Shield citizens

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Title page of a later edition of the Lale book

The Schildbürger , who live in the fictional town of Schilda, are the main actors in a whole series of short stories, the Schildbürgerstenzen. The Schwank collections on the Schildbürgern are, alongside those on Till Eulenspiegel, the most famous German collection of rogue stories in the form of a novel.

A collection or a people's book with Schildbürger- Schwänken on the content appeared for the first time in 1597 under the title Das Lalen-Buch. Strange / adventurous / unheard-of / and bit unwritten stories and deeds of the Lalen zu Lalenburg. The second edition of 1598 with the title The Schiltbürger became known: several authors are in discussion as their authors, u. a. Friedrich von Schönberg . Like Till Eulenspiegel or Faust, the Lale book is not based on a foreign-language model. Rather, jokes and stories that were in circulation were taken up and artfully, peppered with many learned hints, processed into a whole.

The Lale book of 1597

Text history and author question

The oldest known print dates from 1597 and was anonymously printed in Strasbourg. Four copies are still preserved. The following author's riddle can be found on the title page: “[…] set out of Rohtwelscher in German / by: Aabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwxyz. The letters are so too many / Nimb out / Throw away them quickly / And what you have left / Put together rightly: So you have the author's name. ”This led to numerous speculations in literary studies, but no solution that could be justified by a majority.

The content of the work deals with the fictional city of Laleburg in the Utopia Empire. The name Lale goes back to the Greek verb λαλέω (laléō) , which on the one hand means to chat and chat, but also to proclaim and teach. The rest of the frame narrative resembles the later topos of the people from Schilda, who developed from wise advisers to foolish farmers of their own accord.

At the end of the Lale book of 1597, the Newe newspapers from all over the world , a collection of lies, were printed. They share the same, consecutively numbered printed sheet with the Lale book and refer to the title pages and to each other, but the new newspapers are still missing in the editions of the Lale book. The reprint by Wunderlich is an exception.

Fabric templates

The Lale book gets its material from many contemporary Schwank authors, from whom the fictional author actually distances himself in the preface:

"... instead of the coarse villi in the trolley / gardening company / Cento Nouella, Katzipori, and other pure scribblers / who might need to be cut out."

In addition to Jörg Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein (1555), the Gartengesellschaft (1557) by Jacob Frey and Michael Lindener's Katzipori (1558), the templates include the Nachtbüchlein by Valentin Schumann (1559) and the Zimmer Chronicle (1566).

Differences to Schildbürgerbuch and cricket salesman

The versions of the Schildbürgerbuch (oldest known print from 1598) and the Cricket Salesman (oldest known print from 1603) differ from the Lale book mainly in the adaptation of the names of the protagonists and their place of residence and a prehistory adapted to these circumstances. In addition, the Newe newspapers from around the world are missing from all these editions .

Declarations of origin

Several places claim that the conditions in their city were the basis for Schilda's reports at the time:

The presence of the Schildberg near Schildau, which is known from the stories, provides a historically well-founded indication of the real origin of the Schild citizens. The retelling of Erich Kästner and Horst Lemke is about the citizens of Schilda, which has been attributed to Schildau since the 17th century . They report a number of foolish pranks there.

Representations of rogues comparable to the bourgeois pranks have been passed down in the German-speaking area from the small Hessian town of Schwarzenborn ( Schwarzenbörner pranks ). Similar stories are also known from other linguistic regions, such as Gotham from England, the medieval stories of Hodscha Nasreddin from Turkey or the fictional city of Kocourkov from the Czech Republic.

The place name Schilda really does exist; the community Schilda in the Elbe-Elster district in Brandenburg bears this name and is only a few kilometers from the manors in Falkenberg / Elster and Uebigau , which are owned by a presumed author of the book, Friedrich von Schönberg . Schönberg was born in Sitzenroda , a neighboring town of the Gneisenau town of Schildau .

stories

The citizens of Schilda were generally known to be extremely clever, which is why they were sought-after advisers to the kings and emperors of this world. Since the place was slowly but surely depopulated in this way , they resorted to a ruse:

The bourgeoisie began to gradually replace their cleverness with folly. So successful was it that over time they stuck to their folly and became as known for it as they were for their cleverness .

