I just learned about the Codex Manesse, and its beautiful artwork has really made an impression on me. I've found the free digitized version, and have found I can view the artwork, but I couldn't find any transcriptions of the written parts of the book in either German or English on the website. I've noticed there is a German version on Amazon, but not an English one. Is there a place where I could either read a German digital transcription of the text I could put into Google Translate, or an English translation?
Thanks!
Google Translate is trained on modern High German and does a so-so job at best. It will not do any kind of job with the 14th century Middle High German that the Codex Manesse is written in. It's as different as (say) Canterbury Tales is from Modern English. (see them side by side)
To demonstrate, this page, which I chose at random, starts (as best as I can represent it, without expanding scribal abbreviations but with inserted line breaks:
hat ieman zefreuden můt
der sol keren ze der gru^(e)nen lindē
ir wol blu^(e)nden svmerblůt
mac man da bi lo^(u)be schatten vindē
das liebt deiner vogelin schal unn singet
da von sendes herzen můt vf als du wolken hohe swinget.
You can try putting that into Google Translate if you want, but it'll definitely be gibberish. In modern High German it becomes:
Hat jemand zu Freuden Mut
Der soll kehren zu der grünen Linden
Ihre wohlblühende Sommerblut
Mag man da bei laubes schatten finden,
Das gefällt kleinen Vöglein, es schallt und singet,
Davon sehnendes herzens Mut auf
als die Wolken hoch sich schwinget.
Which is quite different. And still the first line already is problematic here; reading 'Should someone have a happy courage'. Because the word 'muot' in Middle High German meant 'state of mind' but in modern German form Mot, it means courage. Attempting to translate myself:
Should someone desire a happy state-of-mind
He should return to the green linden trees
Your well-blooming summer-blood
You may find there in the leaf-shade
It pleases the little birdies, who resound and sing
From whence, unto the longing heart's mind
which soars high like the clouds
(With my apologies to Count von Toggenburg for my poor translation of his poem)
Anyway, there are some older translations of the material free online; Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by Edgar Taylor is on archive.org. (his rendering of the example above is on page 166. It's not as literal, but does more to try to capture the rhymes)
I have not checked it but The songs of the Minnesingers by Barbara Ann Garvey Seagrave (University of Illinois Press, 1966) might be worth borrowing and looking at as it's a much more recent translation from a reputable academic publisher.