Tannhäuser

13th-century German Minnesinger and crusader, identified with a legendary knight who is the subject of a 16th-century ballad, the Tannhäuserlied.

In the ballad, Tannhäuser is seduced by the sensual pleasures of the mountain of Venus (Venusberg), but after seven years he travels to Rome to repent for his sins. Pope Urban IV, however, says that Tannhäuser is as unlikely to find forgiveness as the staff in the Pope's hand is likely to blossom. Three days later the staff produces shoots, but Tannhäuser has returned to the Venusberg and the unforgiving Pope is eternally damned.

Wagner's opera Tannhäuser 1845 combines the story of the ballad with traditions deriving from the Singers' Contest in the Wartburg, where the poet at odds with his fellows is Heinrich von Ofterdingen for singing the praises of the Austrian duke, whereas the others praise the Thuringian landgrave Hermann.