Vicke Schorler
Vicke Schorler (* around 1560 ; † 1625 ) was a Rostock shopkeeper who produced two historically important works about the Hanseatic city: the Vicke-Schorler scroll and the Rostock Chronicle from 1583 to 1625.
Sources
As much as Schorler left and thus received from Rostock, so little can be said about his life. That he is the author of the anonymous Rostock Chronicle , for example , could only be found out by chance. He left his name just once on the Vicke-Schorler role. He drew this scroll between 1578 and 1586, so most likely started it when he was 18 and was 25 when it was completed. During this time he probably did his apprenticeship as a shopkeeper . Nothing suggests that he created the chronicle and the role as a commissioned work. His work is more likely to have been based on a personal interest in his hometown.
Live and act
origin
Vicke was a common nickname in Low German for the name Friedrich ; Schorler just called himself that. It is not certain whether he was actually born in Rostock, but it is probable. He had a brother, the businessman Hans Schorler. Since the brothers were initially poor, it is believed that they both married widows and moved into their homes. Vicke Schorler was able to acquire citizenship on January 11, 1589 as a journeyman shopkeeper. He went into business for himself, married and became a member of the shopkeeper on February 3, 1589, so he must have had enough financial means by then. The entrance fee to this company was an official fee of 50 and a chapel fee of 3 guilders. There is a source from 1589 which shows that Schorler lived in a house on Am Schilde that had previously belonged to the Beutler Marten Randow. His widow, Margarete Schmidt, had it transferred to Schorler on July 4, 1590. As a result, the wedding of Vicke Schorler and Margarete Schmidt must have taken place in 1589. Margarete Schmidt cannot have been married to her former husband for long, because his former wife (Anna) did not die until 1582. Nevertheless, she brought two children with her from this marriage and made Vicke Schorler her stepfather. Schorler himself had at least two children, a daughter and a son.
Schorler's wife was the daughter of a furrier or paint maker (a furrier who specialized primarily in squirrel skin) who owned a house on Blutstrasse, today's part of Kröpeliner Strasse from Neuer Markt to Universitätsplatz. She later inherited this house and also had it transferred to Schorler as her marital guardian. Schorler noted the death of her father in the Rostock Chronicle:
" Anno 1600 on the 5th of September Frantz Schmidt, a colorful maker , in the Blutstrassen wonhaftig and a fine citizen of this city, passed away happily in his lord and on the 7th of September was confirmed in his quest for St. John's Day, his age 67 years [... ] "
and later added:
“ Anno 1613 on the 25th Martii his wife died and was buried with him on the 29th Martii at Sanct Johannis. "
The death of Schorler's wife can also be found in his chronicle, which at the same time provided the only real indication of the identity of the author of the chronicle:
" Anno 1624 the 11th of November, was on Martinitagk , my sister daughter Annen Lemeyer's wedding was with her breutgamb Hans Pentsin, at which wedding my dear housewife Margarethe Schmiedes got sick, what illness got so out of hand with her that she got the 13th . Novembris from Sonabendt to Sunday in the night between 12 and 1 o'clock this world was blessed and faded to death, which was confirmed on a Monday on a Monday with Christian ceremonies in St. Johanniskirchen [...] "
It is very likely that Schorler was a member of the city's Hundred Men College until his death, so he held an important political office in Rostock in addition to that of the senior man of the holy trinity merchant's company. What he actually acted with cannot be proven. Since he was one of the richest shopkeepers, it can be assumed that he was a silk, spice or iron shopkeeper, as these were among the most respected. The last entry in Schorler's chronicle is from February 1625, almost three months after the death of his wife. He is already noted as deceased in the tax lists of 1626.
family
Schorler's son, who was probably named after his father-in-law Franz, was like his father Krämer. His enrollment in the shopkeeper dates back to April 4, 1616. He acquired citizenship the following year, February 1, 1617. Schorler had the Am Schilde house transferred to his son on April 4, 1617 on the condition that he and his wife's cellar would be forever reserved as an apartment. He also sold the house on Blutstrasse around this time. Hans Klein, Schorler's son-in-law, elder of the goldsmith's council and later mint master of the Hanseatic city, is noted as the buyer. However, a short time later Hans Klein and Franz Schorler sold the houses to each other. Vicke Schorler, who stayed in the Am Schilde house, lived there until his death.
Schorler's son died no later than a year after his father's death. In 1624 he had sold the house again, probably because of financial worries, because in addition to children and a widow he left behind some debts. Vicke Schorler's daughter did not live much longer either, which can be deduced from the fact that in 1632 Anna Ficker's widow is recorded as the new wife of her husband Hans Klein. Incidentally, he later made a name for himself when he created the great seal of Charles II in the service of the English king . Schorler's brother, who was probably not much older than himself, died between 1600 and 1603 when he was around 38 years old. With the widow he had married and who brought five children with him, he had two of his own. In addition, the two brothers must also have had a sister who also lived in Rostock.
