Dog skin tanner

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In the Middle Ages, dog skin tanners were one of the professions that were disregarded and disreputed in many places. Dog leather was used especially for gloves and until the beginning of the 20th century it was used to make printer bales .

Profession

The dog skin tanners obtained their raw material from the skinner (dog skin ). The tanners generally used dog droppings for the preparation of some types of leather . Together with the carrion odor that adheres to all raw hides - and thus also to the tanners - this is likely to have been the main reason for the disreputable nature of the profession in many areas. The German Reichstag felt compelled to do so in its Reichs Farewellof 1731, Section 13, to explain: Processing of dog skins by the tanners should not be made the subject of punishment. Likewise, no craftsman is to be considered dishonest who throws a dog or a cat to death or beats or drowns "yes, only touches a carrion or the like".

The fact that the dog skin tanner was evidently viewed particularly little could also have historical reasons. If the dog was originally valued, even holy, as a mother, dead and underworld animal, it later turned into a taboo against him, with a particular shyness or disgust, "you dog" became a dirty word. In the Revelation of John (22:15) it says of all to whom the kingdom of heaven is closed: “But outside are the dogs and the magicians, the fornicators and the murderers, the idolaters…” Since the Middle Ages there was a general aversion to the Touching an animal carcass, especially the corpse of a dog or cat. Anyone who killed such an animal accidentally or negligently was declared unskilled and dishonest. Only "the messenger's servants and servants" were allowed to catch city dogs and return them to their owners for a fee. In some German cities the Fron (the executioners ) had the task of so-called dog-beating. The city of Nuremberg employed its own city servant for this. Around 1750 the executioner (Fron) of the city of Halle had to bring the board of the city court, the city school, a yearly tribute: a pair of gloves made of dog leather , with pepper, ginger and other "fine" (which probably means "hellishly hot") Spices. In the German legal dictionary says, "[the knacker has to pay annually] 24 some considerable ... tu e chtige and well-made, man's gloves, dime of right good dachshunds leather, or in front of each couple. 7" Elsewhere, the dog leather gloves seem a to have been a very common symbol of homage.

Even outlaw the Hundshäuter or dog hit, another name for was skinners or slave driver. He disposed of the one non-natural death dead animals, killed stray dogs and was taken to all the dirty work such as emptying the sewers .

Dog leather

Fur tariffs Friedrich August von Sachsen, 1801: goat, goat and dog skins, also piglet and frog skins, the piece with 3 pfennig

The skin of domestic dogs and cats was made into leather. Dog or dog leather was used in the Middle Ages to modern times in the field of letterpress printing and other printing techniques, in which the application of printing ink to the printing block was carried out with the printer pad, a leather pad. Since the dog has a pore-free leather - its skin is not penetrated by sweat glands - dog leather was mainly used for it. Apparently, however, the printers didn't just use tanned leather. In 1805, it was pointed out that dog leather meant a lot of work for the printer, who had to soak the dried rawhide for a long time before using it and then drum it softly with his feet. To do this, she was wrapped around a piece of wood, put a rag around it and moved her feet back and forth on the floor for a while ("stepping down"). Because of this laborious preparation and because of the unpleasant smell, the Leipzig printers, for example, prefer to use half-milled sheepskin. With this description, it remains unclear why they used not fully tanned dog leather and whether the profession of dog skin tanner still existed in 1805.

At the beginning of the 20th century, dog leather was still in great demand for certain items, such as high-quality gloves. - The airbag of the Bohemian bagpipe is traditionally also made from dog fur. The stigmatization of dog fur has increasingly led to a turn to goat fur for the instrument in recent decades, but they are still made from dog fur as well. In Brazil, dog fur, especially that of the dachshund, is used to string a specific grating drum, the cuíca.

The special treatment of dog or cat carcasses as a product is still evident today in an unusual, more emotional than objective justification of a law. Since December 31, 2008, the trade and import of cat fur and dog fur have been banned in the EU "for ethical reasons". "For the perception of the citizens of the European Union, cats and dogs are pets and therefore the use of fur from these animals or of products containing such fur is rejected". Dog fur and products containing such fur may not be placed on the European Union market or imported into or out of the Community. Exceptions are imports without a commercial character.

