A Village Dance Ritual in Lower Franconia (Bavaria)

Extract

In Lower Franconia an annual event has existed for more than 300 years in which dance is the most important element. This paper focuses on three villages where this event is still important to the community—Gochsheim, Sennfeld and Schwebheim. These villages are situated in the south and southeast of the city of Schweinfurt and within three kilometers of the city boundary. Gochsheim (60007000 inhabitants) was first mentioned in a deed of donation for the monastery of Fulda in 796, and the population lived until the Second World War on vegetable gardening. During the last fifty years the sources of income changed almost completely, the farmers decreased while public servants, employees and workers increased (Zeilein 1982: 22). A similar situation is found in the smaller village Sennfeld (4000-5000 inhabitants), also one of the oldest villages of Franconia and documented since 1094. Here too the sources of income traditionally came from vegetable gardening but only a few self-supporting farms still exist. Even today, however, both villages supply trading-centres and canneries of the region with their produce. Slightly different is the situation in the third village Schwebheim (3000-4000 inhabitants), which was part of the property of the Barons von Bibra. In earlier times this village was the only German village in which the principal products came from the cultivation of medicinal herbs. Today, only a few farmers still produce these herbs. Common to all three villages is that they have a small Catholic population and church and a larger Protestant population and church. The histories of the villages indicate that until the end of the nineteenth century the population was almost exclusively Protestant, even though they are situated in the middle of the archdiocese of Wuerzburg.