Well-known shield pranks

  • The citizens of the shield are building a town hall: To show off their foolish way of life, the citizens of the shield are building a new, triangular town hall with a large gate, but without a window. Because it is now pitch black in the town hall, the shield citizens try to capture the sunlight and carry it inside with the help of buckets and sacks, boxes and baskets, also jugs and bowls.
  • The shield citizens move the town hall: A jacket serves as a mark of the town hall move . When a tramp takes the jacket with him, it is believed that the town hall has been pushed too far.
  • The shield citizens sow salt: In order to become independent of expensive salt deliveries in times of war and hardship , the shield citizens decide to grow salt themselves in the future. The sugar, which looks like salt, also grows in the field. And so, full of confidence in rich blessings from above, they sow their last salt in the broken-up common land. Unfortunately, harvesting the alleged brine (actually nettles ) by hand fails. In Schildau, Saxony, the scene of this prank is known as the "salt mountain".
  • The emperor comes to visit: The emperor wants to come to see whether what is said about the inhabitants of this city is true. He lets them know that they should come "half ridden and half on foot" to the reception, by which he means that you can go on foot if you don't have a horse. The shield citizens, however, discuss it and finally come to meet him on hobby horses. At the end of his stay in Schilda, the emperor guarantees them absolute freedom from fools.
  • The cow on the old wall: Because tall grass grows on an old wall, some shield citizens want to remove the grass by having a cow graze it. In order to heave the cow onto the wall, some strong men pull the cow up on a rope. Because the rope has been wrapped around the neck, the cow will eventually be strangled. When the people of the shield saw the cow sticking out its tongue, they exclaimed enthusiastically: "Kieck mol, da frett se already."
  • The sunken bell: In order to protect the valuable town hall bell from the enemy, the shield citizens decide to sink it into the lake. In order to remember at which point in the lake they can get the bell out again after the end of the war, the resourceful citizens carve a notch in the edge of the boat. When they realize after the war that they won't find the bell again, they are furious and cut the notch out of the edge of the boat, which of course only makes it bigger.
  • The right way to scare away the birds: Because crows peck the fresh seed from the municipal field, they should be scared away. So that the community leader does not trample on the seeds, he is carried onto the field by four men on a platform.
  • Carrying tree trunks into the city: The shield citizens fell trees and now want to bring the trunks into their city. They find that the city gate is too narrow: the tree trunks do not fit in width (actually length, because they carry them parallel to the wall!). So they tear down the city wall to the left and right of the gate until the logs can fit through. When the shield burghers are done, they realize that it would have been much easier to carry the tree trunks lengthways through the gate. So now you carry all the tree trunks out of the city, wall up the city wall on the left and right again and carry the trunks again, now lengthways, through the gate into the city. (Almost the same story is also told by the city of Ulm .)
  • How the people from the shield wanted to funnel their knowledge: When a group of people from the shield once visited Nuremberg , they wondered what the Nuremberg funnel was about. A Nuremberg resident claims that one can pick up intelligence through the funnel, which makes tedious and time-consuming learning superfluous. The people from the Schildbürger are enthusiastic and try out what he advised them right away. The other Nuremberg residents are having a great time with the shield citizens and begin to direct water hoses at them. However, this moves the shield citizens to "funnel" even more eagerly, since they consider the water to be wisdom. Back in Schilda, they tell the people from Schilda who stayed at home about their visit to Nuremberg. They are very impressed until a young boy sprinkles sneezing powder under them, causing violent fits of sneezing. The people of the shield are disappointed - they got rid of their newly acquired knowledge so quickly.
  • How a Shield Citizen leads his son to school: A Shield Citizen takes his son into town to show him to the schoolmaster. But do it with him for a minute for my money, says father. I want to take him home as soon as the farrier has shod my horse. But I can't do anything in such a short time, replies the schoolmaster. If I think about it correctly, says the bourgeoisie, my son doesn't need to be taught that way, it's not at all appropriate for our sex and moves away with him.
  • How the shield citizens choose their mayor: The emperor has demanded that the shield citizens reply to his address with a rhyme. The new mayor should therefore be whoever can rhyme best. After several unsuitable candidates, the swineherd is finally allowed to present himself: "Dear Sir, I step in / my housewife's name is Kathrein / she has a mouth like a pig / and likes to drink sweet, cool ... cider." "That's it, that sounds like something," shout the citizens of the shield, "you should be our new mayor".
  • A cancer comes to court: a cancer that appears inexplicably in Schilda is sentenced to death by drowning for presumptuousness (because of its large claws it is thought to be a tailor), damage to property and bodily harm. In the presence of the whole congregation he is thrown into the water, where he immediately wriggles. Quite a few people from the shields cry and complain: Oh, look how he must suffer before death.
  • How the Schildbürger make a long sausage: The Schildbürger slaughtered a fat pig. Now they want to use it well and turn it into a long sausage. They just can't find a suitable pot to cook the sausage lengthways. When some geese run up with a loud "gigag, gigag", a shield citizen understands it as "double, double". Now the sausage - folded several times - also fits into the pot.
  • The destruction of Schilda: One day a hiker comes to Schilda who brings a cat. The shield burghers don't know any cats or crabs, but there are plenty of mice. The hiker sells them the cat, which he calls the “mouse dog”, with the promise that Schilda will soon be free of mice thanks to it. When a citizen of the shield asks the hiker who is running away what else the "mouse dog" eats apart from mice, he replies: "Only bacon he never eats." However, the citizen of shield understands: "Only people and cattle." The shocked citizens of the shield want the mouse dog Now get rid of it by fumigating and setting fire to the house in which it is located, but the cheeky cat jumps from the roof onto the neighboring house. This is also set on fire and so on until the whole of Schilda has burned down - but the “mouse dog” cannot be caught.