A lot can be read from Schorler's family about the usual family structure in Rostock at this time. He lived in middle-class circumstances, which were strongly characterized by supply and maintenance, financial, but also legal security. The family structures were determined by a high female and child mortality rate. There were many orphans, half-orphans and widows. Citizens were rarely married only once.
The Vicke-Schorler role
The scroll, which is now in the Rostock City Archives, is a colored pen drawing with a length of 18.68 meters and a height of 60 centimeters, which depicts Rostock and the area around the city. It is headed with the title: Truly Abcontrafactur of the highly praiseworthy and well-known old sea and Hensestadt Rostock - main city in the state of Meckelnburgk . Capital is not meant here politically, but rather means the most important and largest city in the country. This is also reflected in the composition of the picture. Rostock is at the center and takes up almost the entire role. Only at the edges are church villages such as Kessin and Schwaan or, somewhat larger, the princely residence Güstrow (the oldest illustration of which is the one on the Schorler scroll); Also Warnemünde can be seen in a plan. Important buildings, streets and trade routes can be seen on this roll, but also ships and also people, such as traders and students, who can be seen doing their activities. Schorler had worked on it for eight years in his spare time, until he was able to write under it: "Anno Domini 1586 on the day of St. Johannis des Teuffers , I, Vicke Schorler the previous Werck, completely accomplished it."
reception
With the role, Vicke Schorler created a truly unique, cultural and historical testimony not only to the Hanseatic city of Rostock, but also an image of the Hanseatic culture itself, so it shows an architecture that is at the height of the Gothic , and one that is already the influence the Renaissance made clear.
The representation of the city is extremely detailed. With this, Schorler presents the city of Rostock in all its Hanseatic wealth and provides a picture of its time that is not only significant for Rostock due to the uniqueness of the role. The form of the perspective representation chosen was also important for this as a mixed form between vedute and bird's eye view , which Schorler adopted for himself as an amateur.
The role has special cultural and historical value for knowledge of Rostock's architecture before the fire in 1677 that destroyed large parts of the city.
The cityscape represented by Schorler , together with the bird's eye view of Wenzel Hollar and the city map of the hospital master at the Heilig-Geist-Hospital Julius Michael Tarnow from the period between 1780 and 1790, is today the basis of the digital historical information system Rostock around 1600 .
Some of the new buildings erected after the destruction of the Second World War, such as the one in Wokrenterstraße , could be designed by their architects true to the original according to the representation in the Vicke-Schorler roll or at least influenced in their appearance, such as the five-gable house .
In memory of Schorler and the role, a stylistic illustration of part of the role was designed as a bronze relief by Jo Jastram in 2006 and attached to a facade near the Glatten Aal in Rostock.
Art history
Schorler produced his role at a time when the representation of cities had just changed. The panel of the high altar of the former Dominican church in Rostock from the first half of the 15th century shows the journey home of the Three Kings in a cog in front of the city. Just as the city was no longer represented as strongly typified as in other images, it also began to emerge from the background design, e.g. B. to solve religious issues. Artists like Albrecht Dürer had contributed to the fact that the city could increasingly become an independent motif for painters and graphic artists in a realistic representation. The world chronicle of the Nuremberg city doctor Hartmann Schedel also played an important role in this development . His Liber chronicarum was published in Latin and German in 1493. It contained more than 1,800 woodcuts by Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and Michael Wohlgemut , Dürer's teacher. 116 of the woodcuts were headed with place names, 30 already represented realistic views. In the 15th and 16th centuries it was predominantly the humanistic scholars who encouraged the publication of these quite popular representations in book format.
In this context it must also be mentioned that the production of the roll is a special achievement by Schorler in that he was not an artist. He will not even have had an academic education and neither did he have any clients for his work. The form of the work, especially the representation from inside the city, is difficult to classify artistically.
The cityscape of Hans Weigel , who made a woodcut around 1550/60 with the title: “Truly contrafactur of the old, wonderful city of Rostock”, can be taken as a more or less direct model for Schorler's role . The resemblance to Schorler's title is unmistakable. The accuracy of the representation of gates, churches, houses is similar to that of Vicke Schorler.
However, there are differences not only in the chosen perspective, but also in the dimensions of the pictures: At 1.09 m long and 0.256 m wide, Weigel's work is much smaller than the Schorler scroll. Another difference is that Schorler did not do a print of the cityscape, as was customary, in order to reproduce the image and also to be able to sell these prints. The growing importance of book printing and trade played an important role in this development. Given the dimensions of Schorler's roll of over 18 meters in length and over half a meter in width, printing was of course out of the question. Schorler was always very open to new things. This is particularly evident in the depiction of the buildings, which he broke open in perspective in order to draw them from several sides.