Dog fur

The preparation of pelts , hides on which the hair is left on the skin during tanning, was not subject to the tanner, but to a separate profession, that of the furrier , who then also processed the skins. After the end of the Middle Ages, the bank furrier separated from the needle furrier, the fur dresser now tanned the skins and the furrier further processed them into furs. Not only in Breslau and Brieg in the late Middle Ages would a furrier have made himself dishonest by the fact that he processed dog fur, as in general by deliberately killing a dog. For example, a furrier from Wrocław, “who accidentally killed a dog in 1576”, had to be declared honest as a guild. It was expressly added that this act should not harm his craft, i.e. the guild. The same thing happened in 1604 for a journeyman furrier there who had kicked a dog to death. A guild that was too indulgent with the disreputable master threatened with a boycott of all other furrier guilds and thus the existence of the entire furrier trade in a town. Contrary to the opinion prevailing in Breslau at the beginning of the 18th century about the inadmissible processing of dog fur, an expert opinion obtained from the Leipzig furriers' guild expressed undisguised astonishment at any doubt about the honesty of something that is disreputable by accusing the Breslauers of being over-zealous. “Even if it is, it is said here, 'more than too bad' known that not only dogs, but also cats or belines, as cats are called elsewhere, are everywhere undisputed by the furriers. This is how you make mugs out of dog fur, which even noble people used to wear. In order to be regarded as honest, just like manufacturing; Otherwise all tanners and white tanners would have to be regarded as dishonest people, who formed their own guild everywhere, and even formed the same guild in many places with the furriers. All furriers present at the Easter fair had disapproved of the view of the Breslau guild, and so one generally saw nothing dishonest for the furrier in the dressing of dog and cat skins, which was not quite so for the Breslauers, who also came around the world could be unknown ”('..., and we are heartily surprised that without first questioning these her fellow masters, she immediately put her hand at work ...'). A Vienna expert opinion took a similar point of view, whereas the Prague furriers believed that the furrier had been absent, but had to be punished with a mild penalty.

In 1852, the author of a specialist fur book wrote that dog fur was generally not made into tobacco products during this period either. Only occasionally does it happen that the owner of a dog has a blanket or a pair of warm winter boots made from the hide of the killed animal. The particularly strong dog leather was used much more frequently for bag work . Pants, suspenders, lower quality gloves and wallets could be made from them.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Werner Danckert: Dishonest people - Die bewehmten Berufe , chapter Schinder (Hundshäuter) , p. 167-173 and Hundshautgerber , p. 181-188, Francke Verlag, Bern, Munich 1963.
  2. ↑ Dog leather . In: Former Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 6 , issue 1 (edited by Hans Blesken, Siegfried Reicke ). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1961, OCLC 832566867 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ). 1753, Klingner III 786
  3. ↑ General theoretical-practical dictionary of the art of printing and writing: in which all artificial words occurring in the practice of the same and in the related arts, sciences and trades are explained clearly and in detail in alphabetical order . Volume 1. Vienna 1805, p. 34; Text archive - Internet Archive
  4. ↑ Consumer notice from June 19, 2008 . European Parliament
  5. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 1523/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 11, 2007 on a ban on the marketing, import and export of cat and dog fur and products containing such fur into or from Community 1 (OJ L 343 of December 27, 2007, p. 1) EU doc. no. 3 2007 R 1523. beck-online.de
  6. ^ After Fritz Wiggert: Breslauer Stadt-Archiv, loose files ZP 173a. The Leipzig report is dated May 10, 1709 and signed by Martin Trebß, Obermeister Joh. Härtel and Joh. Georg Alsdorff as assessors.
  7. ^ Fritz Wiggert: Origin and development of the old Silesian furrier trade with special consideration of the furrier guilds in Breslau and Neumarkt . Breslauer Kürschnerinnung (Ed.), 1926, pp. 59–60, book cover and table of contents .
  8. ↑ Alexander Lachmann: The fur animals. A manual for furriers and smokers . Baumgärtner's Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1852, pp. 160–161.