The Infirm People in the Field

Die Siechen im Felde was the title of a talk given by Freiburg's archeologist, Dr. Bertram Jenisch, and anthropologist, Carola Berszin M.A., describing the findings of recent disinterments at the site of the Medieval leprosarium, the Gutleutehaus (good people's house).

©B. Jenisch

This infirmary was located south of the city walls in the fields at a street fork with the road to Basel.

©Amt für Denkmalspflege

The area was built over in the late 19th century. Workmen found a human skeleton when digging for new construction and called the police.

It turned out that the deterred bones originated from the 13th century. The known history of the place is as follows:

1251: First mention of the Freiburg Gutleutehaus (domus pauporum leprosariums de Friburch)

1256: Pope Alexander IV asks the Bishop of Constance* to grant the domus leprosum a chaplain, a campana (bell), and a cimiterium (cemetery).
*Up to the middle of the 19th century, Freiburg belonged to the bishopric of Constance

1268 Albertus Magnus, Lesemeister (lecturer) at Freiburg's Dominican monastery, consecrates the local chapel.

1632 On the occasion of their first siege of Freiburg, Swedish troops burned the site that most likely was not reconstructed. Before the Swedes blew the final attack, the city had the white flag raised on the Snail Tower and bargained an accord (agreed to surrender) on December 29.

Blue: The fortifications Vauban had built around the city
and up the Schlossberg at the end of the 17th century.
Red: The system of trenches (approaches) the besieging French
had dug to approach the city walls. The small circle surrounds the area
of the former Gutleutehaus.
Note: The French had to conquer fortifications
their compatriot had constructed 50 years before. 

1744 Burial place for the Frenchmen killed during the siege and storming of Freiburg.

At the "Siechen in Felde," archeologists dug out skeletons marked by leprosy from the Middle Ages. Also, they found superimposed a mass grave of Frenchmen in an upper layer killed during the siege of Freiburg in 1744. The approaches ran through the former cemetery of the Gutleutehaus and were filled with the corpses of the fallen soldiers. 

           Grave good: a rosary (©B. Jenisch) 

Anthropologists are just at the beginning of their investigation of Medieval bones but have already identified diseases such as tuberculosis, bone infections, bone tumors, inflammation of the middle ear, and syphilitic changes.

From these preliminary findings, it looks as if the French disease was not brought in from the New World via Naples, but was already indigenous in Europe, i.e., history books would have to be rewritten.

How exciting, or did they mix the bones from the Middle Ages with those of 1744?

It all remains suspenseful.

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