The Monastery of Love
14th century German ''Minnerede'' / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Monastery of Love (Das Kloster der Minne) is a Minnerede (courtly love story) or Minneallegorie (courtly love allegory) from the 2nd quarter of the 14th century.[1] The poem consists of up to 1890 rhyming couplets and was probably composed between 1330 and 1350 in southern Germany. The author is unknown.
The Monastery of Love is the story of a wanderer who is shown the way to a monastery by a messenger on horseback. In the monastery, whose headmistress is said to be Lady Love herself, he meets an acquaintance who shows him the building and with whom he watches a tournament before leaving the monastery again. Despite repeated requests, he has not met Lady Love in person, as she is only visible through her effect on the inhabitants of the monastery.
Due to the uncertain chronological classification and the anonymity of the author, The Monastery of Love has repeatedly become the focus of literary scholarship since the 19th century, for which it was of interest until the late 20th century, particularly in terms of its presumed relationship to the rules of the monastery of Ettal. In terms of content, the special feature of the work in comparison to other narrative Minnerede and Minneallegories is that it avoids personifications, meaning, for example, that Lady Love (Frau Minne) does not appear as a woman.[2]