Hans Rosenplüt, dictum from the City of Nuremberg

The Nuremberg blacksmith and gunsmith Hans Rosenplüt (c. 1400-1460) is regarded as the first known craftsman poet of German literature, pioneer of the Nuremberg Meistersang and also an important fairy tale poet of the Middle Ages. From 1428 he had the nickname "the Schnepperer" (the glib); his poems include farces, serious adage poems, political songs, wine greetings, priamels, etc.

He wrote the earliest German-language example of a city praise poem of humanistic value, his "Lobspruch über Nürnberg" (1447, print 1490 – Laudation of Nuremberg). This type of panegyric rhyme combines praise of the city with the high self-confidence of the city dweller; Rosenplüt derives his image from encounters with princes and nobility. Nuremberg appears as a stronghold of trade, crafts and science as well as the fifth most sacred city in the world. In addition, the municipal social welfare system, the "Schöne Brunnen" fountain and the blind organist Conrad Paumann (c. 1410-1473), born in Nuremberg, are praised. Rosenplüt considers the specific form of government without the influence of guilds and city lords (Ingeborg Glier) to be one of the reasons for the city flourishing. Rosenplüt wrote another city praise poem about Bamberg (1459, print 1491).

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