Now, That’s the Life!

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The Minnesinger Jakob von Warte, 1274-1331 (Codex Manesse, fol. 46v) is depicted grey-haired and balding, bathing in water filled with flowers, attended by a maidservant who is keeping his bathwater warm and by three virgins, one of whom is massaging his arm, while another is fetching him a goblet of wine, and a third is crowning him with roses.

Richard Moritz Meyer, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, tells us that the image can be accorded “documentary weight,” but dismisses the poet as a “dilletante,” who “liked to use the most common forms.”