Handschuhsheim, Heidelberg in the 1840s
"This village is built in the same massy style as the others we passed through, and, indeed, as German villages in general. Almost every house has its great round gateway,…
From: 1840 C.E. To: 1842 C.E.
Location: Handschuhsheim, Heidelberg, Germany
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“First Impressions Continued—German Villages and Their People,” Part 1, from The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany by William Howitt, 1842.
Amongst those things which make a vivid impression on strangers in a new country, the abodes, habits, and pursuits of the country people are not only some of the very first, but the most interesting. You have there simple nature in the character which it has worn for ages. You speedily penetrate, unobstructed by forms and conventional novelties, into the whole circle and system of their existence, and feel a lively sympathy with those who make so large a proportion of the people of the land, especially as you compare their form of life and comforts with those of the same class in your own country.
Here too we cannot help admitting the idea that we behold a picture, no doubt much refined and improved, comparatively rude as it yet remains, of the life of those Saxons who emigrated in such swarms into England, and have left us so many traces in our laws, speech, and opinions, of their once lordship there.
Early in July, soon after our arrival, we walked to Handschuhsheim, a farming village about two miles from Heidelberg, on the Darmstadt road, at the foot of the hills, and on the edge of the great corn plain. This village affords many glimpses of the rural life of this country; and it and the others which follow, with all the scenes and people belonging to them, may be taken as specimens of tens of thousands scattered through Germany, many of which, in all parts, we have since seen.
This village is built in the same massy style as the others we passed through, and, indeed, as German villages in general. Almost every house has its great round gateway, as if bearing evidence of the Saxon love of those round heavy arches which are the distinguishing feature of the ecclesiastical architecture of their ancestors; and most have their ample farm-yard. All German houses are large; space seems no object.
Through the whole place there is a curious mixture of rudeness and attempt at ornament. Most houses are heavy and rude, and weather-worn; but others, again, bright, neatly painted, and their upper windows filled with gay flowering plants. Here an old framed house painted up in the most tawdry flaunting manner, in imitation of yellow and red marble, and of Corinthian pillars. Here quantities of little funny children sitting in the dust, with bare legs, and the girls with plaited tails of hair reaching down their backs.
The village is wonderfully supplied with streams of water, which, like all their villages at the foot of hills, are furnished with fountains in the shape of ever-running pumps, and large stone troughs or receiving-basins, on which are painted boards, warning every one against muddying or defiling the water. At these fountains, or brunnens, the women, as they always are, were plentifully congregated. In fact, they are the great gossiping places of the village. Accordingly Goethe, the great painter of German life, brings Gretchen, in his "Faust," there in her trouble and impending disgrace, and makes her hear news which strikes sensibly home to her own condition. She and another damsel, Lieschen, appear at the brunnen with their jugs. Here the conversation winch fills her with so much trouble, commences in true gossip style: thus—
Lieschen. Hast thou heard nothing about Barbelchen? Gretchen. Not a word. I go so very little out of doors. Lieschen. 'Tis fact: Sybilla told it me to-day. She's played the fool herself at last— And so end all her fine and lady airs!
These streams are also made to turn mills, whose large wheels were revolving in the street. Both women and men were very civil; the latter doffing their caps, and all, as you passed, saluting you with "good-day."
Everywhere vines were trained. They are grown on the sides of the houses, and at the upper story are carried out in the manner of a verandah, by large iron stays. They are carried by frames of wood over narrow lanes, and entrances to yards; over sheds and hovels; every possible spot is made useful. They are grown even on the walls of the church, and those of the churchyard were lined with them.
We entered this churchyard at Handschuhsheim, and though I shall give a particular notice of the characteristics of German churchyards, we may here take a passing view of this, as forming part and parcel of a German Dorf. It exhibited the same mixture of rudeness and adornment as the rest of the village. At the head of almost every recent grave stood a slight wooden cross, the triangular ones being catholic; and, indeed, these black crosses stand thickly in all such places. On many were planted roses and other flowers. Some were fenced round with a trellis, and planted with carnations. But at the same time the bones of the dead lay about in a shocking manner. Where graves had been newly made, fragments of bone, numbers of teeth, and even sculls nearly whole, remained on the surface. We observed, at the base of the church, a large hole, descending into a vault, which had a strange appearance.
Some of the epitaphs were curious. There was one written on a paper which was framed and glazed, and set upon a slight strip of wood, which might altogether have been carried away very readily in one's hand. One epitaph in its general use appeared to be the parallel of that universal one in England, beginning—
Weep not for me, my parents dear, I am not dead, but sleeping here.
I copied this specimen of it from a little oval tablet, surrounded by a sprigged border, on a carnation-planted grave.
Magdelena heis ich von dieser Welt abreis ich, ich sag meinem Vater, Mutter, und Schwestern, gute nacht; Ich will sehen was Jesus macht.
That is, "Magdalene I am called. From this world I travel. I say to my father, mother, and sisters, good night; I will see what Jesus does."
The orthography and grammar of this and the rest are exactly on a par with those of our country churchyards. They do not strike us with any splendid evidence of the effects of modern popular education in Germany. Here is another.
Fruh, zu fruh, bist du von uns geschieden Fruh umschlost dich stille grabesnacht Schlummre sanft bis zu dem Evigden Frieden Einst mit uns dein frommer Geist erwacht.
"Early, too early, hast thou departed from us; early did the still grave-night enclose thee. Sleep softly, till one day thy pious spirit shall awake with us to the everlasting peace."
This was to Anna Barbara somebody, who died in her youth.
Near the east end of the church we observed a tombstone with a large heart-shaped escutcheon, and on it an outspread hand. On the church door, and again on a door in the village, we observed the same. This was, we found, the crest of the ancient lords of the place, a glove or handschuh, from which the place takes its name. At the farther end of the village are the remains of the old castle of the lords of Handschuhsheim, or in English, Gloveham, where, some time ago, occurred this singular circumstance.
The clergyman was walking in the ruins with the proprietor, when striking upon a wall with his stick, and remarking that it sounded hollow, workmen were sent for, who broke into the wall, and found a narrow cell, in which was seated the skeleton of an ancient knight in his armour, who, in some former age, had probably been taken captive by his mortal enemies, the owners of the castle, and there built up alive. The armour was complete, and is now preserved at Carlsruhe, but the bones soon crumbled to dust.
Howitt, William. The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842.
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