oldenburg-l - Nachricht 2006-08 00064

[W. Fred Rump <fredrump(a)gmail.com>]

On 8/20/06, Margot King <margot.king(a)ca.inter.net> wrote:
> Although I know that the topics of Heuerleute and Leibzucht have been
> covered on several occasions over the past few years, I am still not
> sure how I should characterize  Meyer-Holzgrefe in Bokern, Damme where
> my Bergmann and Handorf ancestors came from.

Werner's link is an excellent resource on the whole topic but one must
warn that history was local back then and circumstances in one area do
not necessarily translate for another. In general, the Heuersystem
grew out of the need to keep farms whole. Only one heir could inherit
the farm and the rest of the children had to either marry into another
farm, settle as field hands on the parent farm or become Heuerleute
(somewhere) if they wanted to marry and have children of their own.
Once the switch to Heuermann was made it was extremely difficult to
reverse the process for the children. They simply took on the status
of their parents and made do as best they could. The only opening was
a marriage into an existing heirloom.

As the link illustrates, the Leibzucht was a somewhat open ended
affair but it always would have started out as a status for the aging
parents who needed a place to live as their heir needed the space for
his own family. We need to place an image of the typical farmhouse
into our consciousness. It contained a few cubicles for sleeping and a
large room which served for everything else. This room was simply the
other side of the stable where the animals lived in the same house.
The roof was vented to allow the smoke form the open fire or fireplace
to escape but cooking was pretty much out in the open. The village
museum of Cloppenburg contains 50 buildings which were removed to
there from their original locations. They show what living was like in
the 16th to 20th century. Many of the buildings shown are the biggest
and grandest farm houses ever built in the Oldenburger Münsterland but
even the noble estate house is not the castle one might expect but
rather a large farm house with some amenities. Sadly the website does
not show much of what exists there. I guess they want you to visit in
person instead. http://www.museumsdorf.de

Since I'm off on a sidetrack - only the very largest of farmhouses
contained a separating wall between the animals and the living
quarters. The Quatmannshof in the Cloppenburg museum is one of these
very large houses. It was built in 1803 in Elsten in the parish of
Cappeln. What we have here is basically three sleeping rooms each
containing a number of alcoves where one would retreat to for the
night. Then there were two rooms  and the Flett or open area. The
Flett was were the wall was which cut the building off from the stable
area where the help slept over the cows. The Flett wall had a
fireplace with a chimney where all the meals were prepared and
basically were all activity happened. There was one other room behind
the wall with the animals which served as a communal living room for
the help which worked the farm. Now this was fancy living folks. The
typical farm in 1790 was described thusly: 'most farmhouses do not
have chimneys which is why everything always looks so black. People,
clothing, linnens, the food and the feed are smoked thru and thru. The
air is unclean, choking and harmful to the eyes.'

Anyway, one can imagine the sanitary state, the sickness and early
deaths resulting from these conditions and we are talking of farms
here. The Heuerleute lived in another level of accomodations. A
bakehouse, a stable, anything would do until the farmer erected
something with four walls designed for human living with the animals.

Fred








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Fred Rump,  Beverly, NJ also
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