Cassel, 1881); by F. Holthausen in Götehorgs Högskolas Årsskrift
(vol. v., 1899), with autotype reproductions of the two leaves which
have been preserved. See also A. Ebert, Allg. Gesch. der Lit. des
Mittelalters im Abendlande (Leipzig, 1874–1887); R. Koegel, Gesch.
der deutschen Literatur bis sum Ausgange des Mittelalters (vol. i, pt. ii,
Strassburg, 1897); M. D. Larned, The Saga of Walter of Aquitaine
(Baltimore, 1892); B. Symons, Deutsche Heldensage (Strassburg,
1905). With Waltharius compare the Scottish ballads of “Earl
Brand” and “Erlinton” (F. J. Child’s English and Scottish Popular
Ballads, i. 88 seq.)
WALTHEOF (d. 1076), earl of Northumbria, was a son of Earl Siward of Northumbria, and, although he was probably educated for a monastic life, became earl of Huntingdon and Northampton about 1065. After the battle of Hastings he submitted to William the Conqueror; but when the Danes invaded the north of England in 1069 he joined them and took part in the attack on York, only, however, to make a fresh submission after their departure in 1070. Then, restored to his earldom, he married William’s niece, Judith, and in 1072 was appointed earl of Northumbria. In 1075 Waltheof joined the conspiracy against the king arranged by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford; but soon repenting of his action he confessed his guilt to Archbishop Lanfranc, and then to William, who was in Normandy. Returning to England with William he was arrested, and after being brought twice before the king’s court was sentenced to death. On the 31st of May 1076 he was beheaded on St Giles’s Hill, near Winchester. Weak and unreliable in character, Waltheof, like his father, is said to have been a man of immense bodily strength. Devout and charitable, he was regarded by the English as a martyr, and miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb at Crowland. The earl left three daughters, the eldest of whom, Matilda, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I., king of Scotland. One of Waltheof’s grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.
See E. A. Freeman, The Norman Conquest, vols, ii., iii. and iv. (1870–1876).
WALTHER, BERNHARD (1430-1504), German astronomer, was born at Nuremberg in 1430. He was a man of large means, which he devoted to scientific pursuits. When Regiomontanus (q.v.) settled at Nuremberg in 1471, Walther built for their common use an observatory at which in 1484 clocks driven by weights were first used in astronomical determinations. He further brought into prominence the effects of refraction in altering the apparent places of the heavenly bodies, and substituted Venus for the moon as a connecting-link between observations of the sun and stars. Walther established a printing-press, from which some of the earliest editions of astronomical works were issued. His observations, begun in 1475 and continued until his death in May 1504, were published by J. Schöner in 1544, and by W. Snell in 1618, as an appendix to his Observationes Hassiaceae.
See J. G. Doppelmayr, Hist. Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis, p. 23 (1730); G. A. Will, Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexikon, vii. 381 (1806); J. F. Montucla, Hist. des mathématiques, i. 546; J. S. Bailly, Hist. de l’astr. moderne, i. 319; E. F. Apelt, Die Reformation der Sternkunde, p. 54; J. P. von Wurzelbaur, Uranies Noricae basis astronomica (1719); J. F. Weidler, Hist. astronomiae, p. 322; A. G. Kästner, Geschichte der Mathematik, ii. 324; Mitteilungen des Vereins für Gesch. der Stadt Nürnberg, vii. 237 (1888) (H. Petz); R. Wolf, Gesch. der Astr. p. 92, &c.
WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE (c. 1170–c. 1230), the. most celebrated of medieval German lyric poets. For all his fame, Walther’s name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Passau—“Walthero cantori de Vogelweide pro pellicio V. solidos longos”—“To Walther the singer of the Vogelweide five shillings to buy a fur coat,” and the main sources of information about him are his own poems and occasional references by contemporary Minnesingers. It is clear from the title hêr (Herr, Sir) these give him, that he was of noble birth; but it is equally clear from his name Vogelweide (Lat. aviarium, a gathering place or preserve of birds) that he belonged not to the higher nobility, who took their titles from castles or villages, but to the nobility of service (Dienstadel) , humble retainers of the great lords, who in wealth and position were little removed from non-noble free cultivators. For a long time the place of his birth was a matter of dispute, until Professor Franz Pfeiffer established beyond reasonable doubt that he was born in the Wipthal in Tirol, where, not far from the little town of Sterzing on the Eisak, a wood—called the Vorder- und Hintervogelweide—preserves at least the name of his vanished home. This origin would account for what is known of Walther’s early life. Tirol was at this time the home of several noted Minnesingers; and the court of Vienna, under the enlightened duke Frederick I. of the house of Babenberg, had become a centre of poetry and art. Here it was that the young poet learned his craft under the renowned master Reinmar the Old, whose death he afterwards lamented in two of his most beautiful lyrics; and in the open handed duke he found his first patron. This happy period of his life, during which he produced the most charming and spontaneous of his love-lyrics, came to an end with the death of Duke Frederick in 1198. Henceforward Walther was a wanderer from court to court, singing for his lodging and his bread, and ever hoping that some patron would arise to save him from this “juggler’s life” (gougel-fuore) and the shame of ever playing the guest. For material success in this profession he was hardly calculated. His criticism of men and manners was scathing; and even when this did not touch his princely patrons, their underlings often took measures to rid themselves of so uncomfortable a censor. Thus he was forced to leave the court of the generous duke Bernhard of Carinthia (1202-1256); after an experience of the tumultuous household of the landgrave of Thuringia he warns those who have weak ears to give it a wide berth; and after three years at the court of Dietrich I. of Meissen (reigned 1195-1221) he complains that he had received for his services neither money nor praise. Walther was, in fact, a man of strong views; and it is this which gives him his main significance in history, as distinguished from his place in literature. From the moment when the death of the emperor Henry VI. (1197) opened the fateful struggle between empire and papacy, Walther threw himself ardently into the fray on the side of German independence and unity. Though his religious poems sufficiently prove the sincerity of his catholicism, he remained to the end of his days opposed to the extreme claims of the popes, whom he attacks with a bitterness which can only be justified by the strength of his patriotic feelings. His political poems begin with an appeal to Germany, written in 1198 at Vienna, against the disruptive ambitions of the princes:—
“Crown Philip with the Kaiser’s crown
“And bid them vex thy peace no more.”
He was present, on the 8th of September, at Philip’s coronation at Mainz, and supported him till his victory was assured. After Philip’s murder in 1209, he “said and sang” in support of Otto of Brunswick against the papal candidate Frederick of Staufen; and only when Otto’s usefulness to Germany had been shattered by the battle of Bouvines (1212) did he turn to the rising star of Frederick II., now the sole representative of German majesty against pope and princes. From the new emperor his genius and his zeal for the empire at last received recognition; and a small fief in Franconia was bestowed upon him, which, though he complained that its value was little, gave him the home and the fixed position he had so long desired. That Frederick gave him an even more signal mark of his favour by making him the tutor of his son Henry VII., is more than doubtful. The fact, in itself highly improbable, rests only upon the evidence of a single poem, which is capable of another interpretation. Walther’s restless spirit did not suffer him to remain long on his new property. In 1217 we find him once more at Vienna, and again in 1219 after the return of Duke Leopold VI. from the crusade. About 1224 he seems to have settled on his fief near Würzburg. He was active in urging the German princes to take part in the crusade of 1228, and may have accompanied the crusading army at least as far as his native Tirol. In a beautiful and pathetic poem he paints the change that had come over the scenes of his childhood and made his life seem a thing dreamed. He died about 1230, and was buried at Würzburg, after leaving directions, according to the