The Teterower Hechtsage

Pike fountain in Teterow

In the most famous version today, the pike in Teterower See in Mecklenburg is caught by the shield citizens. Since a visit from the sovereign is to take place in a few weeks and the pike cannot be kept fresh for that long, the people of the shield decide to let it back into the water. To find him again, they tie a bell around him and cut a notch in the boat where they let the pike in. However, the search for the pike is more difficult than expected.

The Teterow pike fountain, inaugurated in 1914, is intended to commemorate the pike legend. As a souvenir of the Teterow bourgeois pranks , the pike festival (motto: The pike is still alive ) is celebrated every year on the weekend after Ascension Day in Teterow . The highlight is the theater performance of the most famous Teterow shield pranks.

The Beckum town hall fountain (Pütt)

In Beckum, the fountain called “Pütt” in Westphalian is to be cleaned of mud on the market square. For this purpose, a chain of men is lowered into the well. When the man hanging at the top can no longer he says to the others: "Hold on tight, I just have to spit on my hands." So all the men fall into the well.

Carnival tradition

The story The cow on the old wall is also told in the variant that a goat is pulled up on the city or cemetery wall to graze and thus hanged. In Kipfenberg and Erlangen-Bruck , carnival clubs have adopted the story and call themselves "G (o) aßhenker". There is also a memorial to the hanged goat in both places. The Kipfenberger bears the inscription: "The Goaß hammer g'henkt between the grass on the wall, the monument hammer erected between the Goaßhenkertrauer."

Today's shield pranks

The legend of Schilda is still part of German-speaking culture and has found its way into German vocabulary. The term Schildbürgerstreich is used in everyday language for crazy and misleading regulations or excesses of bureaucracy .

Others

The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (2010), a scholarly reference work that otherwise soberly reports on the chronicle literature of the European Middle Ages, contains an entry on the Chronica sive Historia de populo Schildorum . This nihil article reads as if the Lale book were a historical report, the source of which was recently discovered.

literature

Lale book

Text editions of the Lale book

  • The Lale book. After printing in 1597 with the deviations of the Schiltbürgerbuch from 1598 and twelve woodcuts from 1680. Edited by Stefan Ertz. Stuttgart 1970, 21982, bibliographically amended edition 1998 (= Reclams Universal-Bibliothek 6642).
  • The Lale book. In the illustration of the print from 1597. Ed. By Werner Wunderlich. Göppingen 1982 (= Litterae. Göppinger Contributions to Text History, Vol. 87).

Secondary literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Bachorski: Insanity and Kolportage - Studies on the Ring, the Lale Book and the Jumble of History. Trier 2006 (= literature - imagination - reality. English, German, Romance studies, vol. 39).
  • Ulrich Seelbach: The new newspapers out of the whole world. The appendix of the 'Lale book' and the logic of the polygraph. In: Eulenspiegel-Jahrbuch 39 (1999), pp. 95–111.
  • Werner Wunderlich: public pranks. Report on Lalebuch and Schildbürger research. In: German quarterly for literary studies and intellectual history. 56, 1982, pp. 641-685.

