Sunday, February 24, 2013

Translation, anyone?

A friend who knows about my dog-barding project shared this with me and it cracked me up.  Seriously, barding on a cow?!  Wow.  Sadly I do not read German at all so I have no idea why on earth this manuscript is showing such a thing, but it's pretty entertaining.  If anyone out there can translate the inscription I would really appreciate it!

At least I now know putting barding on my chihuahua is not that ridiculous an idea after all!
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3 comments:

  1. juliMarch 10, 2013 at 10:39 PM

    What an intriguing picture! I'll give it a try. (If I can crack the script.) Can you send me the link please!

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  2. HeidiMarch 12, 2013 at 7:22 AM

    Here is the link for the manuscript page - http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg77/0139 Again with the German. I would have run the text through Google translate but because of the language issue the script was giving me fits. Thanks for any help you can offer!

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  3. MariaJune 1, 2013 at 12:07 PM

    I came across your page today while looking for inspiration for my mid-15th-century houpeland. As a native speaker I was intrigued by the "riddle" but I still had trouble deciphering the fractura.

    Still, I could make out the following German words (in the order they appear, dots indicate a single word I could not read):

    "Das fürstlich [...] und Nachschießen so auch der Durchleuttig hochgeborn Fürst unnd Herr Herzog Christoff zu Wirttenberg und zu [...], Grave zu Mumpellgart gehallten hat darzu [...] eine Ochsen zum Besten gab, 30 Dt wertt unnd mit einner Seidenen Decke uberzogenn."

    There is another full sentence after that which I could not read, but the information I gleaned from the fragment above is enough to know what the picure is about - and to google it.

    The manuscript the illustration came from is a report about the most popular sporting event of the area: the armbrust (crossbow) target shooting competition in the city of Stuttgart, 1560. The event was sponsored by Herzog Christoph von Wuerttemberg (1515-1568). After the main competion there was another round, the so-called "Nachschiessen". The main prize donated by Herzog Christoph was an ox worth 30 Dukaten, with a silken caparison. The animal was paraded down the line of cheering spectators and then stood near the shooting lane until the lucky winner could take it home with him.
    Source: "Wuerttemberg wie es war und ist" by Ernst Sues and other books about Wuerttemberg's history that mention the Armbrustschiessen.

    Result: Putting barding on an ox was not uncommon if said ox was a prize. There are lots of references to other crossbow shooting events where the sponsor chose a cow or an ox for the common people who were participating.

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