Bustletown Regensburg

MAGYARUL

Four hundred years ago, Hans Georg Bahre, a renown engraver from Regensburg created the monumental Danubian landscape, ‘Abriß (Anschicht) der Stadt Regensburg östlich und westlich der Steinernen Brücke’, which shows with such detail, accuracy and authenticity what life was like in one of the most important political and economic cities on the Danube in the 17th century. It has been used as an illustration in many works on the history of Regensburg ever since. It is also an important source of hydrology, as the Danube provides the lower frame throughout the picture and even a long-vanished Danube islands appear.

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Hans Georg Bahre (1586-1646) unknowingly combined the Bustletown books of Rotraut Suzanne Berner and Richard Scarry' Busytown. Just like in these books, we move from the suburbs towards the city centre and we list the inhabitants of the city by their crafts. It doesn't really matter who lived first, who knew whose work, but like the authors of children's books, Bahre has done a thorough job, so thorough that if we wanted to illuminate the background to his entire oeuvre, it would not be a blog post but a p.H.d of local history written with scholarly rigour. In its heyday, Regensburg was one of the largest, most populous and most important cities in Central Europe, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, an important Danube crossing point where no ferrymen had to be bothered with wagons and carts on their ferries, but a massive stone bridge arched over the river, concentrating a considerable amount of trade traffic between the north and south in the free imperial city bordering the Danube for two kilometers.

The purpose of the picture was not to entertain children, but to represent the wealth, grandeur and importance of Regensburg, and for practical reasons it was appropriate to use the Danube as the main viewpoint, the main commercial artery of the city, where most of the trade took place. Like in Richard Scarry's Busytown, this image is easy to navigate, for two reasons; the notable buildings, such as churches, towers and farm buildings, were inscribed, and the second reason is prosaic, as most of the notable buildings are still to be found in Regensburg today. It is also an important historical source for buildings that have since disappeared, such as the two demolished towers of the Stone Bridge.

The term monumental is not an exaggeration, the parameters of the drawing are impressive, with a length of 8 meters and a width of 40 centimeters, a format similar to ancient papyrus scrolls. It is divided into two four-meter sections, the centre being the famous Stone Bridge, where the image breaks slightly. The 8-meter-long image on Wikipedia has been broken down into 18 separate images, which makes it less enjoyable, but certainly more manageable for those who cannot go to the Bavarian State Library in Munich to see it in person. In this publication, picture 18 is not included, as Prüfening and the Naab estuary, several kilometers from Regensburg, are already included in a somewhat exaggerated way, as the Mariaorter Wöhrd is missing, for example, and the style is somewhat different from the rest of the image.

A particular feature of Regensburg's Danube side is the conflict between the city's defence and economic interests. Already the Roman fortress of Castra Regina, built in 175 AD, had one side of the Danube, the northern (shorter) wall of the rectangular legionary camp opposite the estuary of the Regen river was approximately 450 meters long, joined on two sides by civilian suburbs. On this Danube wall, facing north, stood a huge gate, the Porta Praetoria, whose ruins, preserved at a height of one storey, are among the most important Roman landmarks in Regensburg. In addition to the gate towers and the corner towers, several smaller towers punctuated the walls of the legionary camp. After the end of Roman rule, although there was a lack of continuity in the population, the fortress was settled by Bavarian tribes within its remaining walls as early as the 6th century and soon became an important centre of power once again. In 920, the first duke of Bavaria, Arnulf, extended the city walls, enclosing the western outskirts as far as the present-day Eiserner Steg footbridge. Masons extended the Danube wall to 700 meters. Another four centuries later, another extension of the fortifications became necessary, as one of Europe's most populous cities was now home to around 40,000 people. New suburbs were built to the east and west of the Arnulfian walls, and in 1320 they were added to the old city core. This meant that Regensburg's 15-towered walls followed the Danube for two kilometers, but the distance between the walls and the river was no more than a few tens of meters, where defence and economic interests clashed, since all the goods traffic on the Danube had to be carried out at the base of the city walls and entered through a relatively large number of gates and passages. In fact, there is a tower (Kräncherturm) on the city wall which was used for the economy and topped by a crane structure.

In Bahre's view of Regensburg, in front of the city walls of Regensburg, we see quays built all along the city walls, with piles and beams to make them suitable for economic activity. In this narrow area, we can observe six distinct wharves for major commodities, which have survived to the present day in the form of districts or street names, despite the fact that, with few exceptions, Regensburg's city walls were demolished in 1856. Their common characteristic is that they belonged to the part of the city west of the Stone Bridge. Of all the products, salt had the most significant impact on the townscape, the old, not much smaller building is located on the other side of the new salt warehouse, the Salzstadel next to the Stone Bridge. To the west the meat market quay comes next, which was accessed via the Fleischtor, followed by the fishermen's huts, and next to it is the Weinlände quay, which was accessed via the Weintor to the wine market within the wall (Am Weinmarkt), as it is still called today. To the west was the wharf of the ironmongers and timber merchants (Holzlände), iron goods were transported by ship from the mines and smelters around Amberg, while timber was relatively plentiful in the area around the city, but the reason for the wharf was mainly that it was easier to float logs on the Danube to Regensburg. We can see industry dangling like shells on pebbles on the eastern piers of the Stone Bridge, but economic activity can also be observed to the east, with a gunpowder mill harnessing the Danube's hydroelectric power in the foreground of the surviving Eastern Gate at the base of the city wall.

