Madonnenlandchen

Map (for the Madonnenlandbahn), which corresponds to the western area of the cultural area

Madonnenland alias Madonnenländchen is the name of a stretch of land that extends from the eastern Odenwald in the northern border area of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria , i.e. from the building land over the Taubertal to the Taubergrund in the east. The name is not a geographical, but a cultural-spatial term. The diminutive “Madonnenländchen” is used more for tourism.

The name "Madonnenland" was coined in the 1920s by the local writer and editor of the Badische Heimat magazine, Hermann Eris Busse, and the local and dialect poet Carl Reichert, because the area is rich in wayside shrines with representations of the Virgin Mary, house madonnas and columns. In the region that was formerly part of Kurmainz and the Würzburg monastery , which also includes the former district of Buchen and large parts of the Main-Tauber district, a particularly intense devotion to Mary took place during the Counter-Reformation . Numerous preserved images of the Madonna still bear witness to this today.

The Seckach – Miltenberg railway leads via Buchen (Odenwald) , Walldürn , Amorbach through the region and is therefore also known as the “Madonnenlandbahn”.

The Odenwald-Madonnen-Weg leads from Tauberbischofsheim through the Odenwald near Hardheim and Walldürn, the Neckar valley near Eberbach and Heidelberg to the Rhine plain to Speyer .

Marian column "in the picture" in Buchen, important image of the Virgin Mary in the Madonna area
Votive slogan, base of the Marian column in beech, with chronogram
House Madonna in beeches
Free group with Maria as comforter from 1751 in Gerlachsheim an der Tauber, called "glorious mother of God" by HE Busse, general view
Free group with Maria as comforter in Gerlachsheim, partial side view

literature

Wolfgang Seidenspinner: The Invention of the Madonna Land . The cultural regionalization of the Baden Franconian region between home and nation (= between Neckar and Main ). 1st edition. Association Bezirksmuseum Buchen, Buchen (Odenwald) 2004, ISBN 978-3-923699-21-6 .

Web links

Madonnenländchen on the website of the city of Buchen

Individual evidence

^ Hermann Eris Busse: Peter Brunnkant [1927], new edition Freiburg i. Br. 1985, pp. 168, 178; ders .: In the cuff of the Baden rider's boot. In: Badische Heimat.Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Heimat- Natur- and Monument Protection, 20th year, 1933, p. 21; Günter Besserer, Günter Schifferdecker: wayside shrines, crosses and Madonnas. Stone witnesses of popular piety. Edited by the local and cultural association Lauda. Lauda, no. J. [around 1984], no. Pag., Foreword; Seidenspinner: The invention of the Madonna Land . 2004, p. 20. Here Seidenspinner refers to Busses novel "Peter Brunnkant", which only speaks of "Madonnenland". He fails to provide evidence of the origin of the diminutive form of the term.

[1] Hermann Eris Busse: Peter Brunnkant [1927], new edition Freiburg i. Br. 1985, pp. 168, 178; ders .: In the cuff of the Baden rider's boot. In: Badische Heimat.Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Heimat- Natur- and Monument Protection, 20th year, 1933, p. 21; Günter Besserer, Günter Schifferdecker: wayside shrines, crosses and Madonnas. Stone witnesses of popular piety. Edited by the local and cultural association Lauda. Lauda, no. J. [around 1984], no. Pag., Foreword; Seidenspinner: The invention of the Madonna Land . 2004, p. 20. Here Seidenspinner refers to Busses novel "Peter Brunnkant", which only speaks of "Madonnenland". He fails to provide evidence of the origin of the diminutive form of the term.