Knitting rider

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From the middle of the 18th to the end of the 19th century , Strickreiter (sometimes also streaker ) denotes henchmen , country gendarmes , wicked or crooks , especially those people who one wished they would end up on the gallows - thus roughly synonymous with " gallows bird "Or" -strick ".

Lexical description

The rope rider is defined in the Rhenish dictionary as "a disdainful, disorderly fellow who deserves the rope on the gallows."

The explanation in Pierer's Universal Lexikon says: Strickreiter is a name for gendarmes, especially French ones, "because they wore ropes as armpit cords."

The German dictionary lists several references. The word is attested without any recognizable landscape delimitation. In dialect form it occurs in Westphalian, in Hesse and the Altmark as a mock name for mounted gendarmes.

The term knitting rider found its way into Hebel's calendar stories in 1811 , as well as in two stories by Clemens Brentano in 1817 .

The dictionary by Westenrieder, published in Munich in 1816, provides a plausible definition. According to this, those soldiers were forbidden in Bavaria called knit riders who, after the War of Succession, took over the task in certain districts of "keeping the streets clean of runaways, vagabonds and all dissolute rabble." Initially referred to as streakers because they roamed and feared districts They were known because of their rigorous demeanor, yet they ended up being called disrespectful knitting riders.

In the vernacular of Brunswick, the Landdragoner (light cavalry, mounted officials) was also referred to as a knitting rider.

literature

Occurrence in narratives (selection)

  • Johann Peter Hebel: The three thieves, treasure chest of the Rhenish family friend. In: Poetic Works. Winkler, Munich 1961, pp. 156-159 ( zeno.org ).
  • Clemens Brentano: Baciochi's story of the wild hunter. In: Works. Volume 2, Munich ( zeno.org ).
  • Clemens Brentano: The fairy tale of the Baron von Hüpfenstich. In: Works. Volume 3, Munich, pp. 346-369 ( zeno.org ).

Occurrence in a biography

  • Johann Friedrich Ruthe : On the run from the knitting riders in the Kingdom of Westphalia: 1809 to 1811 - from the "Life, sufferings and adversities of a Lower Saxony"; Self-experiences (=  from the time of severe need . Volume 3 ). Scholz, Braunschweig 1906 ( books.google.de - first edition: 1841, initially as a section on events in the years 1809 to 1811 in: Life, suffering and adversities of a Lower Saxony, described by himself ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Knitting tab. In: Rhenish dictionary. Volume 8, Sp. 839 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  2. ↑ Knitting rider . In: Universal Lexicon of the Present and Past . 4., reworked. and greatly increased edition, Volume 1:  A – Aufzwingen , Eigenverlag, Altenburg 1857, p.  927 .
  3. ↑ knitting rider. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 19 : Stob – Strollen - (X, 3rd division). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1957, Sp. 1587–1588 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  4. ↑ Lorenz von Westenrieder : Strickreiter. In: Glossarium Germanico - Latinum vocum obsoletarum primi et medii aevi, Inprimis Bavaricum. Volume 1, Monachii 1816, Sp. 566 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de ).
  5. ↑ Sam A. Mustafa: The Strickreiter . In: Napoleon's Paper Kingdom: The Life and Death of Westphalia, 1807-1813 . Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, ISBN 978-1-5381-0831-4 , pp. 142 (English, books.google.de ).