Image composition
Schorler divided his abcontrafactur into five sections, which he illustrated with the perspective view. He depicted Warnemünde , Güstrow and other places on both sides of the scroll in a top view, but the city of Rostock itself from the front. The representation, which in its size contrasts with the “surrounding area”, clearly makes the Hanseatic city the “main city” in the state of Mecklenburg .
Three more sections are laid out horizontally and follow the entire length of the roll. They form three different paths on which the viewer can cross the city. Below, at the base of the picture, it follows the Warnow , the harbor and the beach; the two harbor cranes can also be found here, one of which can be seen today as a reconstruction. ( Fig. ) At the top of the picture, he follows the path from the Kröpeliner Tor to the Mühlentor and passes the most representative and important buildings: churches, monasteries, the town hall, the market square, the stone gate and important town houses. In the middle, however, he moves on an outer ring through the city: through the Bramower Tor to the Gerberbruch, Schorler shows the city wall, the port gates and the towers, as well as the rows of gabled houses at the port.
implementation
The Schorler roll consists of simple office paper in the usual sheets of 30 cm × 40 cm. At that time it was usually sold in this size by shopkeepers. However, the paper is not uniform, the roll consists of very different types of paper. So Schorler will have gotten bows when he needed them. This can also be seen from the various watermarks. Mostly it is the Mecklenburg bull's head with the neck fur, crown and nose ring, symbols of the princely Mecklenburg paper mills in Grabow and Neustadt . On three arches there is also a watermark as a lily coat of arms with the inscription MSAVOIS , certainly of French origin.
The entire roll is composed of two rows of paper with a total of 127 sheets. The upper of the two rows consists of 63 folio sheets, each of which is 30 cm × 40 cm, the lower of 64 half sheets, each 30 cm × 20 cm. The number is not exactly the same as Schorler also used a few narrow bows. It can be assumed that he only joined them together around 1586 to form a roll 18.68 meters long and 60 cm wide. Each sheet contains a part of the overall picture. Only the side parts are drawn across the sheets.
He recorded the chronology of his work precisely. He marked the beginning and the end with small texts. The fact that he began (1578) and finished (1586) the role on St. John's Day is due to the fact that Rostock was granted city rights on this Christian holiday. He notes further dates on the tapes, portal arches and wind flags. Only the year on the stone gate can be traced back to its creation. It is also interesting that although he began the role in 1578, he only seemed to have actually started work in 1582, as there are no dates from this period. Why is not known.
Schorler used a keel or tube spring to make the roll . With a ruler and compass, he traced the templates for the buildings. The restoration studies in 1938 showed that he used burnt, ground clay and soot as paint, and honey or varnish as a binder . In this way, the dark brown sepia tone of the picture emerged as a mixture of colors , which was extremely durable. Schorler colored this with watercolors, which can still be seen quite well. Only the blue seems partially red today and the green has also faded. Later corrections made during the restoration are considered to be improper.
In the flatness of the depiction of the buildings, Schorler is still in the tradition of the late Middle Ages. There are no foreshortening of the lines as in perspective representations, nevertheless he sometimes drew the buildings from different sides. He also designed the sides of the tower, transepts, the town hall arbor, porches, roofs, stairs, etc. And the order of the houses next to one another and one above the other does not correspond to reality. And house fronts, which Schorler depicted from left to right, actually line up from right to left. For example, the town hall and the bread scraper shown next to it were actually not next to each other. The reason for his representation is to be seen in the fact that Schorler was not interested in an overall view of the city, but above all in the representation of the individual buildings in their details. For him, that was the truthfulness of the presentation.
History of the role
The role must have remained in the possession of the Schorler family for a while; there is no record of it. It was not until 1760, over one hundred years after Schorler's death, that it was found in a list of sources on the history and constitution of the city of Rostock. By this time she must have gotten into the old Nettelbladt council family. They sold this role to the Rostock council in July 1792 for 150 thalers N⅔ ( new two-thirds ). The role's condition at that time cannot have been particularly good. Immediately after buying the roll, the council gave the order to the archivists: "[...] to have the chart sent by the city of Rostock in front of the great fire with a fine linen wall and to have it carefully lined." The next repair was made on August 11, 1851 by the council decided, but it was only stiffened a little with a weak cardboard box.
It was not until the end of the 19th century that interest, especially among the bourgeoisie, in cultural history increased. So in 1883 the Society for Rostock Antiquities (today the Society for Rostock History) was founded. The archive has been opened to the public and research has started. The first, who then dealt extensively with the Schorler role, was the archivist Ernst Dragendorff, who first really made the work public in the articles on the history of the city of Rostock, the publication of the Rostock Antiquities Association. In 1937/38 the scroll was finally completely restored for the first time. For this, the Berlin conservator and restorer of Egyptian papyri, Hugo Ibscher , was won, under whose direction the crumbling, old cardboard was replaced. The roll was cleaned, mended and re-attached to flexible cardboard. It still exists in this form today.
