Vilzbach (Mainz)

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Mainz seen from the southeast (1631). Below right Vilzbach with the Gitzturm, part of the medieval fortifications. Left St. Alban and the Drususstein. Pen drawing by Wenceslaus Hollar

Vilzbach was an independent village south of Mainz . It was destroyed in 1635 during the Thirty Years' War by the Swedish occupation troops when the imperial siege troops approached. It was located between today's Mainz Römisches Theater (Südbahnhof) train station and today's Winterhafen.

After the destruction of the village and the resettlement of the residents to Mainz in the neighboring Mainz district of Selenhofen in the middle of the 17th century, the name Vilzbach was also adopted for this part of the old town of Mainz.

Name derivation

The name Vilzbach probably comes from the Wiesbach that flowed down from the citadel towards the Rhine. Due to the slow flow rate, aquatic plants proliferated and "matted" to form a carpet of plants. From the source near the later citadel , it flowed into the Rhine at the confluence of Holzhofstrasse / Rheinstrasse . The village of Vilzbach, located outside the city limits of Mainz, was built on the lower course of the stream in the early Middle Ages (possibly reaching as early as the late Roman period).

history

During archaeological excavations at the site of today's Cinestar (Neutorstrasse), the remains of an extensive settlement complex from the late Roman period (partly after 430/440) were found, which were thus directly below the decaying Roman theater . The settlement of this so-called “theater settlement” continued seamlessly in the early Merovingian period; the excavations resulted in intensive Merovingian and Carolingian settlement activity. It is possible that the core of the later Vilzbach can be seen in this early medieval settlement outside the late Roman wall ring. In any case, it is archaeologically certain that the southeastern apron of Mainz, on which the settlements of Selenhofen and Vilzbach crystallized in the course of the Middle Ages, was continuously inhabited in the late Roman, Merovingian and Carolingian periods.

In the Middle Ages, the village was originally part of the Weisenau - Hechtsheim rule . However, the fiefdom has been divided among different people since 1215. As an independent village, Vilzbach already had the right to hold its own wine market. The parish church of the place was St. Nikolaus an der Steig, which was built before 1100 and disappeared together with the place in the 17th century.

Incorporation

Excerpt from Merian's townscape from 1655. Vilzbach is shown here still within the fortifications and titled (3): Filtzbach so ietzbruch

In 1294 the Archbishop of Mainz, Gerhard II von Eppstein, approved the sale of this fief, including the local wine market and all justice to the city of Mainz. The residents of Vilzbach were legally equated with the Mainz people, so that one can speak of an early "incorporation" into Mainz (the second after Selenhofen). Unlike Selenhofen, Vilzbach was initially not included in the city wall ring. This changed at the end of the 14th / beginning of the 15th century. The suburb of Vilzbach has now been expanded as a preliminary work for the expanded city fortifications with walls and two towers (the so-called Gitz and Liedenturm) and included in the fortifications.

Vilzbach had a port at that time. At this location the ships coming from the south had to unload their goods within the framework of the stacking right and offer them for sale in Mainz. The Mainz shipyard was also located here. Many of the residents Vilzbachs were therefore also in the guild of boatmen represented, also a part of the timber trade took place here at the gates of Mainz.

As part of the reorganization of the Mainz annual trade fairs (1748), the Vilzbacher Weinmarkt was moved to the city and there between the two cranes in front of the then newly built warehouse.

Destruction and Resettlement in the Thirty Years' War

During the Thirty Years' War Mainz was under Swedish rule between 1631 and 1635 . Shortly before the siege of Mainz by imperial troops in 1635, Vilzbach was burned down by the Swedes for strategic reasons. The residents were encouraged to move to the neighboring area of ​​the old Mainz district of Selenhofen in today's Ignazviertel . There was enough living space as the population of Mainz had declined by about half due to war and plague . After this resettlement, the newer name Vilzbach was adopted for the urban area of ​​Selenhofen, which was then used until the 20th century.

The Vilzbach in modern times

St. Ignaz Church

The city district was limited on the southwest corner of the city by the fortifications around the wooden tower . To the east, it stretched up today's Holzstraße to the Graben and to the south it encompassed the area around today's Kapuziner and Neutorstraße . As a synonym for the Vilzbach district, the term Ignazviertel, named after the St. Ignaz church located there, is sometimes to be found.

Vilzbach was the seat of the boatmen's guild, which with its 50 members (second half of the 16th century) played a prominent role among the Mainz guilds. Since then and until after the Second World War, “the Vilzbach” was the proverbial “Altmainzer Stadtviertel”. In the course of the renovation of Mainz's old town south of the cathedral in the 1970s, however, extensive demolition and construction work was carried out and, as a result, larger population shifts, so that today hardly any long-established Mainz residents live in this quarter.

In the local history of Mainz, many of the district's traditions have been handed down to this day. Traditionally, the “Vilzbachers” considered themselves the “true Mainzers”. Deviations between the Vilzbach dialect and the general Mainz dialect have also been handed down. Holding on to older village traditions, a “Vilzbächer curb” was celebrated in midsummer until the time before the Second World War, as is otherwise only customary in rural communities. The focal point of the festival was the hotel "Zum Schwarzen Bären" in Holzstrasse, in whose courtyard a notch tree was set up and decorated.

The Vilzbach population also clearly distinguished itself from the socially higher-ranking residents of the neighboring district, the so-called "Black Quarter". According to some authors, these were the houses near the cathedral , the residents of which belonged partly to the clergy and partly to employees of the church in Mainz. Others suspect the ill-reputed people from the Hinterer Bleiche in the Mainz Bleichenviertel and other dark alleys directly on the city ​​wall . Typical of the Vilzbach and its residents is the so-called Vilzbach song, which the well-known Mainz carnivalist, author of dialect antics, but also specialist book author and founder of the Mainz volunteer fire department , Carl Joseph Anton Weiser (1811–1865) in the middle of 19th century rhymed in Mainz-Vilzbach dialect:

The Vilzbach is the most beautiful Verdel,
strong leaders live there.
It's like that, like the vum Schwarze Verdel,
mer knows it far and wide.
....

In the manuscript collection of the Scientific City Library in Mainz , the possibly first autograph record of the Vilzbach song was discovered and published in 2019.

Web links

Commons : Kapuzinerstraße Mainz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In detail Ronald Knöchlein: Mainz - Between Römern and Bonifatius. Settlement finds from the Merovingian period. P. 12 ff.
  2. ^ Johann Peter Schunk: Contributions to the History of Mainz , Volume II Mainz 1789, p. 387.
  3. ↑ The Mainz City Wall Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz e. V.
  4. ^ Johann Peter Schunk: Contributions to the History of Mainz , Volume II Mainz 1789, p. 390.
  5. ↑ Heiner Stauder: The suburbs on the left bank of the Rhine from the early Middle Ages to the 19th century, p. 607 in: Dumont, Scherf and Schütz (eds.): Geschichte der Stadt Mainz, 1990.
  6. ↑ after Schramm, p. 197.
  7. ^ Helmuth Mathy: The Residence in Baroque and Enlightenment (1648–1792), p. 277 in: Dumont, Scherf and Schütz (ed.): History of the City of Mainz, 1990.
  8. ↑ after Gierlichs and von Roesgen, pp. 40–41.
  9. ↑ Annelen Ottermann: The song of the most beautiful quarter. The discovery of a previously unknown handwritten tradition of the Vilzbach song by Carl Weiser , MAINZ Quarterly Issues for History Culture Politics Economy 39 (2019), no. 4, pp. 82–86 [1]

Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 38.5 ″  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 50.2 ″  E