Mei’ster (Ger.) Master

Mei’sterfuge, fug a ricerca’ta...Mei’stersinger G -sdnger), in Germany, the succe ors of the "Win'nesinger (Troubadours), but, unlike the latter, chiefly artisans, who formed guilds in various cities for the cultivation and propagation of their art, the stringent rules for which were contained in the 7adulatur’. Their poems were founded for the greater part on biblical subjects; the musical treatment was apt to be dry and prosaical.—They originated about the ryth century in Mainz, reached their zenith in the 15th and 16th centuries (notably under Hans Sachs of Nuremberg), and thereafter decayed gradually, the last society becoming extinct in 1839 (Ulm). Melancoli’a (It.),