Among the most famous Meistersingers were Heinrich Frauenlob (mentioned above), Hans Foltz, Hans Rosenplüt, Konrad Nachtigall, Konrad Murner, Michel Behaim, Jörg Schilher, Bartel Regenbogen, Heinrich von Ueglin, and Muskatblüt. But far above his colleagues towers Hans Sachs, the shoemaker poet of Nuremberg. His achievements as poet, dramatist, and musician are uneven in quality; his farces assure him of a more prominent place in German literature than the rank accorded to him in musical history for his setting of the psalms. But taken as a whole his personality typifies what was best in the art of his class at that period--an art practised under conditions which did not favor the free and bold flight of creative genius. It was Hans Sach who first of all the mastersingers openly espoused the cause of the new church by greeting the appearance of Luther in his famous song, _Die Wittenbergisch Nachtigall_. In his naïve, sincere devotion to the new creed he undertook also to 'revise’ some of the older master songs to make them conform to the new spirit, and his contributions to Protestant church music were highly esteemed by his contemporaries.
Individual impulse, both emotional and musical, being curbed by rigid rules, _Meistergesang_ was a less direct expression of personality than _Minnegesang_, and a less frank reflection of sentiment than the _Volkslied_. Lacking spontaneity and wider human appeal, it fostered a spirit of severe formalism which could not have much influence upon the development of music in general. On the other hand, this formalistic severity imparted a technical and spiritual discipline which was not to be undervalued, and the stress laid upon a serious and dignified attitude toward the art of music may have done no little toward counterbalancing the frivolous tendencies which sprang up here and there during the religious, social, and political unrest of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nor was the relation between _Meistergesang_ and the Reformation without influence upon the development of Protestant church music. For in the slow and measured movement of the songs, dealing with sacred themes and sung _unisono_ by the members of the _Singschule_ at the opening of their meetings, one can recognize an essential feature of the Protestant Chorale.