Biography of Meister Alexander (Part 1)

There are several ways of piecing together the biography of a particular Medieval composer. Thanks to literacy, written official documents remained to us from those times and sometimes their contemporaries mention them in their letters and so on (for example X heard that Y has a good working relationship with Z-nobleman, or anything like that, so we can trace back the name of the nobleman and try to figure out something about Y).

Unfortunately, we are not this lucky in Alexander's case. According to the most recent researches, we cannot find any of his names mentioned in official documents or contemporary literature. The only deductions can be made from his ouevre and his linguistic features; the last shows that he was probably from the Alemann regio, since he used that dialect. Little we know about his life, but there are certain allusions that he was active in the second half of the 13th-century (according to Oxford Music Online: events can be linked to his figure between 1247 and 1252 and between 1285 and 1288).
I would like to present here and example for the result of such deductions: one of the closest allusions is by F. Loewenthal mentioned in the article Die Lebenszeit de Wilden Alexander by Norbert Wagner, and there after citing the Strophe II 4 by Alexander:

Ein hirte enbant sín tobenden hunt.
des gét beschorn und ungesunt
manc schaf uf dürrer weide.
ein lieht erlasch ze Megenze sider;
do vlouc ein ar mit leide:
ze Pülle ein listic slange erstarp.
der Elbe minne der Rín erwarp;
daz vuogte ein tube ze Brunswíc.
sich vröute ein wolf der missetat
ze Swaben, daz in Beiern gat
ein staeter mul unrehten slíc.

Loewenthal indentifies 'hirte' (shepherd) and his 'tobenden hunt' (foolish dog) with Pope Honorius IV and his legate, Cardinal Bishop Johannes von Tusculum, who in 1286/87 became unpopular in Germany because of his arrogant financial claims and had to flee away from the country.

This was just an example how we can relate the content of his poems with the historical events of his time. He dresses up his criticism of the time in Biblical metaphores and pictures, which leads us to the conlusion that he might had got a good education for his time.