Hand Poison Day
The Handgiftentag is a day of remembrance, the Ready to New Year in the Lower Saxon city of Osnabrück is committed.
The name "handgift-dag" and later "handgift roof" comes from the Middle Ages . It refers to the city constitution of 1348, the Sate , in which it says:
“… Every one of our Börger / de eegen Roeck heft within Osenbrügge / without dejennen de set in the Raede / schollen all Jar / the worst day na Nyen Jar / gahn up the huss / dar men de Scheppen kesen schall / when more men de bells lüth; we des nich en dede - den schall men panden vor dre schillinge Osenbrüggisch; Alse des Stades olde was right book "
“Every one of our citizens who has their own hearth within Osnabrück, without those who sat on the council, should go to the town hall every year on the day after the New Year, where the aldermen (councilors) should be elected as soon as the bell rings. Anyone who does not do that should be punished with three shillings of Osnabrück coin, as is the city's old law. "
The sate was read every year on the day of the poison by the town clerk in front of the assembled community. Then the electors involved in the complicated annual council elections shook hands as a sign of good and honest intentions. A bell from the neighboring St. Mary's Church indicated that the election had been made.
In the German legal dictionary of 1756 it says:
“Handgiften-dag, the day on which the council is elected anew every year in Osnabrück, as in Hildesheim and elsewhere; because this is generally the day after the new year's day, and one shakes hands when wishing a happy start into the new year; so the day of it may have its name; but one also wants that on that day in the old days the councilors would have received some money, or a poison, and then the word would have a different origin ”
It is thus devoted to the interpretation of the term handgifte , which can mean both a handshake ("hand giving") and gift ("giving (poison) with the hand").
Even if there are no more council elections on Handgiftentag in Osnabrück, the day still has an unmistakable meaning for the city. The city's history is continued through keynote speeches and those involved seal their willingness to act for the common good at their festive gathering in the historic Friedenssaal of the city hall with the traditional shaking hands. On Handgiftentag, the city of Osnabrück also awards the Justus Möser Medal , the city's highest award, to personalities who have made a name for themselves in the public good of the city and the region.
Individual evidence
- ^ Chronicle of the City of Osnabrück, ISBN 3-88926-006-3
- ↑ Handgift Day . In: German Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Prussian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 5 , issue 1 (edited by Otto Gönnenwein , Wilhelm Weizsäcker , with the assistance of Hans Blesken). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1952 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ).