Buildings and identities – University of Konstanz Workshop on Urban Culture in the Late Middle Ages
12. December 2007
Konstanz, 12 December 2007: The phenomenon of mobility is not restricted to the modern era. The urban culture of the Late Middle Ages was characterized by a degree of mobility that is difficult to imagine today. In order to successfully integrate with the local community, newcomers to urban centers had to be prepared to discard elements of their previous identities and adopt a new local identity. This reconfiguration of identity was expressed in clothing, housing and tools, and in the names and symbols that newcomers consciously adopted in association with their house.
The “Gender, names and marriage” project unites a group of experts on the Middle Ages from the University of Konstanz which includes Prof. Dr. Gabriela Signori, Dr. Christof Rolker, Karin Czaja and Kathrin Stutz. The focus of the project is the formation of social identity in urban societies of the Late Middle Ages. The workshop “Buildings and Identities” provided the scholars in Konstanz with the opportunity to tighten the focus of this research project in co-operation with a number of guests including Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Gilomen (Zurich University), Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schmid (University of Trier) und Dr. Oliver Richard (University of Strasbourg). The workshop also provided a welcome opportunity to intensify the international dialogue with academics from Switzerland and France. The project is supported by the Center of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration” at the University of Konstanz.
Buildings as carriers of identity
The significance of house names as stable elements of identification grew in the Late Middle Ages. This was particularly pertinent to landlords; while the occupants of a house might come and go, the name remained. The authorities, on the other hand, taxed the individual occupants and not the building as a whole. This relationship between the economic system, the townhouse and the individual reveals the distinctions made between these entities in the cities of the Late Middle Ages.
But house names and surnames were not wholly exclusive signs – the two were often used interchangeably. Tenants frequently adopted their house names or re-named their houses after their place of origin for example. This practice of re-naming houses hints at the vital role played by houses and house names in the creation of urban identity.
The links between Bürgerhäuser, house names and identity are particularly evident in the culture of the urban upper classes. Some, like Strasbourg’s zu der Megede family, chose to pass the name of their stately home down from generation to generation. Others, such as the Münch family in Basel, gave their family names to their homes. Both practices highlight the role of the Bürgerhaus as a vital element in the “subject culture” of the Late Middle Ages.
House names and cultures of memory
Charitable donations were another way for wealthy citizens to ensure that they would be remembered by future generations. As Gabriela Signori explained, building complexes donated to the municipality usually carried their donor’s name. The Fuggerei in Augsburg is an example of this practice. The complex is a walled-enclave of housing for indigent persons built in the period 1514-1523. Charitable donations were an especially popular means of securing the memory of the family name among childless upper-class families. Donors did not always commission the erection of new buildings and it was more common to simply donate already existing buildings. In Basel, for example, Ludwig Kilchmann and his son Hans donated their possessions, including their family house in the suburb of Kleinbasel, to a shelter for the poor. In the Late Middle Ages almost every large city in the Empire was home to at least one of these shelters, which provided pilgrims with accommodation.
The donations ranged from the creation of poor houses, to the establishment of shelters for converted Jews and accommodation for ageing servants or tradesmen. The practice of commissioning almshouses, churches and hospitals has its origins in the 13th and 14th centuries. These institutions for impoverished nuns and padres were established on the condition that the inhabitants pray for the donor’s soul.
What all of these institutions had in common was their donor’s desire to see their property – sometimes even their family estates - used for charitable purposes. “The intense identification between the owner and the house,” explained Gabriela Signori, “was reflected in the relationship between the donor and the building’s new occupants, who were often required to pray to the memory of the donor several times daily.” The donations were also an expression of a culture in which the impoverished continued to play a significant role. The impoverished of the Late Middle Ages were not marginalized. Instead, they had their place in the center of society, in the Bürgerhäuser.