Menger

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Fleischmengergasse between Lungengasse and Neumarkt

Menger was a job title for certain members of the medieval food industry . The term, which was used in particular in the time of the imperial city ​​of Cologne , is only present today in the name of an inner-city street, the Fleischmengergasse .

etymology

After Adam Wrede , the word changed Menger from the medieval Latin Mango (dealers) in Old High German language also Mangari , the Middle Low German Menger and Middle Dutch Manger . Later it can only be found in professional and proper names .

According to the Cologne historian and folklorist Wrede , the term Menger, which covers only a few professions , was alive in the old Cologne language and literature from the 12th to the end of the 16th century, before it was slowly displaced by the much broader, much more professions-related term trader. Newer sources prove its use also in later times.

Developments in the Cologne guild system

Verbundbrief with city seal and those of the 22 gaffs (Cologne City Museum)

The gaffs , which remained in their old hierarchy in the 16th century, were headed by the weavers “Wollenamt” , “Fleyschamt” and “Fischamt” ranked in the lower third. Not all craftsmen were organized in guilds. The “non-guilds” are professions with few staff, which therefore did not come under the guild rules . Among them were the millers and the bathers who operate bathing rooms in many districts of the city . The "farmers" or farmers , the gardeners and vine gardeners did not form a guild, they had organized themselves in the farmers ' banks .

The traditional hierarchy in the individual guilds included the difference between “earned” and “undeserved” masters of the craftsmen. While the superiors of the offices insisted on the statutes laid down in the composite letter in 1396 and confirmed in the following Transfix letter , the dissatisfaction of the "undeserved" masters who demanded a share in the leadership increased in the 16th century.

The situation of the Cologne Gaffeln was as follows. Nobody was allowed to be an official member who was not born or “golden” (someone who had bought the citizenship ) citizen and had not learned his trade for four years or more. According to their reputation, their respective traditions , but also their number of members, they were represented in the city council and campaigned there for the interests of their members. The different number of members of the individual gaffs was evident during a ceremony in Cologne during this period. When they formed a trellis when Archbishop Adolf von Schauenburg moved in after his enthronement , the blacksmiths were represented as the strongest gaff with 500 men, the weakest gaff was that of the Schwarzhaus, the gaff of dyers and woad dealers , with 24 people. There were 400 from the “Fischamt” and 100 from the “Fleischmengern” or butchers . As a rule, the number of journeymen was fixed at a maximum of two, to which a number of apprentices were added.

Fleischmenger

Sculpture remains of the meat hall gate at Heumarkt (Cologne City Museum)
Entrance gate and relief of the meat hall, demolished in 1903

At the place where the town's houses were confiscated and demolished after the weaving revolt of 1371, a new meat hall - domus novus carnium - was built in 1372 by the town builder "Arnold Franken". A little later, a group of figures was installed above the entrance to the hall, symbolizing the purchase and slaughter of the cattle that had been brought here. The sculptures showed (beginning on the right) a couple of farmers whose cattle they had just sold were brought to the butcher by another person (the hatchet is also missing in the group's current fragments).

The operation of this facility, whose inner courtyard was surrounded by around 35 meat stands or "banks", was stopped in 1890. The facility itself gave way, along with other buildings, to the breakthrough in Gürzenichstrasse in 1903 .

Butcher's gaff house
Relief at the gaff house of the "Fleischmenger"

In 1426 an entry was made in a shrine file of the St. Martin district , which mentions the acquisition of the Fleischmenger's Gaffelhaus . It was referred to as the “Letensteyn” farmstead or later as the “Lichtenbegh” in the “Girgassen”, the Geyergasse above the Heumarkt , and became the first seat of the Fleischmenger office . Later, the butchers' gaff house was located at Heumarkt 45 in Haus zum Stern, near the meat hall.

The "Fleischmenger", who appeared at the ceremony with one hundred people, worked at 44 urban sales points. There were the stands in the large meat halls, also known as benches , located in the largest and five smaller halls at Heumarkt, such as those at St. Catharinen, the "Weisse Frauen" (Kloster am Blaubach), Neumarkt , St. Apern and located on the Eigelstein . Like the granary, the salt store or the bread hall, the meat banks were also owned by the city. The number of masters should have been 44 according to the banks. There were also around 30 journeymen and apprentices. According to the number of meat shops, there was one butcher for every 840 inhabitants. Due to the different types of meat that only one sold, there was a specialization. Around 1576 there were three “Fleischmenger”, 13 “Schaffenhauer”, three “Schwyneheuer”, three “Rindergelder”, two “Schafgelder”, two “Kalfergelder” and 13 “Speckheuer”, which were distributed among the halls and benches.

The sale of all types of meat took place in accordance with the “statutes of meat” set by the council. In 1584 the council amended the butchers' guild regulations. In these regulations it was stipulated that none of the guild should move towards the brought cattle in order to be active as a dealer in purchasing. No “meat munch” should cut more than one kind of meat. None of them who sold beef should slaughter cows. The calves were in turn reserved for two of the “calf mounds”.

Like every craftsman, the butchers had their competitors on the other side of the Rhine . In a contractual agreement of February 1577, it was agreed between the Fleischmengeramt and the Deutz traders not to buy any cattle or meat from the Deutz Jews . This contract was renewed in 1608.

