Hagestolz
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Hagestolz is an (outdated) term for an older, "die-hard" bachelor who is often viewed by others as a bit weird.
Etymology and conceptual history
The basic word proud here has nothing to do with arrogance, but is a linguistic abrasion of the Middle High German stalt . This is the Middle High German past tense of the verb “stellen, stalt, gestalt” (compare the terms “Anstalt” and “Gestalt”). The term “ Hag ” originally referred to a small area on a piece of land enclosed and separated by a hedge, secondarily a hedge, a bush or a grove .
Hagestolz - seldom also in the feminine form Hagestolzin or Hagestolze - refers in its meaning deeply back to the old Germanic legal understanding; an equivalent can be found, for example, in the Old Norse term hagustalda .
The original meaning is in the dark: Modern research assumes that it was probably not servants or day laborers , but the younger brothers - in very rare cases also the sisters - of a free court heir, who missed out on inheritance : According to the very rigorously applied birthright law in large parts of present-day Germany these persons were nothing more than the servants of their brothers.
Accordingly, hagestalt describes a small property built in a distant corner of a property and enclosed with a hedge, usually a hut that the resident received from the heir. This “enclosure” was so modest that the owner usually could not start a family of his own. Until modern times, such a bachelor abode was on a farm estate in Paderborn country Hagestelle . The word was later carried over to the owner of such a property and has been used since the High Middle Ages for an unmarried man in general, and later in particular for a bachelor over the age of 50.
The Hagestolzenrecht
Since the end of the Middle Ages, in some parts of Germany - for example in the Upper Palatinate and Odenwald , in Braunschweig and Hanover - the Hagestolzrecht has been in effect: if a self-man (a slave in the broadest sense), later also a free man, up to a certain age remained unmarried, his property automatically fell to the lord of the body or the landlord or to the lord of the country or town after his death . Mostly the age limit was 50, in the Odenwald it was even 25 years. The General Law Book for the Prussian States of 1791 still knew a law of pride in favor of the poor . It was only abolished in the General Land Law of 1794; regionally it lasted until the 19th century.
Quotes
"An old Hagestolz, bearing all the ailments of his class within himself, stingy, vain, playing the youth, in love, like a dag!"
“With this you can act almighty / transform people's passion. / The sad one will be joyful, / The pride of the hail will be filled with love. "
"And dragging yourself to the grave alone as the pride of the hag has never done anyone any good."
"That is the advantage of us, proud people, that we have to share with women and children what others have to share scarcely and sorrowfully, with a friend at the occasional hour, to fully enjoy."
literature
- Walter Stoll: The Hagestolzenrecht: A contribution to the history of the Testamentary freedom . Dissertation, Kiel 1970.
- Jürgen Storost : So nothing has been decided yet. A scientific-historical consideration of the etymology of Hagestolz . In: Contributions to the history of linguistics . No. 5 , 1995, p. 253-268 .
- Katrin Baumgarten: Hagestolz and Old Maid. Development, instrumentalization and survival of clichés and stereotypes about the unmarried . Dissertation Waxmann, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-89325-514-1 .
- Peter Borscheid: About maids, Hagestolzen and singles. The historical development of living alone . In: Sylvia Gränke (Hrsg.): Lebensform one-person household. Challenges to the economy, society and politics . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 1994, ISBN 3-593-35203-6 , pp. 23-54 .
- Adalbert Stifter : The Hagestolz , a story . 1845.
- Julius Wolff : The right of the Hagestolze: A medieval marriage story from the Neckar valley . 1888.
- Wilhelm von Brünneck: To the history of the Hagestolzwesens . In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for German Legal History, Germ. Dept. Volume 22 , p. 1 ( [1] ).
