Wreath bandages (customs)
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The wreaths was a certain form of Wedding - preliminary celebration , which in conjunction with a special "festival" only in Bremen has given. This Bremen wedding custom began around the beginning of the 19th century and lasted into the years after the First World War . Wreath-making was always limited to the wealthy bourgeoisie in Bremen and replaced the bachelorette party here .
The custom described here must not be confused with wreaths , in which the neighbors tie a wreath of branches before the wedding and attach it over the house entrance door of the bride and groom.
history
The festival process
The wreaths can be demonstrated for the first time for the year 1814th The usual sequence of this Bremen custom was as follows:
A few days before the wedding, the bride's best friend held a party at her home. It didn't matter whether the girlfriend was already married or still single. She “gave the bride to bind the wreath”, the expression used at the time, and invited the bride and her friends as well as the groom and his friends to do so .
At the latest towards the end of the 19th century, this was done on printed invitation cards, some of which are now kept in the Focke Museum in Bremen . For example one is:
"[Name of guest] are kindly invited to my friend Tilly Mielck's wreath on Monday, February 7th, 7:00 am. UgAwg Marie Büsing "
The young women came early to tea and in the presence of the bride tied her bridal wreath , in which each of the unmarried people present had to weave at least one branch of myrtle . A second, smaller wreath was made from the remaining twigs. After the actual bridal wreath had been put on the bride, the young men and the groom immediately appeared and a lottery was drawn as to which of the still single wreath weavers would marry next. The smaller wreath was intended for this “vice bride” or “myrtle bride”.
The drawing of lots always took the form of a small scenic game , which was the real highlight of the wreath-making. Small pieces were written especially for the festival and those involved usually cost a lot of effort to dress up for such a performance. After the festival there was dinner and a subsequent dance ball ended the festival.
The festival
The pieces for the festival were mostly occasional poems in the classic-romantic epigone style . Some of this work has been preserved; in content and tone they are “always worthy and solemn” and the humor “only rarely emerges”. Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream was particularly popular .
The authors usually remained anonymous , often collaborative work. In 1855 a collection of such seals was published under the title Das Kranzbinden , which came from Hedwig Hölle. Twice the name of a great poet was associated with the Bremen custom: Klaus Groth , who is considered the founder of the new Low German poetry , married Doris Finke from Bremen in 1839. When their sisters Charlotte married in March 1860 and Johanna in April 1861, Groth wrote the verses in High German and Low German that were recited during the previous wreath-binding. Groth had already completed the work intended for Johanna's wedding pre-celebration more than a month beforehand:
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“But you know, sisters
, that happiness is whimsical.
Yet there are moments
to test one's skill.
With a bride in adornment
(
but it must be done in faith) the neighbor of the
happy lets see us in lot .
So choose! And whoever receives the
myrtle and trusts it
will soon be adorned with the wreath:
it will be the next bride. "
Groth also wrote the following addition, which addressed the "myrtle bride":
“Now let yourself be adorned in joke,
seriousness follows afterwards!
You others let yourself be told:
The myrtles bloom more! "
In some cases, several participants also recited a specially written poem . For example, with a wreath that "Emmy Büsing, later married Tewes" gave to her friend in Bremen in November 1869 and where "lovely poems, especially a very beautiful one composed by a young Wätjen" were presented.
Memory gifts
As a reminder of tying the wreath, the participants were often given the printed text of the listed piece. In addition, some photographs were taken later , mainly showing the costumed participants "in pose". Some of these photos were taken weeks later in the studio of a professional photographer , so that those involved could come together again "in costume" and "review" the party.
Related customs
Wreath bandages (Lower Bavaria)
From the region around the municipality of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria , a wreath is known from the first half of the 19th century as part of a so-called “right-wing wedding”, which was accompanied by several church “ proclamations ” of the upcoming wedding . The custom took place there on the Sunday of the third proclamation, when the bride and groom were present in the church in contrast to the two previous ones, towards evening. In the house of the bride, the gathered bridesmaids and bachelors for wreaths , at the same time brought the wedding gifts in the and "appointments [were] taken what should have bachelors each bridesmaid." Usually the wreath-binding ended "with a dance to some instrument or, in the absence of this, probably just after a chant".
Wreath bandages (South Thuringia)
From the Franconian - Henneberg region in southern Thuringia , especially from Meiningen , a wreath-binding is also known as a wedding custom from the 19th century , about which the local researcher Balthasar Spieß reported in his collective work Volksthümliches aus dem Franconian-Hennebergischen published in 1869 . There the custom was kept on the Sunday before the wedding in the evening and only the unmarried relatives and friends of the bride and groom were invited. At first there was cake and coffee; then the young women sent bouquets to various young men in their relatives and to those with whom they were acquainted. After the arrival of the men, drinks were served with beer, wine and punch and there was “usually a dance to the piano or a violin , along with a few other instruments”. In addition, pawns games were often played, with those invited to the wreath then - following the actual main reason for the invitation - gave a so-called "house tax". With the exception of the siblings, the wreath-making guests did not come to the subsequent wedding.
Wreath Binding Day (Lower Saxony)
In some areas of today's Lower Saxony , at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, the so-called wreath day was known, which took place on the intermediate day between bachelorette party and wedding. In addition, only the companions of the bride came together to tie a wreath , whereby this wreath was usually only indicated symbolically. The main thing was the bridal cake that was served with coffee. Whoever found the coffee bean baked in the cake in his piece "was the next bride".
literature
- Hans Hermann Meyer: 1895: wreaths. In: Festivals and Customs in Bremen. Contributions to the cultural and social history of the Hanseatic city. Festschrift for the hundredth birthday of the Focke Museum. Ed .: Die Wittheit zu Bremen , Red .: Hans Kloft , Martina Rudloff; Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-89757-042-4 , pp. 188-189 (1999/2000 yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen) .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Hans Hermann Meyer: 1895: wreaths. In: Festivals and Customs in Bremen. Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-89757-042-4 , pp. 188-189 (1999/2000 yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen) .
- ↑ Note: Presumably this was a member of the influential Bremen merchant and shipowner family "Wätjen".
- ↑ Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann (Ed.): Women's life in the 19th century. Empire and Romanticism, Biedermeier, Wilhelminian style. 2nd, revised edition. Verlag CH Beck , Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33309-5 , p. 105.
- ^ Carl Mehrmann: History of the Evangelical Lutheran community of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria. Memorandum for the anniversary celebration of the 300-year introduction of the Reformation there on October 17 and 18, 1863. Self-published / Krüllsche Universitätsbuchhandlung, Landshut 1863, p. 176 ( online at Google books ).
- ↑ Balthasar Spieß (ed.): Popular things from the Franconian-Hennebergic. Wilhelm Braumüller , Vienna 1869, p. 122123 ( online at Google books).
- ↑ Die Woche , Volume 8, Issues 41–52. August Scherl Verlag , Berlin 1906, p. 2261 ( online at Google books).