituting a system called tabulatur. They practised chiefly lyrical poetry, generally on a biblical subject, sung with an accompaniment of some stringed instrument, as the harp, violin, etc. Before admi ion to the degree of Meister (master) it was nece ary, as a rule, to pa through four preparatory degrees: viz., Schüler (scholar), Schulfreund (schoolfellow), Dichter (poet), and Sänger (singer). The candidate for admi ion to the gild had to present a poem and its musical accompaniment, which must receive the approval of four judges, called Merker, who examined the diction, grammatical construction, meter, rime, and melody. The Meistersänger claimed to trace their origin back to the middle of the tenth century, but their earliest school is alleged to have been founded at Mainz about 1312 by Frauenlob, one of the last of the Minnesingers, and schools were established afterward in all the principal cities of Germany. After the Reformation the gilds gradually became extinct, but the school at Ulm continued in existence until 1839.