Gymnicher ride
The Gymnich ride is a nationally known equestrian procession that takes place annually on the feast of Ascension Day and leads through the village of Gymnich and around the area around the village.
history
Origins
The origin of the ride is not documented in writing.
Oral tradition in the 19th century named the founder of the ride as a " Count von Gymnich ", who sank into the morass on the First Crusade with his horse and, as thanks for his salvation, vowed an annual ride through the district of his rule.
In local literature the pledge is called a legend. There are two versions of the Foundation of the Ride. On the one hand, it is traced back to the vow made by Johann II von Gymnich, who was in great danger in the persecution of the Turks, and, on the other hand, to the vow of the knight Arnold von Gimmenich, whose participation in the Damiette crusade is documented.
Historians see the origins of the ride in corridor processions, which have been handed down in the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages as petition processions for blessings for the crops. They took place three days before Ascension Day. Furthermore, the hail procession took place on the hail holiday in May , in some places also on horseback, as is known from Buer .
In addition to these processions, the border inspections carried out in the communities to confirm the community boundaries and the tenth boundaries as well as the domains, often handed down in wisdom , influenced the ride. Both the community and the neighboring communities were involved in the border inspection, escort or limit walk.
Johann II von Gymnich had such an inspection of the boundaries of his domain carried out in 1448 and confirmed by a notary.
A border inspection, during which the tithe limits of the tithe lords were confirmed, is listed in the Siegburger Hof's winery invoice from 1534 when the Abbot of Siegburg "escorted" the provost of St. Gereon and the lords of St. Apostles held (when the abbot “in the veldt uff dem leyt was”).
Gymnicher ride until 1925
It can be assumed that a custom developed in Gymnich and that a corridor walk or ride was carried out outside of the church supplication processions based on the accompanying walks, which have not taken place in the old form since the end of the 17th century. Neither in the archbishop's visitation protocols nor in the church accounts of the Church of St. Kunibert there is a reference to the ride, as only the church processions were mentioned.
The first reference to the ride can be found in 1809 in a decree from the Napoleonic period concerning the cult. He allowed horses to be carried in processions, but there was no church involvement of the ride in the following decades. He was undesirable on the part of the church because the participants missed their Sunday duty, attending mass, because of the ride.
The pastor's repeated requests to include the ride in the service were not accepted by the Vicariate General in Cologne. It was not until 1873 that the archbishop allowed the pastor to postpone the start of mass on Ascension Day so that the faithful could attend mass despite taking part in the procession. During the Kulturkampf , Archbishop Paulus Melchers, who lived in exile in Maastricht , gave permission in 1885 for the procession to leave the church after the high mass and be accompanied by the clergy.
The name “Gymnicher Ritt” appears for the first time on a souvenir card from 1900. Before it was called "Riding Procession on Ascension Day".
The religious part began in the morning with a Holy Mass. This was followed by a three and a half hour procession around the district of Gymnich, in which foot pilgrims, riders and pilgrims in covered wagons took part.
At the end of the procession, the pilgrims were picked up on the outskirts by the local music and rifle clubs and accompanied to the Rittplatz to celebrate a common mass and receive the sacramental blessing . The blessing of the horses happened before the entry into the village at the Mariensäule. When the religious part was over, the folk festival followed.
Redesign of the ride by Vicar Weissenfeld
In 1925 the ride was redesigned under Vicar Joseph Weissenfeld (Vicar from 1910 to 1936). He gave the ride a new tradition, which he firmly linked with the pledge of the Aachen mayor Arnold von Gimmenich († 1238). He even handed down Arnold's oath, which is still quoted today in many descriptions of the Gymnich ride. The crusader, whose residence he moved to Gymnich, was the right person for him, to whom he could attribute the foundation of the ride in 1225 and the festivities for its 700th anniversary in 1925.
When reorganizing the Gymnicher Ritt, he based it on the horseback processions that are common in many places in southern Germany. Through the participation of high dignitaries, the ride became known nationwide. The involvement of the count's family and the ceremony in the castle courtyard with the handover of the castle standarte and the cross particle , which John II is said to have brought from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem , gave the ride a special meaning.
