Meistersinger

A Meistersinger (German for "master singer") was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.

Guilds

The Meistersingers carried on and developed the traditions of the medieval Minnesingers. They belonged to the artisan and trading classes of the German towns, and regarded as their masters and the founders of their guild twelve poets of the Middle High German period, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, Konrad von Würzburg, Reinmar von Zweter, and Heinrich Frauenlob. Frauenlob is said to have established the earliest Meistersinger school at Mainz, early in the 14th century. The schools were established first in the upper Rhine district, then elsewhere. In the 14th century there were schools at Mainz, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Würzburg, Zurich, and Prague; in the 15th at Augsburg and Nuremberg. Nuremberg, under the leadership of Hans Sachs, became the most famous school in the 16th century, by which time Meistersinger schools had spread all over Germany and farther north, to Magdeburg, Breslau Görlitz, and Danzig.

MeisterSinger (watchmaker)

MeisterSinger is a manufacturer of mechanical wristwatches based in Münster, Germany.Annual sales are claimed to be 10,000 pieces

History

As a self-taught jeweller Manfred Brassler founded the company "Watch People" with Klaus Botta in 1989. The watches produced were primarily quartz. He sold the company in 1999 so that he might pursue his interest in the creation of higher-end mechanical timepieces. In 2001 MeisterSinger was formed. The name was chosen to draw parallels to a title given to German singers in the Middle Ages who had discovered new melodic elements.

Design

MeisterSinger watches distinguish themselves from others by the fact that they use a single hand rather than two or three. This feature of sundials and some old clock towers, for example Westminster Abbey, acted as inspiration behind the design. In 2013 MeisterSinger released a watch based on the Westminster Abbey clock face to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.