Feschwiev, fish market woman of the 15th century (Cologne armory)

Fischmenger

Next to the salt gate, known as Porta salis in 1360, in the Rhine front of the city wall, there was a semicircular basalt tower , which from 1422 served as the guild house of the "Fischmenger". The tower with a large hall was demolished in the French period . About the fish mongers, Latin mango piscarius or piscium venditor, English fishmonger it says in the old "Grimmschen" lexicon: you give (ie gäbest) a good fish monger, so one speaks to Cologne, if your hands are shaking, then they sell dar fish, tremble deceptively with the hand .

The Free Imperial City of Cologne had only limited fishing opportunities of its own (compare allis shad in Poll ), but it had also become a sales and transshipment point for these goods. Therefore, the “Fischmenger” office was formed at an early stage. The Fischmenger gaff also included the boatmen , who only established their own office at the beginning of the 17th century, as well as the bookbinders , whose trade also emerged in the late Middle Ages.

Kotzmenger

Kotzgasse and surroundings

The “Kotzmenger” were traders and food processors whose goods were mostly inferior meat. The still edible waste from the slaughter was the heads of the slaughtered cattle, mostly not processed by the butchers, but also parts of the innards such as rumen , intestines and tripe (also called tripe in southern Germany). The goods they processed from it were offered for sale in Kotzgasse in the Cologne suburb of Niederich .

The customers of these traders consisted primarily of charitable institutions, which provided for the poorest part of the population for little money , but also of financially less well-endowed students who had to be content and were disparagingly called tripe-swallowers by their better-off fellow students .

Change of street name

The "Platea Methfredi", mentioned since the 12th century and mostly called "Waldemansgasse" from around 1200, was located between Johannisstraße and the banks of the Rhine, today's street Am alten Ufer. The street, formerly also known in Latin as "Platea Waldemani", was provided with gates on both sides in 1373, the western of which was called "Porta Walmanůsgasse".

This street was given a new name by the Kotzmenger , who had settled there since the 15th century, who got it from the slaughterhouse waste they used, which they obtained from the nearby meat hall in Mauthgasse at the fish market . In 1487, the brewery in Kotzgasse was listed in the tax list, for which a tax rate of 15 guilders was noted. A document dated September 16, 1496 stated: "the Kotzmengersse in the Kotzgasse". Hermann von Weinsberg mentioned a "Krutzmülle" ( Grut ) in Kotzgasse in 1553. The brewery still existed in 1589, it was now called "Brauhaus zum Holtshof with the gate". On September 24, 1607, the minutes of the council said: “The Kotzmenger clean the waste in the slaughterhouse”. The Kotzgasse became the Kostgasse , probably at the endeavor of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf . When Cologne streets were renamed or renamed in the canton of Cologne, he suggested that the street name Kostgasse, which was then called Rue des Traiteurs in French , should be named analogous to the processing of offal in kitchens into food and fare . The street gates were demolished in 1856.

Memories of the guilds in today's cityscape

Historic street name

Just as the Eisenmarkt is reminiscent of a former gaff, other streets and alleys in Cologne also draw attention to other past guilds. For example Schildergasse , Kämmer- and Hämmergasse, Weberstrasse, Seidmachergässchen, the streets Unter Goldschmied and Unter Taschenmacher, the bitter and fish market and many others. However, Fleischmengergasse is the only one to have the old dealer name “Menger” in its name.

Fleischmengergasse

Today, Fleischmengergasse runs between the beginning of the “Little Greek Market” and the end of Neumarkt , originally it only comprised the short stretch between Neumarkt and Lungengasse, where the butchers lived in the late Middle Ages. It is called in the written documents 1375 "Vleischmengergasse", 1403 "Vleysmengergasse" at the "Neumarte", 1813 "Rue de Bouchers" - then "Fleischmängergasse", in Cologne dialect "Fleischmengerjass" and today officially Fleischmengergasse.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Kellenbenz, Economic history of Cologne in the 16th and early 17th centuries , the guild organization, pages 349-350.
  2. ^ Information from the Cologne City Museum
  3. ^ Hermann Keussen, Volume I, St. Martin Shrine District, p. 12, column a, 4 b
  4. ^ Vogts, Witte: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln , on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province and the City of Cologne. by Paul Clemen, Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , p. 367 f
  5. ^ Hermann Kellenbenz, Economic history of Cologne in the 16th and early 17th centuries , the crafts, pages 350–351.
  6. ^ Vogts, Witte: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln , on behalf of the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province and the City of Cologne. by Paul Clemen, Vol. 7, Section IV: The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , p. 374 f
  7. ↑ cf. Entries for Menger and Fischmenger in Grimm's German dictionary
  8. ^ Hermann Kellenbenz, Economic history of Cologne in the 16th and early 17th centuries , the crafts, pages 350–351.
  9. ^ Adam Wrede, Volume II, p. 83
  10. ^ Book Weinsberg, II 28
  11. ↑ Hermann Keussen Volume II, p. 112, column a 13, and column bk
  12. ↑ Hermann Keussen Volume II, p. 112, Sp. Bm, with reference to Council Protocol I, 56,188 a
  13. ↑ Hermann Keussen Volume II, p. 74, column a 5, with reference to Knipping, Stadtrechnungen II, 123.274