Hartich Sierk

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Hartich Sierk (also Sirck or Syreck ; * 1588 in Wrohm in Dithmarschen ; † after 1664 ibid) was a German farmer and chronicler.

Live and act

Hartich Sierk was the eldest son of eight children of Johann Sierk (* 1561; † August 5, 1634) from his second marriage to "Johan Sirckes Telse" (* 1555; † May 30, 1644) from Dellstedt , also parish of Tellingstedt . The mother's first marriage was to Maas Hartich, who died in 1586 and with whom she also had eight children. Of the 94 offspring born during her lifetime (children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren), 40 were still alive when she died.Hartich Sierk married Grete Reymer on October 10, 1616 (born January 6, 1601 in Tensbüttel in the parish of Albersdorf ; † December 6, 1652 in Wrohm), who was a daughter of Kyls Dylves Reymer. The couple had three sons and nine daughters, most of whom died during childhood.

Tellingstedter Church with the pulpit from 1604 and the Brunner organ from 1642

Sierk inherited a farm in Wrohm from his father, where he probably spent his entire life. After Einwertung of goods in 1645, and notes in Erdbuch of Tellingstedter parish he owned 7¾ Dithmarscher morning fertile farmland. This made him the largest landowner in Wrohm. In addition to farming, he mainly ran cattle for a profitable ox trade. Sierk was a respected and wealthy farmer and also traded in money and goods. In the tradition of the peasant republic , he took over numerous offices in the village self-government and as an accountant ("master builder") of the parish. At that time, the St. Martin Church in Tellingstedt received its organ, which can still be played today.

On New Year's Day 1634, Sierk fell from the floor of his barn. A few days later he contracted an epidemic that was spreading around the parish. Both tied him to the bed for months.

Sierk rarely left his parish. His furthest journey took him to Itzehoe . He got to know hardly any higher officials than the bailiff of his parish, as well as war commissioners and arson soldiers. Only a request to Duke Friedrich III is documented. during the invasion of Swedish troops in 1644/45. The reason for his letter was a fine of ten Reichstalers imposed on him by the parish bailiff for missing penitential services. The duke decreed that Sierk only had to pay half the amount.

timeline

Sierk began his notes, known as “veritig protocoll”, at Christmas 1615 and continued for 49 years. They are 284 pages long. His last entry is from 1664. After his death, the chronicle was passed on in the family, read frequently in the village and supplemented and sporadically continued. Sometimes names were also deleted if an entry was perceived as compromising. The last entry is from 1782.

content

Sierk noted all the important events of family life and parish from his point of view. His horizon encompassed little more than the directly neighboring parishes. To the north this area does not go beyond the Eider . Since he was only in close proximity, he also recorded things that are mostly not or only rarely to be found in national history books. He only worked irregularly on his notes and did not necessarily proceed chronologically. Instead, he noted what seemed important to him at the moment and often added to his texts later. He mostly wrote about things from his immediate environment. Strangers are rarely mentioned by name, while his neighbors are referred to precisely by their patronymic and place of residence. These notes are an important document for social history .

Sierk made a careful note of all changes on his farm, for example when he bought a meadow, bought sheep or planted pear trees. But he also regularly recorded the price development of agricultural products. It can be assumed that he also kept a business book, which has not survived. He also wrote down the annual statistics of births and deaths.

His report on the discovery of a bog body in Schalk Holzer Moor in 1640 is the first documented Moorleiche Fund in Germany. Sierk thought the dead man was a murder victim.

The chronicle was not only Sierk's private affair, but was also read by his neighbors. Sierk thus acted as an official clerk, especially when he recorded contracts or processes that he had to investigate in his function as a building judge. He also recorded the pension funds of the Tellingstedter Church, which he had to manage as a church builder in 1628, in his book.

His records cover the years from 1615 to 1664, but are very unevenly distributed over time, often with retrospective views that go far back. In the first few years in particular, he wrote a lot and extensively about the times of war in the Thirty Years' War and the Danish-Swedish wars , when mercenaries were billeted in the village, but were also dug up. From this emerges the plight of the inhabitants of the country. On the other hand, he hardly commented on the overall context of the events. It can be assumed that he was almost unknown to him.

In the years 1635 to 1637 he made almost no records. He described the invasion of Sweden in 1643/44 in detail, but broke off before the end of the war. In the last twenty years of his life, Sierk only wrote about deaths and collected sayings, riddles and similar things.

Language and tradition

Sierk mastered reading, writing and arithmetic, but had not received any higher education beyond the parish school. Sierk did not write in the native dialect, but in written Low German with dialect components. Until the middle of the 17th century, Low German was the church and school language in Schleswig-Holstein and in rural communities beyond. His contemporary, the Dithmarsch chronicler and Büsum pastor Neocorus, wrote in the same Low German, although as a studied theologian he had a good command of Latin and High German. Johann Günthers, pastor at the Tellingstedter Church from 1586 to 1627, also preached in this language. Sierk recorded excerpts from some sermons in his book. When choosing Günthers' successor, it was crucial that he mastered the Low German language.

