Fool mother
The mother of fools is a figure of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival .
history
The figure of the fool mother dates back to the Middle Ages and was originally inspired by Eve, who is said to have brought folly or the distance from God over people. On the Ambras ornamental plate from 1528, the fool mother is depicted together with her seven sons, who probably represent the seven main sins . Everyone, including the mother, wears a fool's cap and has other fool attributes . In a representation from 1703 on a church chair cheek in the Heiligkreuz Münster in Rottweil , the mother of fools is feeding her child. Both have a fool's hat on.
The mother of fools was first integrated into Shrovetide in France. So there were foolish societies headed by a mère folle . A famous example is the Dijonnaise infantry from Dijon , which existed as early as 1454 and had a mother jester on the front of her flag.
This negative meaning of the fool mother can still be found today in the figure of the fooless in Lauffenburg , who wears a flecklehäs, a smiling smooth larva and a red umbrella. This figure, which is probably the oldest fool mother figure in southwest Germany, is perceived as so negative that no member of the guild wears this hat, but always a man from outside the guild, a so-called friend of the guild .
Current situation
Today there are fool mothers, especially around Lake Constance , but some guilds also have a fool mother, who nowadays mostly has a rather positive maternal charisma. She is often accompanied by a fool's father, especially on Lake Constance. Both wear bourgeois clothes from the 18th or 19th century without masks and have more representative tasks. In the places where the fool mother is represented by a woman, she often has the task of looking after the fool offspring, the fool seed. She often goes to schools to bring Shrovetide closer to the children. Or her job is to take care of the fools' children during the move. If, on the other hand, the fool mother is represented by a man, she represents a rather comical figure. In Überlingen , for example, the fool mother and fool father are both represented by men and driven in a chaise when moving , graciously greeting the fool people and distributing gifts to the people.
There are also fools within the VSAN in Engen , Lindau , Offenburg , Pfullendorf , Markdorf and Bad Cannstatt .
literature
Elisabeth Skrzypek, "The women were great ...". Women celebrate the fifth season , Reutlingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-88627-691-2 , p. 110ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Mezger: fool idea and Carnival custom. Studies on the survival of the Middle Ages in European festival culture . Konstanz 1991, ISBN 3-87940-374-0 , p. 327 .
- ↑ Werner Mezger: fool idea and carnival tradition . Konstanz 1991, ISBN 3-87940-386-4 , p. 330 .
- ↑ Werner Mezger: The big book of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival . Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8062-1221-X , p. 157 .
- ↑ Werner Mezger: The big book of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival . Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8062-1221-X , p. 121 f .