Poet and Minnesinger. A member of the lower aristocracy; lived for some time at the Vienna court and also attended such great occasions as the coronation of the King of Swabia at Worms in 1198 and the Reichstag at Frankfurt in 1212. Some time after 1220 he abandoned his wandering life and settled down on an estate in Würzburg. His famous and very beautiful Palästinaliedprobably dates from the Crusade of 1228, and was only rediscovered in 1910; it is the earliest surviving Minnesinger melody (in fact a variant on a Provençal troubadour song) and his style in general combines courtly and more popular elements.