Arnold von Harff

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Arnold von Harff prays at the beginning of his journey at the Dreikönigsschrein Cologne, book illustration around 1500.

Arnold von Harf (* 1471 in Castle Harff , Bedburg , † January 1505 ) was a knight , the most important of the three pilgrimage destinations of the Christian Middle Ages, namely after Rome , Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage and about his journey through Europe , Palestine and the Ottoman Empire wrote a detailed report in German. In addition to the descriptions of the pilgrimage, the glossaries provided by Harff , for example on the Croatian, Albanian or Breton languages, are important historical evidence .

Life

Place of birth: Harff Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

Arnold von Harff was born to Adam von Harff and his wife Rikarda von Hoemen and in 1504 he married Margarethe von dem Bongart .

Pilgrimage

Arnold von Harff began a pilgrimage to the Orient from Cologne on November 7, 1496 , traveled through Germany and Italy to Rome and in February 1497 embarked in Venice for Alexandria .

He visited Cairo and St. Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula ; from there he continued his pilgrimage to the Promised Land and to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where he was knighted by the Holy Sepulcher . From there he moved on via Damascus and Haleb to Antioch , then through the entire length of Asia Minor to Brussa across the Balkans, Italy, France to the grave of St. Jacobus in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Here he began his journey home via Paris and Brussels . On October 10, 1499 he met again in Heinsberg (Rhineland) with the Duke of Jülich .

Last years of life

In 1499 he received a castle in the Erkelenzer Land from his uncle Godart von Harff , located behind today's Gut Nierhoven in today's Erkelenz- Lövenich . The castle no longer exists. Here he is said to have recorded his travel reports in a "pilgrim book". The reports were illustrated in the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach . He later became treasurer in the Duchy of Geldern , but died in January 1505, presumably at his moated castle in Lövenich. In this place there is a tradition that the knight was buried in the local parish church. This is indicated by a grave slab that is now in the crypt and comes from a previous church. When the old church was demolished in 1868, no corresponding finds were made. Other reports give the ancestral seat of the Burg Harff family as the place of death. This castle near Bedburg- Kaster no longer exists today either. The historic building had to give way to the local open-cast lignite mine in Frimmersdorf and was destroyed in 1972.

Others

Street and school names in Bedburg and Erkelenz are reminiscent of the knight. A memorial plaque has been located at the outer entrance of the crypt of the Lövenich Catholic parish church since 2009. The Africa and Orient journeys of the “late medieval globetrotter or pilgrim” are the origin of local legends of the “Loevenich Lion Knight”.

The "Arnold von Harff bike and hiking trail" has been connecting Lövenich and Kaster since 2014.

expenditure

Arab rider, woodcut illustration of the book edition from 1860

He left a description of his journey preserved in several manuscripts, which also contains fictional parts. So he pretends that he has also visited India, the Nicobar Islands, Madagascar and the source of the Nile. The external sources used here are documented by L. Korth in the Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein , Vol. 5, 1884, pp. 191 ff. The travel report was first published in 1860 by Everhard von Groote and provided with woodcuts based on the original illustrations. A critical reworking with the original illustrations of the manuscripts was published on the occasion of a traveling exhibition in 2007.

literature

  • Helmut Lahrkamp:  Harff, Arnold von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 672 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Philippe Kohler, Arnold von Harff (1471–1505), chevalier, pèlerin, écrivain (Travail d'enseignement et de recherche, Université de Bordeaux 3, Section d'Études Germaniques et Scandinaves), 2 volumes, Bordeaux 1974 (copies in the Herzog August library in Wolfenbüttel and in the library of the University of Bordeaux Montaigne).
  • Robert Elsie: The Albanian Lexicon of Arnold von Harff . 1497, Journal for Comparative Linguistic Research, Göttingen, 97 (1984), p. 113-122.
  • Andreas Amberg: Writer in the Erkelenzer Land. A literary search for traces. (= Writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV 13). Erkelenz 1993.
  • Walter Delabar: Arnold von Harff Herr zu Nierhoven, Knight of Jerusalem: a preliminary remark (= writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV 9, p. 13). Erkelenz 1989.
  • Walter Delabar: BIDT GOT VUR DEN PYLGRUM WEECH WIJSER IND DICHTER (Please God for the pilgrim, guide and poet) . Notes on some Orientalia in the travel report of Arnold von Harff (= writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV 9, p. 17). Erkelenz 1989.
  • Klaus Siewert: The Breton glossary in the travelogue of the knight Arnold von Harff . In: Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 44, 1991, pp. 239-272.
  • Korvin Knop: The pilgrimage of the knight Arnold von Harff 1496–1499: In the context of late medieval German travel reports - pilgrims, walking and discovering . 1st edition, Vdm Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5328-8 .
  • Harff . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 12, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 1026.
  • Wilhelm Heyd :  Harff, Arnold Ritter von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 599 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Helmut Brall-Tuchel, Folker Reichert (ed.): Rome- Jerusalem- Santiago: The pilgrim diary of the knight Arnold von Harff (1496–1498) . Böhlau Verlag Cologne Weimar 2007, p. 12
  2. ^ Andreas Amberg: Writer in the Erkelenzer Land. A literary search for traces. (= Writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV 13). Erkelenz 1993
  3. ^ Arnold von Harff Schule ( Memento from January 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Andreas Amberg: Writer in the Erkelenzer Land. A literary search for traces. (= Writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV 13). P. 5f. Erkelenz 1993

Web links

Commons : Arnold von Harff  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Arnold von Harff
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Knight, Palestinian pilgrim, traveler to the Orient and travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1471
PLACE OF BIRTH Harff Castle
DATE OF DEATH January 1505
Place of death Harff Castle