After the castle owner had sold part of his vegetable garden to the parish, a larger and more stable altar was erected on the “Count's garden wall” in 1926. The final blessing was given there and the previous blessing on the church door was dropped. After purchasing a plot of land for a fairground and building a high wall, new altars were erected several times over the years.
Today's Ritt-Altar is a stone altar from 1953. It was renovated and extended in 1982, the two horse figures were created by Pastor Jan Keyers.
The outdoor fair introduced in 1933, the equestrian fair, is still common today , with an interruption due to a ban on procession during World War II .
Vicar Weissenfeld worked on the more festive design of the foot procession and the ride with flags, standards, clothing, pilgrim flags and the decoration of the ride altar. He also wrote and composed a Pilgrimage Song from Gymnich , which has been sung since 1949. A church window in St. Kunibert from 1953 depicts the ride according to Weissenfeld's well-known version.
Since 1934, the procession has been in the hands of the pastor and the church council, who took on the organization and the resulting tasks and obligations of the ride, which according to the organizers should remain a prayer procession.
Gymnicher ride in today's time
After the castle was sold in 1990, there was no longer any connection between the Ritt and the noble lords of the castle. The castle no longer had the same importance for the ride as it did in the 1960s, when the castle standard and cross particles were handed over to the riflemen in the castle courtyard. Castle standards and cross particles are the private property of the Baron von Holzschuher as heir to the Lords of Gymnich and their successors and are not tied to the castle. The particles of the cross, which used to be kept in the castle chapel, are kept in the treasury of Cologne Cathedral following a contract signed in 1970 between Baron von Holzschuher and the Cologne Vicariate General . It is only fetched for the procession and then brought back.
The handover ceremony before the start of the equestrian procession has been taking place again in the castle courtyard since 2015, after a five-year break. The castle standard, a replica of the original, is given to the President of the St. Sebastianus Rifle Brotherhood before the ride . A member of the church council hands over the cross particles to the president of the St. Kunibertus Schützengesellschaft. He in turn hands the particles over to the priest who carries them during the ride.
After the foot pilgrims have moved out, the equestrian mass begins on the Rittplatz in front of the decorated Ritt altar.
Many horses are rental horses from external stables, which arrive the evening before and spend the night in Gymnich. Every year over 200 riders from Gymnich and the surrounding area and around 600 pilgrims take part in the ride.
Today the ride leads on paved paths around the district of Gymnich. Mellerhöfe has been involved since the procession no longer uses the Steinweg, but takes the expressway . After the ride is over, the horse blessing takes place outside the village. Together with the pilgrims who have arrived, the riders move back to the Ritt-Altar, where the final blessing is given at around 1 p.m.
literature
- Mathias Weber : Erftstadt-Gymnich. Homeland book. Bachem, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7616-0757-1 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Capitaine: The Gymnicher Ritt. Eschweiler 1912. pp. 27-29
- ^ Matthias Weber (editing): Johannes Peter Mertens: Pfarramtliches Gedenkbuch, Niederbettingen 1997. pp. 17-18
- ^ Matthias Weber: Erftstadt Gymnich. A home book. Pp. 310-311
- ^ Eduard Hegel (Ed.): The Archdiocese of Cologne. Vol. IV p. 348
- ↑ Archive Gymnich Certificate No. 173, published in Stommel: Sources for the history of the city of Erftstadt, Vol. II No. 1063
- ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Duisburg, inventory Siegburg, files no. 152, published in Stommel: Sources on the history of the city of Erftstadt, vol. IV. No. 1659a.
- ^ Archives Schloss Gracht, file no.64 (Dorf Gymnich Honschaftsrechnungen), published in Stommel: Sources Vol. V No. 1853
- ^ Matthias Weber (arrangement): Johann Joseph von der Burg: Memories. Gymnich 1982. pp. 77-82
- ↑ Matthias Weber S. 312-329
- ↑ Horst Komuth: Everything stays the same, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger Rhein-Erft May 27, 2014, p. 34.