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(tän'hoizər) , 13th cent., German minnesinger, whose adventurous wanderings became the subject of legend. Sixteen of his own lyrics are extant, including Buszlied (Song of Repentance). They indicate that he served several noble patrons and probably was a Crusader. In a 16th-century ballad, Tannhäuser escapes the snares of Venus with the help of Our Lady, but is refused papal absolution until the budding of his staff indicates divine grace. This story and that of his participation in a singing contest at the Wartburg are the materials for Wagner's opera Tannhäuser (1843–44). The story also figures in Swinburne's poem “Laus Veneris.”

A medieval German legend about how a minstrel and knight of that name, who passed by the Hörselberg (Hill of Venus) and entered therein in answer to a call. He remained there with an enchantress and lived an unholy life. After a time he grew weary of sin, and longing to return to normal living, forswore the worship of Venus and left her.

He then made a pilgrimage to Rome to ask pardon of the Pope, but when he was told by Urban IV himself that the papal staff would as soon blossom as such a sinner as Tannhäuser be forgiven, he returned to Venus. Three days later, the Pope's staff did actually blossom, and the Pope sent messengers into every country to find the despairing minstrel, but to no purpose. Tannhäuser had disappeared.

The story has a mythological basis that has been overlaid by medieval Christian thought, and the original hero of which has been displaced by a more modern personage, just as the Venus of the existing legend is the mythological Venus only in name. She is really a German earth-goddess, Lady Holda.

Tannhäuser was a minnesinger (love-minstrel of the middle of the thirteenth century). He was very popular among the minnesingers of that time. The restless and intemperate life he led probably marked him out as the hero of such a legend as has been recounted.

He was the author of many ballads of considerable excellence, which were published in the second part of the Minne-singer of Friedrich H. von der Hagen (Leipzig, 1838) and in the sixth volume of Moriz Haupt's Zeitschrift für deutsches Althertum(1841). The most authentic version of this legend is given in J. L. Uhland's Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder (Stuttgart, 1844-45).