Regimental wood
The regimental wood , (also regulation , Schafferstaff , Schafferholz , guild scepter , serve stick , knocker , knocking wood ) is a symbol of office and dignity used in the German-speaking landscapes of Central Europe from the early modern period to the end of the guilds in the form of a staff, with which the chairman ( "Elders") at the gatherings of guild masters, journeyman associations, guilds or brotherhoods, they could announce the beginning by tapping on them and order silence. Since it was a symbol of rule, it is, similar to a scepter , mostly designed in a striking way, for example turned in a baluster shape , painted or carved with ornament and decorated with colorful ribbons.
Possibly more to associate with the journeyman's associations are regimental timbers of square shape with rough notches, which, pulled over the edge of the table, let an unmistakable, silent, rattling signal to the noisy company be heard. In Braunschweig sources they are referred to as swine angels (= hedgehogs), and they are said to have been used to beat the journeymen who were guilty of something wrong. It has not yet been established whether, as suspected, they also had the function of a scepter for the respective elders. In the ritual custom of the morning language and other ritually designed gatherings in the guilds, other objects could also be used in place of scepter-like signs , such as a special hammer at the blacksmiths.
In contrast to the large number of real objects preserved in museums, the tradition of function, meaning and use is unsatisfactory; the uses described above are only conveyed through indirect news that is not archivally secured.
literature
- Franz Fuhse: handicraft antiquities [from Braunschweig]. Braunschweig 1935, pp. 13, 23, 110, 210.
- Karl von Amira: The staff in the Germanic legal symbolism . In: Treatises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Phil. And Historical Class, Vol. 25, Munich 1909, pp. 135-137.
- Heino Speer, Almuth Bedenbender: Advice to sentences. In: Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): Deutsches Rechtsworterbuch (dictionary of the older German legal language). Volume 11, 2007, keyword Regimentsholz , ISBN 978-3-7400-1244-1 .