High German appears at Sierk mainly in copies of authoritative texts. He tried to copy the distinction between German and Latin script correctly. It was not until around 1635 that Sierk himself occasionally used High German expressions and passages, which, however, prove that he did not have a good command of High German. The foreign words used almost all come from a military environment. Sierk got to know them through the soldiers passing through and billeted.

It can be assumed that Sierck had access to written culture that went beyond the elementary level (catechism, hymn book). He used stylistic devices, an acrostic of his name and rhymes. Occasionally he would quote other chronicles. Sometimes he also copied official edicts. Usually he noted the source and processed it naively.

Sierk called his book "protocoll". It also contains minutes of contracts and wills that he drew up in his official capacity, and cites oral contracts. He often deliberately left space for later additions. In this, Sierks “protocoll” followed the example of the state of Denkelboekes , in which the judgments of the eighty-four were recorded at the time of the Dithmarschen peasant republic before the conquest of Dithmarschen . The official contract language found its way into his usual form of writing, such as the use of particle item . His narrative texts are true to detail and reveal an experienced use of the language. Overall, his work belongs in the transition phase between orality and written form .

Sierk wasn't the only one who wrote such reports in his day. Johann Adrian Bolten lists numerous chronicles and annals from Dithmarschen from the middle of the 16th century, which often quoted even older works. Many of them were written in Low German. Sierk possibly had a direct model in his parish pastor Johann Günthers, who wrote yearbooks which Peter Sax also used for his Dithmarsia chronicle.

worldview

Sierk's view of the world was shaped by deep piety, but less in the sense of orthodox Lutheranism of the state church than of popular religiosity. He commented on many entries with pious wishes and thanks. He understood blows of fate as a sign of God's wrath. He paid a lot of attention to the weather as an expression of God's will. Magic also played a big part. He wrote down some obscure recipes and spells. He often explained special features like an egg with two yolks in retrospect as a sign of later experiences.

Sierk's report contains an alarming number of acts of violence that were not only perpetrated by the mercenaries who passed through: on average, around 400 residents died once a year. It was all the more important to maintain social order, which included cruel death penalties . In 1619, a woman was executed in Hennstedt who disguised as a man - including an artificial "menlych gelitmate" - had long lived as a servant. Only at the wedding was the supposed man caught and burned in Lunden .

output

In 1925 Otto Mensing published Sierks “protocol” with an introduction and notes. He rearranged the entries according to content and chronological aspects and left out individual sections that did not seem authentic to him.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartich Sierk wrote himself mostly Sirck or Syrck (Mensing: Die Bauernchronik des Hartich Sierk from Wrohm , p. 7). In his edition of the Chronik, however, Mensing decided on the notation Sierk, which is used today and has been used in literature since then.
  2. ↑ Peters: With plow and goose quill , p. 46
  3. ↑ a b Eckardt Opitz: Sierk, Hartich . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck Vol. 6 - 1982, p. 271.
  4. ↑ Peters: With plow and goose quill , p. 43
  5. ↑ Mensing: The peasant chronicle of Hartich Sierk from Wrohm , p. 53.
  6. ↑ Utz Maas: Rural writing culture in the early modern period . In: Andreas Gardt, Klaus J. Mattheier, Oskar Reichmann (ed.): History of the language of New High German: objects, methods, theories . De Gruyter 2001, pp. 249-278; P. 271
  7. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 72f
  8. ^ Board in the Museum of Archeology and Ecology Dithmarschen
  9. ↑ Stefan Hesse, Silke Grefen-Peters, Christina Peek, Jennifer computing, Ulrich Schliemann: The bog bodies in the district of Rotenburg (Wümme) Research History and new investigations . In: Archaeological reports of the Rotenburg district (Wümme) . No. 16 . Isensee, 2010, ISSN  0946-8471 , p. 54 .
  10. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , Pp. 81-84
  11. ^ Opitz: Sierk, Hartich , pp. 271–272.
  12. ↑ Mensing: The peasant chronicle of Hartich Sierk from Wrohm , p. 20.
  13. ^ Opitz: Sierk, Hartich , p. 272.
  14. ↑ Utz Maas: Rural writing culture in the early modern period . In: Andreas Gardt, Klaus J. Mattheier, Oskar Reichmann (ed.): History of the language of New High German: objects, methods, theories . De Gruyter 2001, pp. 249-278; P. 269
  15. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , Pp. 73-75.
  16. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 76.
  17. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 81 f.
  18. ^ Johann Adrian Bolten: Ditmarsische Geschichte , Volume 1. 1781, p. 76.
  19. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 95.
  20. ^ Johann Adrian Bolten: Ditmarsische Geschichte , Volume 1. 1781, p. 95.
  21. ↑ Peters: With plow and goose quill , p. 45.
  22. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 87.
  23. ↑ Maas: Rural writing in the early modern period. The chronicle of Hartich Sierck in Dithmarschen from the first half of the 17th century. , P. 91.
  24. ↑ Mensing: The peasant chronicle of Hartich Sierk from Wrohm , p. 92.
personal data
SURNAME Sierk, Hartich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sirck, Hartich; Syreck, Hartich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German farmer and chronicler
DATE OF BIRTH 1588
PLACE OF BIRTH Wrohm
DATE OF DEATH after 1664
Place of death Wrohm