Palästinalied (Palestine Song) is a song written by Walther von der Vogelweide, the most celebrated German mediaeval lyric poet. Its subject matter is Palestine and the crusades. It is Walther's only song where not only the text but also the original tune was handed down to modern times. The full song consists of 13 strophes in Middle High German. Modern performers usually use only a few of these strophes.
Palästinalied was written in connection with the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221). Although it is a political-religious propaganda song describing a crusade into the Holy Land, it is atypical for a song of this kind in that it also recognizes the claim of all Abrahamic religions to the Holy Land, although finally asserting that the Christian cause is the "right one" in the last strophe:
This strophe can be translated as follows: Christians, Jews and Heathens claim this to be their heritage. God has to assign it in the right way, for His three names. The whole world is coming battling here - our cause is right. It is right that He is granting it to us.
With the increased popularity of Medieval rock, Neofolk and related musical styles in the late 1980s and 1990s, Palästinalied became a sort of staple song for such genres and is now well known to modern audiences due to performances by mainly German bands, including
The German medieval-EBM fusion act Heimataerde also used the melody from "Palästinalied" as the bagpipe-lead in the song "Deus Lo Vult" from their first album, Gotteskrieger. Other similar groups to cover the song have been Saltatio Mortis and Pilgrimage.
The Austrian Ensemble for Early Music Dulamans Vröudenton performs "Palästinalied" in a strictly authentic way: Listen/Anhören
Lou Harrison's String Quartet Set's 1st movement takes much of its melody from this song.