Melemsche's house book
Melem's house book , begun around 1550, is a genealogical series of images from the Melem and Brun families from the city of Frankfurt am Main , which provides insightful insights into the world of the late medieval patriciate . The family chronicle is one of the most magnificent of the bourgeois modern age . It spans about 250 years and was probably commissioned by Oger (Ogier) von Melem (1499–1575) after he married Katharina Brun von Brunfels (Braun von Braunfels) in 1522. The house book of the Melem family is now kept in the Privilege Chamber of the Institute for Urban History in Frankfurt.
Client's intention
The genus of house books of the patriciate originated at the beginning of the 16th century. Oger von Melem received the impetus for Melem's house book from a house book of the patrician family Haller from Nuremberg that was written a few years earlier . Melemsche is closely based on this house book, even down to the details. However, artistically it surpasses the Nuremberg model by far.
The client's intention is to create a representative family chronicle that visualizes the social status of the community center of those of Melem and Brun. In a time long before the invention of photography, painting was therefore of great importance. Important characteristics of the bourgeois representation consisted at this time in the representation of the family coat of arms and clothing, based on representative representations of the nobility (genealogical tapestries). The bourgeoisie aspired to seek equality with the landed gentry .
family
The Melem family was a respected merchant family from Cologne , who settled in Frankfurt am Main from 1456 and after giving up their initially retained Cologne citizenship, they gained access to the Frankfurt Council. Johann von Melem (1433–1484) is considered to be the founder of the merchant dynasty. His son Johann the Younger († 1529) was the builder of the stone house on medieval Krämergasse (old market) and today's Römerberg, which towered over all the surrounding houses for around 500 years . He founded the Melemsche Handelsgesellschaft, which quickly developed into one of the most important Frankfurt companies of the late Middle Ages and subsequently made him one of the richest citizens of the city. From 1486, Johann von Melem the Younger was a member of the Zum Frauenstein patrician society , one of four Frankfurt drinking room societies that played a leading role in the city's political life. From 1511 until his death in 1529 he was a member of the city council and in 1516 was the junior mayor. Ogre von Melem was the son of John the Younger. After marriage to Catherine Brun of Brunfels Oger was in the ganerbschaft Old Limpurg added, the most powerful patrician society of Frankfurt. In 1654 the family died out with Philipp Ludwig von Melem.
Artist
It is assumed that Melem's house book was created by five different artists, only two of whom are known by name. The three strangers made only a dozen of the 71 pages, while most of them were done by the painter, goldsmith and copper engraver Heinrich Lautensack (1522–1568) from Bamberg . This can be proven by other costume images from his hand. His works are artistically far superior to the three unknown painters. The second known painter in Melem's house book is likely to be the Frankfurt artist Philipp Uffenbach (1566–1636). The image of Elisabeth von Melems and her husband Philipp Weiss von Limburg is ascribed to him. Thanks to these two artists, who are known by name, Melem's house book has achieved the status of an extraordinary work of art of the early modern period.
Structure and design
Melem's house book is one of the precious treasures of the Frankfurt Institute for Urban History. It is essentially a chronicle of coats of arms and pictures and not a literary work. The book comprises 66 sheets in the format 30 x 40 centimeters. The actual picture chronicle is preceded by an ancestral table of the Melem and Brun families. The other sheets of Melem's house book are dedicated equally to the Melems and Bruns families.
The very colorful illustrations with watercolors particularly emphasize the social position of the persons depicted; with the exception of an old age picture of the Ogre von Melem, they do not show any exact portrait studies.
The constant structure of the page structure shows at the head images of the respective spouses with their coats of arms, including the mother of the respective married families with their coat of arms, sometimes only represented by their family coat of arms. In some cases, children who died early are also shown in the lower half. They are generally shown kneeling in prayer, with a cross hanging over their heads.
Free areas on the pages are provided with handwritten texts. They often describe the life of the portrayed, but also describe cultural-historical details, such as the custom that siblings of newborns clean their vest hoods (baptismal gown; vest, Latin vestis = dress).
The greatest care in the representation is given to the family coat of arms and the reproduction of the clothing.
meaning
The Melem house book is a valuable source for research into the development of fashion from the 16th to the early 17th centuries thanks to the extremely detailed illustrations of the clothing . On the other hand, a much lower degree of authenticity is ascribed to the images of generations further back in the late 14th and 15th centuries.
This applies accordingly to the handwritten notes on the images, as the authors and painters could only rely on oral tradition. This applies, for example, to the data and explanations provided by Ogre von Melem's grandson John VI. (1555–1613) were inserted at the beginning of the 17th century.
Individual evidence
- ^ Institute for Urban History of the City of Frankfurt am Main, Melemsche's house book, Holzhausen Archive K. 170
- ^ House book, Institute for Urban History, City of Frankfurt am Main ( Memento in the Internet Archive).
- ^ Rolf Walther: The house book of the Melem family, a traditional costume book from the 16th century . Publishing house for scientific literature, Frankfurt am Main, 1968
literature
- Monnet, Pierre: La ville et le nom: le Livre des Melem, une source pour l'histoire privée des élites francfortoises à la fin du Moyen Age . In: Le Journal des Savants 40, 1999, pp. 491-539 Persée, version mostly without pictures .
- Rolf Walther: The house book of the Melem family, a costume book of the patriciate from the 16th century . Publishing house for scientific literature, Frankfurt am Main, 1968
- Wurzel, Thomas (ed.): Old documents ... are as dear to us as gold - treasures from Hessian archives . Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Hessen-Thüringen, Frankfurt am Main, 2000