Jägerkreuz (Battenberg)
The Jägerkreuz is a baroque field cross in the Battenberg district in the Bad Dürkheim district , Rhineland-Palatinate .
The cross
It is a sandstone cross without a body, with rounded ends. It grows out of a semicircular base. The height is 86 cm, the width 72 cm and the thickness 17 cm.
The cross is about 2 km southwest of the village of Battenberg in the Palatinate Forest . The forest department there is called "Jägerkreuz" after him. The “Leininger Burgenweg” leads past it and shows it as a sight with a sign; opposite it is a bench for hikers.
The front facing north bears the following (slightly damaged) inscription:
" ANNO 1702 HAS BEEN SHOT, THE HONORABLE ADOLF FENOLET IEGER AT BATENBERG DESEN SEL IN FRIDE RUHE AMEN + "
history
As the inscription shows, the cross was erected around 1702 because of the homicide of a hunter , presumably as an atonement cross . In the parish description of the Protestant church book Battenberg (with a different date from August 1701), the manorial hunter Adolph Fenolet was viewed and shot for a wild boar by his servant Lorenz Freymut from Bobenheim am Berg .
The people say embellished the story in different variations.
One version is that the count's forester Fenolet wanted to test a young assistant for his courage and told him about an angry wild boar. Then he placed him in the forest at the said place, with the order to shoot the pig if he saw it. He wanted to find it himself and drive it to him. The forester mimicked the animal's voice and crawled on all fours, which is why the young man did not recognize him in his fear and shot him as the supposed game with nine lead bullets. A load of nine lead bullets in the muzzle loader , also known as a "roller", was common for wild boar hunting at that time.
Another story reports that the hunter Fenolet stalked the pretty wife of the forest assistant Freymut, which is why the latter shot him in an argument while hunting.
There is also a story with reversed roles in circulation. After her, a hunter sent his hunting assistant to the hide. Since he was jealous of him, he later snuck up and shot him. In the village he spread the news that he had shot a wild boar but accidentally hit the assistant who had stepped in between. The truth came out later and the hunter was imprisoned. In this case, the dead Fenolet would have been the hunting assistant and Freymut the hunter, which clearly contradicts the information in the church book.
literature
- State Office for Monument Preservation: The Art Monuments of Bavaria. Administrative district Pfalz, VIII. City and administrative district Frankenthal, Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1939, p. 137; (Detail scan)
- Joseph Sprißler: The hunter's cross near Battenberg. In: Frankenthaler Geschichtsblätter - monthly publication of the Frankenthaler Altertumsverein. No. 12, December 1935
- Klaus Schmitt: The Catholic Church St. Stephanus Sausenheim. Sommer Verlag, Grünstadt 1999, p. 63
Web links
- Illustrated website for the Jägerkreuz Battenberg
- Website on atonement crosses, with a section on the hunter's cross near Battenberg
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 49 ° 30 ′ 59.5 ″ N , 8 ° 7 ′ 5.6 ″ E