Complimentarius

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The armor of the Complimentarius in the Focke Museum in Bremen

The Complimentarius ( Latin for "Bücklingsmacher"), also called armored man , was a saluting automat that stood in the Schütting in Bremen from the 17th century to the early 19th century and was one of the city's attractions.

The “greeting” of the Complimentarius

Head of the figure

The Complimentarius consisted of a life-size wooden figure with a carved and painted face, who wore a grooved armor with feathers on the helmet. A bladed weapon was attached to the armor - presumably a rapier  - and he held a spear in his left hand . The Complimentarius stood in the great hall on the first floor of the Schütting near the entrance. A mechanism made of rods and joints, which ran inside the figure and was continued through the floor of the Schütting, meant that when stepping on two successive stairs that led into the hall, the latter was initially with the left arm, which held the spear , opened the visor of his helmet and then raised his right hand in greeting during the second step. The subsequent relief of the stairs resulted in a nod of the head, which closed the visor again, and a lowering of both arms, so that the complimentarius returned to his starting position.

The story of the complimentarius

The Schütting around 1833

The armor of the figure originally belonged to the military equipment of the Bremen merchants, who owned a good 50 of these armaments in the 16th century. When new armaments were purchased in 1601 because the previous armaments were no longer able to offer adequate protection against firearms, all but the old armaments were traded in. The earliest mention of a figure with armor can be found in an account book of the Schütting from 1602, in which is recorded: "Evert de Snitker makede de Bordt, dar de armed man up stundt"  - thus: "Evert the carpenter made the board, on which the armored man stood. "

When exactly and by whom the saluting mechanism was built into the figure is unknown, but this existed from 1676 at the latest, as a so-called “presidential invoice” from Schütting has been received for this year, which proves the payment of a watchmaker to repair the armored man. This person was presumably the master blacksmith and church clockmaker Konrad Schmidt, who is mentioned by name in further invoices from the years 1681, 1683 and 1685. The construction of a "saluting machines" by the merchants is a civil variant of a Wunderkammer to understand and comply with the interest of the late Renaissance to curiosities and machines .

Until the beginning of the 19th century, the Complimentarius was continuously in the Schütting and for a long time was considered a sight of the city, which was mentioned several times in travel guides and reports of the 18th century. For example, Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach , who inspected the Schütting in 1710, wrote: “At the front of the door there is a man in armor who, when you step in, always moves both arms, namely the left one with a javelier, lifting the balaclava or the visor , and showing the wooden painted face. This is very nicely done in the following manner, that when you step on the first staircase, on which one goes down into the Made, the staircase bends down unnoticed about two inches, and presumably by an iron spring, so lies the one underneath Arm moves. If you then step onto the second flight of stairs, the other arm is raised in the same way. ”Or Thomas Lediards in his German Spy :“ At the foot of a descent of three steps that lead you into the hall, there is a figure of one Warrior in full armor, who, by means of a mechanism under the steps, as soon as you step on them to go down, lifts the visor of her helmet with her spear and greets you. "

The fascination that the Complimentarius exerted on the educated travelers of the 18th century is undoubtedly connected to the idea of ​​"man as machine" that arose in the age of the Enlightenment and found expression in diverse forms in philosophy, science and art of that epoch, for example in Julien Offray de La Mettrie's work L'homme machine , in Jacques de Vaucanson's Automaten Flute Player (1737) and Ente (1738) or in Wolfgang von Kempelen's alleged chess machine The Turk (1769).

The Jacobihalle, formerly the blacksmith's office (around 1890). In the background the tower of St. Ansgarii Church

Around 1810, the Complimentarius came to the so-called "Schmiedeamt", the house of the blacksmiths' guild, which was located in the choir of the former Jacobikirche - probably on the occasion of the rededication of the Schütting to the court building after the annexation of Bremen by Napoleonic France . This is not a coincidence, as the two craftsmen who were always involved in the maintenance of the figure and its mechanism were the armaments and watchmakers belonging to the blacksmith's office. The figure also greeted the blacksmiths when they stepped onto the stairs of the building, presumably only using the left arm to open the visor. When the blacksmith's guild was dissolved in 1861 due to the introduction of the freedom of trade, the complimentarius came into the possession of master locksmith Konrad Asendorpf, who bought the choir of the former Jacobi Church and had it converted into a restaurant, the “Jacobihalle” by Simon Loschen . Here the figure stood in the entrance for a few years on a raised console, but was only a decorative object without a salute function.

Between 1876 and 1883 (the exact time is unknown) the Complimentarius was acquired by the merchant Friedrich Heinrich Carstens, who soon afterwards sold it to his cousin, the painter Wilhelm Tilman Grommé , who was born in St. Petersburg and who lives in Paris and Wiburg (also the exact time is unknown here), who had the Complimentarius brought to Paris. After the painter's death, however, due to a testamentary determination by Grommé, he returned to Bremen to Carstens in 1901, who gave him and other pieces from Grommé's estate to the recently founded Historical Museum  - today's Focke Museum  .

In 1958 the Complimentarius was shown on loan at the exhibition The Golden Age of the Big Cities in Ghent . For this purpose, it was equipped with a new electric automatic system that raised the left arm and opened the visor at the push of a button. The right arm was not moved and instead held a halberd . Armor and wooden figures can now be seen in the Focke Museum.

The legend of the Complimentarius

The Junker Balthasar fountain in Esens

At the beginning of the 20th century, in connection with the Complimentarius, the story emerged that its armor was the armor of the East Frisian Junker Balthasar von Esens , who was at war with Bremen in the 16th century. According to this legend, the armor was brought to Bremen as booty in 1540 - after the siege of Esens by Bremen troops and the death of the Junker - and here as a trophy by the merchants, whose ships had previously suffered particularly from the Esens raids have been provided with the saluting mechanism so that the former archenemy should pay his respects to the merchants forever . Apart from the temporal proximity between the victory over Balthasar von Esens and the exhibition of the "armored man" there are no indications or even written evidence for the correctness of this story, rather all known records suggest that the armor - as mentioned above - from Schütting's own stocks.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Complimentarius. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 6, Leipzig 1733, column 874. - someone “who makes too many compliments to everyone when he doesn't need to.” Compliment here to be understood as a sign of respect or politeness.
  2. ↑ How the mechanism inside the wooden figure and the staircase worked exactly cannot be fully reconstructed today, as from 1861 it was only used as a decorative object and was given a new mechanism when it was presented at an exhibition in 1958.
  3. ↑ According to the Focke-Museum Bremen, it is the only almost completely preserved Riefel armor in northwest Germany.
  4. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Volume 77 . P. 192.
  5. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 77 . P. 185
  6. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 77 . P. 196.
  7. ^ Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach : Strange journeys through Lower Saxony, Holland and England . Ulm 1753, pp. 184-185.
  8. ↑ Thomas Lediard : The German Spy: Or: Familiar Letters from A Gentleman on his Travels thro 'Germany, to His Friend in England […] . 2nd edition, London 1740, p. 66.
    In the English original the text reads: “At the bottom of a descent of three steps, by which you enter into the hall, stands the figure of a warrior in compleat armor, who, by means of a piece of machinery under the steps, as soon as you tread upon them to descent, lifts up the bever of his helmet, with his truncheon, and salutes you. "
  9. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 77 . P. 172.
  10. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 77 . P. 182.
  11. ^ HH Meyer: The Complimentarius - History of a Bremen attraction . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 77 . P. 212 ff.