She survived the Second World War and in particular the bombing of Rostock unscathed in the cellars of the Rostock Bank.
The Rostock Chronicle of Vicke Schorler
Vicke Schorler also prepared a Rostock Chronicle , which follows directly from the Rostock Chronicle of the bookbinder Dietrich vam Lohe and covers the years between 1583 and 1625. For a long time it was not known who was the author of this chronicle until the city archivist Ernst Dragendorff (1869–1938) compared typefaces and Schorler could be clearly identified. In the chronicle there are reports of accidents such as storms, fires, accidents, but also weddings or economic, political and cultural events, the struggles and machinations of Frau von Bülow for her rights or the suspicions that old Frau Thamar was a witch . The chronicle is one of the very important and interesting testimonies that still tell about everyday life in the city at that time.
The Schorler Chronicle is in a gray-black book in quarto format ( see illustration ). The accuracy of Schorler's working method can be seen very clearly here: Exact lines, thin auxiliary lines drawn with pencil and ruler, an almost correct margin, hardly any deletions and even the font, ink and pen seem unchanged throughout the text.
Before starting his own work, he made a copy of the vam Loheschen Chronik. His marginal notes can therefore be found in the original. The main difference to this copy is that Schorler wrote in High German instead of Low German . He belonged to a generation of citizens who were very aware of the changes and did not defend themselves against it. He also deviated from the vam Loheschen text in terms of content, in that he partially added details with which vam Lohe often saved. That these details have always been important to Schorler can be seen above all in the Schorler scroll, in which he did not forego drawing in individual bricks, inscriptions and pictures on the houses.
However, there are no ratings for him. He is very objective in the descriptions. In this he is very similar to Lohe. It is this veracity that he emphasizes in the title of the Schorler role. Something subjective can be seen in the choice of some of the things he reported in the chronicle, such as the Wiker-Gelag, an annual bird shooting by his grocer's company.
His last entries show once again the accidents that the Rostock suffered: The plague epidemic in 1624 fills two pages of the chronicle with the names of the dead, which are certainly not all. In the last recording from February 10, 1625, he again describes in detail the strong storm surge that drove the water into the city, flooded the cellars and pushed the ships up to the city wall. No chronicle reported about his death.
Schorler's, but also Vam Lohes Chronik, occupy a special position as chronicles, as these were not kept relatively regularly until the middle of the 16th century. In contrast to other Hanseatic cities, where a tradition started much earlier, a lot of information was lost. They are also special because neither of them was written by professional writers. It was only after them that city chronicles were written by scholars, especially theologians. Names like Lucas Bacmeister , David Chyträus , Thomas Lindemann , Nikolaus Gryse and Peter Lindenberg are particularly associated with this.
literature
- Jan Scheunemann: The appearance of Rostock at the transition from 16. – 17. Century. Attempt to reassess the representation of the city by Vicke Schorler with the help of the Rostock basic register , in: Kersten Krüger (ed.), City History and Historical Information Systems. The Baltic region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Contributions to the scientific colloquium in Rostock on March 21 and 22, 2002, Münster 2003, pp. 281–328.
- Wolfgang Behringer, Bernd Röck (ed.): The image of the city in the modern age 1400-1800. Beck-Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-40998-9 .
- Ingrid Ehlers (Ed.): Vicke Schorler - Rostocker Chronik 1584–1625. Verlag Schmidt-Römhild, Rostock 2000. In: Publications of the Historical Commission for Mecklenburg. Series C, Volume 3 ISBN 3-7950-3734-4 .
- Horst Witt (ed.): The real "Abcontrafactur" of the sea and Hanseatic city of Rostock by the shopkeeper Vicke Schorler. Hinstorff, Rostock 1989, ISBN 3-356-00175-2 .
- Oscar Gehrig ( edit .): Warhaftige Abcontrafactur of the highly lavish and well-known old sea and Hensestadt Rostock, Heubtstadt im Lande zu Mecklenburg 1578 - 1586. With a colored reproduction of the original in rotogravure as well as 21 text images and 4 two-colored plans. Hinstorff, Rostock 1939 ( digitalized RosDok ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Vicke Schorler in the catalog of the German National Library
Remarks
- ↑ see Rostock around 1600. In: Uni-Rostock.de. The project is part of the research project “City System and Urbanization in the Baltic Sea Region”, cf. K. Krüger, S. Kroll, G. Pápay: City history and historical information systems. The Baltic region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Münster 2003, pp. 7-16.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schorler, Vicke |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German chronicler, artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1560 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | unsure: Rostock |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1625 |
| Place of death | unsure: Rostock |