Alsfeld

On the return bus ride to Freiburg, the experiences of the cultural trip to Thuringia in Meiningen, Gotha, and Kochberg were still fresh in our minds when our driver announced a lunch break at Alsfeld, Hesse.

In the Middle Ages and early modern times, this small town lay on the trade route between Frankfurt and Leipzig and was therefore wealthy. However, as elsewhere in Germany, the situation changed abruptly with the devastations of the Thirty Years' War.

But here it was neither the Imperial nor the Swedish forces, but the North Hessian brothers who brutally attacked Alsfeld, the town in Hesse-Darmstadt. The Hessian-Kassel troops beleaguered Alsfeld, blew a breach in the medieval wall, and set the town on fire. "Thirty buildings were set alight by grenades thrown into them; all the suburbs were razed to the ground and 200 houses were demolished." Subsequently, Alsfeld degenerated into a farming hamlet.

  

©Otto Rohse/Wikipedia

The old glory of Alsfeld becomes evident in its preserved, half-timbered, and richly decorated stone buildings that even adorn German postage stamps.

Our guide told us the following legend about the origin of the town's name: Around the year 1200, the Landgrave of Hesse-Thuringia was riding across the Vogelsberg. On a hill near the present town, the Homberg, a strong wind blew the count's hat off his head. He remarked, "Als* fells my hat off my head (Als fällt [> Alsfeld] mir der Hut vom Kopp)." Hurray, this pun can be translated.
*"Als" is Upper Hessian for "always."

During our tour, we passed the remains of the Medieval wall, against which the Augustinian monastery nestled. In 1522, the Augustinian monk Tilemann Schnabel, a friend of Martin Luther, preached the Reformation from the top of this wall. 

The courtyard of the former Augustinian monastery.

The ruling Landgrave was not amused and ordered Schnabel to leave town. However, in 1525, the citizens voted for the return of their beloved preacher, and subsequently, the Alsfelders converted to the "new" religion.

Alsfeld is located on the Fairy Tale Road, which runs from Bremen to Hanau in Hesse. Therefore, the town features a fairytale house offering special entertainment for children. The late Vicepresident of the Museumsgesellschaft would have enjoyed the view.

The Minnigerode patrician stone house was built in 1687 in baroque style. Note the rich wood carving.

On our way to Alsfeld's market square, we passed Pius Bucket's butcher shop.

The town hall is Alsfeld's most famous landmark. It is a so-called Rähmbau, i.e., a several-storied construction.

The ground floor was used as a market hall.

The Weinhaus was built in 1538 to store and sell wine. Note the stepped gable decorated with rosettes.

The parish church of Walpurgis. Our guide is in full action.

A Lutheran church.

Christ is my life, and dying is my gain.

An impressive epitaph of 1632 for Senator Justus Stumpf and his wife Susanna Bucking, both names latinized. The couple had ten children, four boys, four girls - one unmarried without the bonnet - and two stillborns. Click to enlarge for the two squaddled babies below their eight siblings.

Due to the small size of the churchyard, older bones had to make way for the new dead. This chapel, built in the late Gothic style in 1386, served as an ossuary to store these bones. Since 1982, the historic building has been used as the town archives.

In the square in front of the chapel is an iron cage where, in the Middle Ages, miscreants were locked up and exposed to public ridicule.

We had lunch on the market square at the Wedding House, built in Renaissance style between 1564 and 1571.

I finished my lunch drinking a Pharisee, i.e., a hot drink made from sweetened coffee, brown rum, and a dollop of whipped cream.

On the way back to the bus, we read that Alsfeld has been a European model town for monument preservation for 50 years.

©Osthessen News

Another postal stamp pays witness.

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