Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs (5 November 1494 – 19 January 1576) was a German Meistersinger (“mastersinger”), poet, playwright, and shoemaker. Biography Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg (). As a child he attended a singing school that was held in the church of Nuremberg. This helped to awaken in him a taste for poetry and music. His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school () in Nuremberg. When he was 14 he took up an apprenticeship as a shoemaker. After the apprenticeship, at age 17, he set out on his Wanderjahre or Walz as a Wandering journeyman, travelling about with companions and students. In 1513 he reached the small town of Wels, where he remained for a time, devoting himself to the cultivation of the fine arts. He married again on 2 September 1561, this time to the young widow Barbara Harscher. The great event of his intellectual life was the coming of the Reformation; he became an ardent adherent of Luther, and in 1523 wrote in Luther’s honor the poem beginning “The nightingale of Wittenberg, which is heard everywhere” (), and four remarkable dialogues in prose, in which his warm sympathy with the reformer was tempered by counsels of moderation. In spite of this, his advocacy of the ne