Hanseschale
The term Hanseschale n (also Hanseschüsseln , Hansaschüsseln ) summarizes a group of chased metal bowls, which are predominantly archaeological to the surface. Bronze is given as the material . They were created in the 11th to 13th centuries, so they were already common before the Hanseatic era . Their misleading name goes back to the main find area, which is concentrated in northern Germany and the Baltic States . But specimens have also been excavated in Scandinavia, England, southern Germany, Austria and Hungary.
Shape and iconography
These Romanesque bronze bowls are 4.5 to 7 cm high, have a diameter of 20 to 30 cm and have a narrow edge protruding horizontally from the round wall. They are usually engraved on the inner surface; on good copies, for example, the personifications of virtues and vices are depicted and named with Latin inscriptions. On other bowls, this iconography is coarsened and simplified to angel-like beings and the letters in the designations are misunderstood here or are illegible or even completely absent. Other groups of these bowls show depictions of animals or reduce the jewelry to floral and geometric patterns. Even examples without any engraving are not uncommon.
Function and use
The original use can only be accessed indirectly. It is undisputed that they were primarily used for hand washing. Since the bowls occasionally appeared in pairs, it was assumed that they were poured from one bowl to the other (by an assistant). However, use together with an aquamanile or, according to later custom, a jug, cannot of course be ruled out in principle. Washings often took place as symbolic cleansing from sin dirt in liturgical ceremonies. But even in the secular area, ritualized cleansing before the meal, before the court session or to greet the guest was common and meant more than a hygienic act, it was rather a demonstration of moral cleanliness and, moreover, a display in the concrete form of the virtues and vices with their Latin inscriptions higher education and social rank.
In 2012 a Hanseatic bowl was found in Puru in Estonia along with coins from the 11th century.
State of research
Since the fundamental work of Josepha Weitzmann-Fiedler , numerous other finds of Romanesque bronze bowls have been made and published in various places. A large-scale investigation in the form of a corpus work , which combines the find situation, iconography, form and material analysis with mapping, is still pending. It would presumably allow the spatial and temporal changes to be recognized more precisely and provide information about production centers and trade routes.
literature
- Ulrich Müller: Engraved Romanesque bronze bowls and chess figures of the 11th / 12th centuries Century , in: Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Archäologie des Mittelalter und der Neuzeit , Vol. 9 (1998), pp. 39–48. ( online )
- Ulrich Müller: Regular processes using the example of hand washing dishes . in: Günter Wiegelmann and Ruth-Elisabeth Mohrmann (eds.): Food and Table Culture in the Hanseatic Area , 1996, ISBN 978-3-89325-430-9 , pp. 137 ff.
- Ulrich Müller: Between use and meaning. Studies on the function of material culture using the example of medieval hand washing dishes (5th / 6th to 15th / 16th centuries) . Habelt, Bonn 2006, ISBN 978-3-7749-3223-4 . (= Journal for Archeology of the Middle Ages , Supplement 20)
- Josepha Weitzmann-Fiedler: Romanesque engraved bronze bowls . Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-87157-083-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ivar Leimus, Mauri Kiudsoo: Mynt från Olav Kyrre FunNet i Estonia . In: Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad . No. 2 , March 2015, p. 43–45 (Swedish, academia.edu ).