Whore dance
The whores dance , or the prostitute dance or Metz dance was one of 14 century to the second third of the 17th century takes place twice a year, forming dance spectacle at the edge of the fair in Zurzach on the Upper Rhine .
description
As part of the nationally visited, usually one-week Zurzach fair, the whore dance took place from the 14th century on the neighboring Wiesmatt on Whitsun and in September. Up to 200 prostitutes from the region traveled to this event . The “queen of whores” chosen by them was crowned with a wreath. The whore queen opened the following Huorendanz with her audition . From the hand of the provincial governor of Baden , she received one from the monastery Königsfelden exposed Goldgulden and food and drink.
Similar events for prostitutes from the late Middle Ages are also documented in other places. The Zurzach event is of particular regional historical importance because of its origin and its 400-year history.
history
Emergence
Aegidius Tschudi , who, as bailiff of the county of Baden, himself presented the gold gulden between 1533 and 1535 and from 1549 to 1551, was the first to report the underlying legend in 1570. King Albrecht I was slain in 1308 by his nephew Johann von Schwaben and his helpers after crossing the Reuss near Königsfelden . The murderers are said to have fled immediately after the attack. A prostitute coming along the way would have caught the king falling from his horse and brought him into the shade of a nearby wood. The king is said to be different with his head in the prostitute's lap. In memory of the king and the nefarious deed, the Habsburgs founded the Königsfelden monastery. Albrecht's daughter Agnes of Hungary , who led the founding phase of the monastery, is said to have donated the Zurzacher Prize in memory of the aid. In addition, traveling whores are said to have received a meal and a spare penny at the monastery gate. All later mentions of the legend by Johannes Haller , Michael Stettler , Johann Heinrich Rahn or in Basel chronicles can be traced back to Tschudi:
«... and what happened against on gevär than the deed, a poor mean wench, she received the king in Irish arms when he fell from his horse, and passed away in your lap: then the closter, as buwen there and called Künigsfelden, is dedicated is that one owes all the right-wing Frowen alda Almusen, and at the dances, as one does annually at both Jarmärckten alda, one prostitute has the first audition, each March donated a gulden, as it is still used. "
Lore
The whore dance is first mentioned in a carnival play by Niklaus Manuel at the beginning of the 16th century: "Zü Zurzach uf dem whore dance, Darumb so tregstu wol ein kranz". The envoy Sigismund von Herberstein reports on a banquet with the whores on the occasion of a trip to Zurich in 1516. The Swiss Federal Diet dealt with the whore dance for the first time in 1535 and tried to stop it. The ban did not last as the event was discussed in Swiss sources until the beginning of the 17th century. In the Chronicle of Johannes Stumpf , published by Froschauer in 1549 , the whore dance is depicted as a boy dance on a woodcut at the same time as the Rossmarkt, which takes place on the main market day, in front of the Zurzach backdrop.
In 1646 the traveling Florentine geographer Giovanni Battista Nicolosi reported again on the whore dance and its history. Nicolosi praised the governor of Klingnau Straubhaar and his family for opposing the bad habit. The custom of the whore dance seems to have been temporarily discontinued at the transition to the last third of the 17th century. In 1673 the Diet again demanded that prostitutes be prohibited from entering Zurzach. In 1695 the bailiffs of Baden were accused of promoting prostitution with the event on the one hand, and also of cashing in on suitors who were caught right away on the other. In the federal accounts, the prize money in the amount of 2 pounds 10 shillings until 1798 is documented. The Zurzacher Messe itself lasted until 1856. In Zurzach, Schluttengasse is still a reminder of the historic event.
literature
- Beate Schuster: Historiography and Fantasy. The historiographical legend of the Zurzach wench dance . In: Argovia , 13, 2001, 307-360.
- Contemporary reports
- Robert Hilgers (ed.): Giovan Battista Nicolosi's trip to Germany: edited for the first time from his manuscript, commented and introduced by Robert Hilgers . Schäuble, Rheinfelden / Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87718-781-1 (letter from Baden of January 29, 1646, p. 120).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Verba Volant No. 74, (Niederstädter, flower harvest for a history of customs in Vorarlberg) p. 3.
- ^ Aegidius Tschudi: Chronicon Helveticum . Verlag der Allgemeine Geschichtsforschenden Gesellschaft der Schweiz , Basel 1980, p. 244.
- ↑ The Swiss chronicler Aegidius Tschudi report on the liberation of the forest site. Reissued by Paul Meyer. Beck, Munich 1910, p. 45.
- ↑ Niklaus Manuel, J. Hubner, 1878, p. 272, line 382.
- ^ Alfred Hidber, Hans-Rudolf Sennhauser, Annette Schaefer: History of the Fleckens Zurzach . Historical Association of the District of Zurzach, Zurzach 2004, p. 289.
- ↑ Hans-Rudolf Sennhauser: Zurzach. In: Marianne Flüeler (Ed.): Stadtluft, Millsebrei and Bettelmönch: The city around 1300. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8062-1059-4 .