Blue stones
Blue stones is a common hallway designation in Germany , which in some regions of Germany provides information that there were cult sites there or in the vicinity that were used as places of execution . The convicts were struck three times on these stones so that they could confess to further undiscovered crimes or name their accomplices. In Central Germany, however, it has been proven that they are boundary stones.
distribution
There are three main types of field names with the name Blue Stone . The examination of larger rooms leads to the conclusion that these places occurred frequently, but are not to be expected for every place. For individual places, such as Berga (Kyffhäuser) , two blue stones can be identified. Here they are clearly transitions between judicial districts.
While this use as a judicial boundary stone is more likely to be found in the middle and east of today's Germany, John Meier pointed out that the coherent distribution as a judicial stone for the Rhineland, the Netherlands and Flanders must have its own reason.
Blue stone is also found as a field name for rock formations, such as the blue stone near Blumberg-Randen , that near Riedöschingen or that near Kuchhausen (Windeck) . You can still find a “real” blue stone at the “Am Blaue Stein” rest area on the A 61 motorway or at Krahne in Brandenburg.
The blue stone of Cologne
The famous Blue Stone in Cologne is mentioned several times in Frank Schätzing's medieval thriller Death and the Devil . Under the explanations of the historical terms in the back of the book, there is an explanation of the blue stone: a large flat stone on the archbishop's forecourt, embedded in a column. Those sentenced to death were pushed against it three times while the hangman said, "I'll bump you on the blue stone, you kiss Vader and Moder not me home." Only then was the judgment legally valid.
In standard German: I'll bump you against the blue stone, you won't return home to your father and mother.
The "Blue Stone" in Cologne's "Domhof" (southeast of the cathedral choir, roughly where the "Roman-Germanic Museum" is today) was smashed and removed during the French occupation (after 1794). This stone, possibly slate or basalt rock from the nearby Rhenish low mountain range, is said to have had a bluish shimmer. It is sometimes also rated as a blood stone (Richtstein) in the specialist literature .
Etymology for the places of justice
The ritual possibly goes back to old Franconian legal customs, which explains the (more or less lost) original meaning of the name "blue stone". The name most likely does not come from the color of the rock, but is derived etymologically from the meaning of the word ahd. Bliuwan / mhd. Bliuwen , d. H. “Blue” (as in “blue”, “blue” or “connecting rod” / “connecting rod”), ie “knocking” off.
Central Germany
Investigations by Reinhard Schmitt and Wernfried Fieber showed a different picture for Central Germany, where more than 60 such locations are known, than for the Rhine region: Here, especially in Saxony-Anhalt, blue stones are localities between judicial districts. Criminals and documents were handed over at these locations, which is also proven by the old route network. Some of them are marked with a stone, which, however, does not have a bluish color here either, which is even expressly emphasized in a boundary description by the Gröningen office from 1680. In no case can a court act or an execution be proven in her examination room. In addition, the court / gallows field names and the field names with blue stone always seem to be mutually exclusive. Where this is not the case, there is a time discrepancy between these and the blue stones. A satisfactory etymological explanation for these border sites has not yet been found.
literature
- Fieber, Wernfried / Schmitt, Reinhard, Legal Archaeological Monuments in Saxony-Anhalt: A Review and Outlook After Twenty Years , in: Signa Iuris 12 (2013), pp. 27–43.
- Fever, Wernfried / Schmitt, Reinhard, trace of the blue stones. On a group of legal monuments in Central Germany that has been forgotten , in: Archäologie in Sachsen-Anhalt NF 4 (2006) 2, pp. 412–423.
- Meier, John, ancestral grave and legal stone , Berlin 1950.
- Schätzing, Frank, Tod und Teufel , Cologne 1995.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fieber / Schmitt, 2006, pp. 415-421. This is an inventory for parts of Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony. - Cf. also Friedrich Lütge : The agricultural constitution of the early Middle Ages in Central Germany, primarily in the Carolingian period. 2nd edition, Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart 1966, p. 325: The forest court of the Siebengemeindewald met in Berga, so several court landmarks are quite likely here.
- ↑ Meier 1950, pp. 103-106.
- ↑ See Fieber / Schmitt, 2006, pp. 412–413.
- ↑ Fieber / Schmitt, 2006, pp. 412–414 & Fieber / Schmitt, 2013, pp. 31–32.