Bottle carrying
The bottles carrying or drinking from the bottle bailiff was a form of punishment for women in the city of Bautzen to verbal and physical confrontations in the Middle Ages until the end of the 17th century .
As a punishment, the women concerned were hung with a stone of shame in the form of a round bottle on an iron chain around their necks, which they had to carry through the city. Two women quarreling and threatening each other were depicted on the stone bottle, over whom the following verse was written:
- When the maid and the women fight, they have to carry the bottles.
This punishment served inner-city social discipline , but it was also an instrument for social discrimination . The shame stones were publicly hung on the corner of the Gewandhaus above the pillory as a warning. This form of punishment was probably last used in Bautzen on October 13, 1678, when a beggar had to carry the shame three times around the town hall .
Bottle-carrying was probably also used in other places, as it is also recorded for the town of Bischofswerda, some 20 kilometers away , that two bottle stones were attached to the town hall in 1648 as a warning.