Schildbürgerbuch

  • Ludwig Tieck: Memorable history of the shield citizens. many issues, e.g. B. ISBN 978-80-273-1169-9 .
  • Erich Kästner : The shield citizens. In: Erich Kästner tells Till Eulenspiegel, Münchhausen, Don Quichotte, Die Schildbürger, Gullivers Reisen. Illustrations by Walter Trier and Horst Lemke , Dressler / Atrium, Hamburg / Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7915-3049-9 .
  • Karl Simrock : The shield citizens. Vitalis, Furth im Wald / Prague 2000, ISBN 3-934774-37-7 / ISBN 80-7253-021-6 (Prague).
  • Ruth Kraft (Ed.), Fritz Koch-Gotha (Illustr.): Das Schildbürgerbuch von 1598. Dausien, Hanau 1985, ISBN 3-7684-3563-6 .
  • Otfried Preußler : With us in Schilda - the true story of the people of Schilda according to the records of the town clerk Jeremias Punktum. 18th edition. Thienemann, Stuttgart 1988 (first edition 1958), ISBN 3-522-10600-8 .
  • Gerhard Böhmer : Teterow. Chronicle and life picture of a small Mecklenburg town. Teterow 1947.
  • Erich Sielaff (arrangement): The shield citizens. Edited for young people from the 1st edition from 1598 and the fool's book from 1811. Children's book publisher, Berlin 1958. (numerous new editions)
  • Ruth Kraft ( edit .): The Schildbürgerbuch from 1598 - revised according to its origin for the 400th anniversary in 1998 ; Vision Verlag Berlin, 2nd edition 1998, ISBN 3-928787-10-1
  • Schleswig-Holstein folk tales. Schildbürgergeschichten (AT 1200–1439), Eheschwänke (AT 1350–1439), Schwänke von Frauen und Mädchen (AT 1440–1524), from the central archive of the German folk tale in Marburg an der Lahn. Edited and annotated by Gundula Hubrich-Messow. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2004, ISBN 3-89876-182-7 .
  • Heinz-Günter Schmitz: The “people's book” from the shield citizens. Observations on the history of effects. In: Daphnis. 33, 2004, H. 3-4, pp. 661-681.

Web links

Commons : Schildbürger  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Schildbürger  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wunderlich, 1982: p. 654.
  2. ↑ Wunderlich, 1982, p. 652. According to Wunderlich, the copies are in the Aargauer Kantonsbibliothek , in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, in the Yale University Library and in the Austrian National Library Vienna.
  3. ↑ Bachorski, 2006, pp. 2633f.
  4. ↑ Seelbach, 1999, p. 96.
  5. ↑ Stefan Ertz (Ed.): Lalebuch. Cape. 1, p. 8th chapter at zeno.org: http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Anonym/Erz%C3%A4hlungen/Das+Lalebuch/Eyngang+in+diese+Histori+-+darinnen+verendet .
  6. ↑ Wunderlich, 1982, pp. 660f.
  7. ↑ Ertz: Lale book. In the afterword, p. 150.
  8. ↑ Seelbach, 1999, p. 96. A reference to the new newspapers in Chapter 16 is also in the Schildbürgerbuch and in the Cricket Distributor, although they were not accompanied by the new newspapers.
  9. ↑ Karel Fojtík, Oldřich Sirovátka: Veselosti nikdy dosti: lidová vyprávění z Moravy . Kraj. nakl., Brno 1956.
  10. ↑ Der Landkreis Amberg Sulzbach, mediaprint infoverlag, Mering 2011, 6th edition, p. 42f
  11. ^ SPM Verlag eK in cooperation with the city of Hirschau (ed.): Hirschau . Information. 1st edition. SPM Verlag eK, Schwabach 2015, p. 1 .
  12. ↑ Ruth Kraft: The Schildbürgerbuch from 1598 .
  13. ^ The Schildbürgerbuch from 1598. Revised and interpreted according to its origin by Ruth Kraft. Torgau 2004, p. 104.
  14. ↑ Ruth Kraft: The Schildbürgerbuch from 1598 . Vision Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-928787-10-1 , pp. Chapter 34 .
  15. ↑ Alphart B. Gammel: Chronica sive Historia de populo Schildorum . In: Graeme Dunphy (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle . tape 1 . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010, ISBN 978-90-04-18464-0 , pp. 346 (English).