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Anz or fork wagons (older designation = Enz or einwägen) were light barrows with a narrow gauge and were used since the Middle Ages . Due to the horses only running on one track in front of it, however, the road surface was heavily stressed. Since the 16th century, attempts were therefore made to ban them in favor of drawbar wagons in front of which horses ran side by side. Even so, they were in use well into the 18th century.
development
Since the poorly developed streets of the Middle Ages and early modern times were only very narrow, in the mountains they were mostly only 2 to 3 meters wide, they could only be reached there with light, single-axle carts or small carts with a max. Drive on a track width of 1 meter. The lively road construction activity of the 16th century gave the Anzwagen a new boom. These new streets were also narrow, making them impassable for drawbar wagons with their harnessed pairs of draft animals and their wide construction. Therefore, even larger and longer wagons were constructed to which several draft animals could be harnessed, so that now up to four, and occasionally even more, trotted forward in a row - in a so-called tandem train. Originally only used in mountain areas, the multi-horse trailer now also penetrated the plains. In the long run, however, its use on unpaved roads was disastrous and soon made them difficult to drive on for drawbar wagons. The rows of horses lined up in the middle of the path, with the narrow dressing wagons behind them, furrowed deep pits in the road surface, so that drawbar teams made it extremely difficult to move forward.
On August 2, 1569, at the request of the landscape in Graz, a princely patent was issued against the "Zeilfuhren" (apparently this meant the multi-horse Anzwagen), which had to be parked within six months, with the exception of the one-horse haulage of the "poor Kramer and others Inhabitants ". In the long run, however, this decree had little effect and the deliveries evidently continued unhindered. In Bavaria , too , electoral ban mandates were repeatedly issued between 1699 and 1710, but they were even less successful. Driving in the Anzen was even considered harmful for the horses, as can be seen from a letter from the Bavarian to the Salzburg court chamber of June 22, 1699: “... also the best horse, so in the änz spent, marriage Gone too much, because each such horse pergab the wagon and the entire load alone has hold and in the friction alone has to measure . ”On June 2, 1717, in the course of the increasing Mediterranean trade, an imperial patent announced that the roads of Inner Austria ( Styria , Carinthia , Carniola ) to the seaports " ... to drive in a braid car and convert it to a righteous commercio ...". On the same day, a "hand letter" was issued by Emperor Charles VI. to the Archbishop Franz Anton von Harrach , with which he conveyed this mandate to him with the notification that driving on the streets with Anzwagen was forbidden and that these were only intended for wide drawbar wagons, especially since the main road from Inner Austria through Salzburg into the Holy Roman Empire take similar precautions. On March 23, 1720, the maintenance and toll officials from Moosham to Hallein were instructed to discontinue the multi-horse trailer with heavy loads (with the exception of the transport of subjects to their own home needs) within two months.
But even this already claused prohibition of the Anzenwagen does not seem to have had any lasting effect. The streets were still heavily used due to the apparent tolerance of the Anzfuhr. In 1721 an imperial edict ordered that from St. George's Day (April 24th) the use of such wagons was generally forbidden for Inner Austria, "be the same as Deixl or Änzen", and that the toll collectors would have to "hack" them. In front of poorly developed and narrow stretches of road, the wagoners still had to remove the drawbars, knock in the Anzen they were carrying and encircle the draft animals, or drive along the prince's path, which was actually reserved for the higher nobility, both of which were forbidden. In the same year, the ban on the severest threats of punishment (confiscation of vehicle and cargo) was renewed in Bavaria. The decree was also passed on to Tyrol, Württemberg, Berchtesgaden and the imperial cities of Ulm, Nördlingen, Memmingen, Augsburg and Regensburg. In 1722, the court councilor in Salzburg also decided on a general mandate to ban the general public, the introduction of the middle track and the order to generally widen the road. In 1724, people in Salzburg who could only afford one horse were allowed to drive the country road with one-horse trailer of moderate difficulty, with the exception of freight journeys. Until 1728, the "Einrößler" vehicles were also registered in Bavaria.
construction
The Anzwagen possessed a carrier frame of a between the rods or several draft animals (horses or steer) in front of the center of the car could be clamped one after the other. The rods of the drawbar were called Anzen (rod = "an Anz"). With four-in-hand anzwagen, around 840 kg payload (so-called “wagon hem”) could be transported. You either sat as a pioneer on the back of the draft animal or walked alongside. According to the earliest evidence for this distinction, the Vienna Castle and Water Toll Regulations from the first half of the 13th century, the dressing wagons of this time - in contrast to the drawbar wagons - were only drawn by one horse instead of two or more. It was also possible to switch from one covering to the other, as the wagoners carried both drawbars and pins with them, which could then be “driven in” according to the respective needs and regulations. Only half the customs duty had to be paid for the freight of a trailer. The same source shows that there were also four-wheeled trucks at that time, because the tariff rate for the carts was 1: 2: 4 to that of the truck and drawbar wagons. The same relationship between drawbar and Anzwagen is mentioned in a toll regulation from Moravian Brno - probably dating from the 14th century . Whether the single-horse Anzwagen had a narrower track gauge than the drawbar wagons, or whether that was only a consequence of developments from the 16th century onwards, cannot be said with certainty. The former is likely, however. In the 18th century (1724) the Anzwagen in Salzburg had a track width of 3.5 feet (1 Salzburg foot (shoe) - 0.2966 meters), i.e. about 1.04 meters, according to the Hofkammerhauptmautverordnung, while the drawbar wagons were up to 1.24 meters up to 1.26 meters (“middle axis”) or even 1.56 meters (“wide axis”).
literature
- House, Court and State Archives Vienna, Austrian files Carinthia, Fz. 25, issue df 141 f.
- EF Rößler: German legal monuments from Bohemia and Moravia, 2nd volume, Prague 1852, p. 373f.
- JA Tomaschek :, The rights and freedoms of the City of Vienna I. Gesch.-qu. d. St. Wien, publisher: K. Weiss, Vienna 1877, p. 5, no. III (castle and wagon toll: saec. XIII / 1).
- Herbert Hassinger: The transitions over the Hohe Tauern from the early Middle Ages to the 19th century. Tauernautobahn 1976, pp. 215–246.
- Wolfgang Kos (ed.): The conquest of the landscape. Semmering, Rax, Schneeberg, in it: Othmar Pickl: the trade route over the Semmering. The importance of Semmeringstrasse in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period, p. 408. Exhibition catalog. Falter, Vienna 1992.
- Herbert Klein: Roads in Salzburg in the 18th century. Announcements from the Society for Regional Studies in Salzburg, No. 99, 1959, pp. 81–110.