Prestigeobjekte der Fischer, Schiffer und Flößer an oberer Donau und Main im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert

Abstract

Six faience jugs on display at the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum serve as examples of the importance of privately owned objects bearing guild marks, a topic hitherto ignored by research. Guild marks, especially on drinking vessels, rendered the latter objects of prestige, and reflect a strict system of social rank and representation among the guild masters: In their eyes, the most magnificent items were the faience jugs with their brilliant colours. Only merchants used even more valuable works of goldsmithery or glass goblets for private occasions. If the guild masters worked on the water, they belonged to the same guild in every harbour town on the Main and the Danube, yet distinguished themselves from most other masters in that their work was far more diversified and their voyages of very different lengths. These varied activities of fishing and shipping masters, reflecting different levels of social rank, were represented by different guild marks. Recognized and understood by all at that time, they fell into obscurity when the guilds were dissolved in the mid nineteenth century; here their meaning is rediscovered. The collection at the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum includes not only an example once owned by a member of the highest-ranking group - the shipmen in distant trade - who was also active in rafting and the wood trade, but also jugs once belonging to fishermen operating only within a limited local framework, as well as cargo shipmen only active on short voyages. The jugs also show the expenses the masters were willing to go to for these status symbols, ranging from individually ordered jugs to objects selected from mass-produced series. Wherever possible, the municipal fishermen and shipmen lived on the water front in order to have direct boat access to their property. Originally, authorization to fish was closely associated with these parcels of land. It can be shown that, even before the development of the medieval municipal constitution, fishermen were the subjects of a local landlord who owned the fishing grounds, and were compelled not only to supply him with fish but also to transport goods and people across the water. They also had to build their own boats, maintain them and keep them at the ready. The variety of professional occupations typical of the fishing and shipmen guilds thus predates the formation of those guilds by a long period.