Before we move on to the Danube itself, it is worth observing the figures who populate the picture, both men and women, and all social classes. As with modern wimmelbooks, you can also discover animals, both wild and domestic. The author, Hans Georg Bahre, even depicted himself among his peers in Figure 17, initialled H.G.B. There are fishermen walking their dogs, anglers sitting on the shore, merchants haggling on the quayside, stevedores huddled under their full puttons, horsemen towing boats against the tide, or women washing clothes by the brick manufactury, with ducks and other fowl wandering about. The vegetation is also remarkable, although the town itself is mostly treeless, with some waterfront stumps harvested by basket weavers in the outskirts, but it is interesting that they have allowed larger trees to grow on the lower parts of the piers of the Stone Bridge.

As the Stone Bridge has given the city its economic importance, it is no coincidence that the pride of Regensburg is prominently featured on Bahre's picture. As the image of the bridge has changed over the centuries, it has become much simpler, even puritanical, and has lost its baroque bustle. In 1809, the northern Black Tower in Stadtamhof was demolished due to war damage, while the central tower marking the border between the two towns was destroyed by an icy flood in the 1780s. In 1630, both were still standing in all their glory. The bridge had two distinct faces, mainly due to the devastating icy floods. On the west side of the bridge's piers, huge blocks of stone served as icebreakers, breaking up the ice blocks that attacked the bridge. This was extremely important for the protection of the bridge, because the architectural possibilities of the 1130s meant that the bridge's arches had relatively limited permeability, even in summer, causing the Danube to swell, and the water level was harnessed by the water wheels of the wooden huts on the south side, which would be as futile to search for today as trees would be left to grow on bridge piers. From the bridge, as today, a side bridge led to the island called Oberer Wöhrd (Upper Island).

If there was an upper island, there had to be a lower one, and this was accessed by a wooden bridge (Die Hülzern Prucken) built east of the Stone Bridge. The lifespan of the Wooden Bridge was greatly increased by the Stone Bridge's icebreakers, the broken ice slabs probably caused less damage and the pillars did not have to be rebuilt after every icy flood. Regarding the Regensburg material names, a new bridge was built in 1863 to replace the wooden one destroyed in February 1784, and was simply called the Eiserne Brücke (Iron Bridge). In 1630, between the two bridges, we see a water control structure in the Danube, about 300 meters long, built of wooden planks and littered with stones to make it easier for sailors to moor in the blocked area.

The most important detail in Bahre's picture for this blog is the first two pictures. In addition to the two large Wöhrd that still exist today, there is also a now-vanished island, the Bruder Wöhrd on tha right riverbank, in the eastern suburbs of Regensburg. The first two pictures show two separate islands, only one of which has a name. The dried up and waterlogged riverbeds, the bridge spanning over them, are documented in incredible detail with ducks, bushes and bank protection works. The location of this island can no longer be reconstructed, nor can the church of St Nicholas, for whose monks the island is presumably named.

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Situation of each section on a XVII. century map of Regensburg.

So this is what a short stretch of the Danube must have looked like four centuries ago, this is how people lived on its urban banks, and looking at the pictures you think, if only there was a similar one of every town on the Danube!

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The images with higher resolution can be found on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Abri%C3%9F_der_Stadt_Regensburg_%281630%29?uselang=de

Icy Flood in the Sausage Kitchen

MAGYARUL

At the end of the winter of 1893, the owner was forced to repaint his 'Wurstküche' at the foot of the Salt Barn in Regensburg's old town for the second time in a decade after the oddly shaped small building was inundated by the icy floodwaters of the Danube. Along with the renovation, Fritz Schricker had another flood sign made, this time not inside the restaurant's guest area, but outside on the western wall outside, and even had his own name engraved in ornate Gothic letters. It is a recent custom at that time, for if the owners of the restaurant had had a flood sign made after every major flood on the Danube, Fritz Schricker's 1893 flood sign - a little exaggeratedly - would not have fit on the wall. Neither inside nor outside.

Fritz Schricker's memory is preserved along with the flood level in his restaurant, which was owned by the same family until 1990. And since 1893, six more flood levels have been added to one of the world's oldest restaurants, a sausage kitchen called the Historische Wurstküche, or Wurstkuchl as it is spelled in the local dialect. The terrace at Weiße-Lamm-Gasse 3 offers a spectacular view over the Danube, the northern tip of the island of Unterer Wöhrd, with Oberer Wöhrd behind it, the Stone Bridge (built between 1135 and 1146) to the left, and the huge, four-century-old Salt Barn to the west. Despite its central location, the Wurstkuchl was a suburban building in the strictest sense of the word, being outside the Danube-side city walls built after 1320, until 1856, when the city finally succeeded in having the ancient walls, which had been maintained at great expense, demolished. However, the demolition of the wall would have been problematic in the case of the Wurstkuchl, because the back wall of the restaurant was the city wall itself, so a piece of the old Regensburg city wall still stands on this section, commemorated by a plaque. Its 'suburban' location meant that while the imperial city of Regensburg was protected by thick walls from the Danube flooding, the Wurstkuchl was flooded by practically all major floods, but the owners still considered it worth the trouble of saving the equipment and drying out the wet walls, as the oldest crossing of the Danube still standing today provided enough traffic to restart the business again and again. 

The eternal recurrence at this point on the Danube is understandable in a literal sense, just as a sensible person can build on flood plains if he calculates that the expected benefits will outweigh the expected losses. It is uncertain when the first restaurant was built on this site, but there are sources that workers on the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) used to come here for lunch almost 900 years ago. In 1293, the city council of Regensburg decided to build a wall around the outskirts of the city, extending beyond the Arnulfian walls. The southern inland section was completed by 1320, after which the river bank was fortified, with a two-kilometer stretch of city wall, divided by 15 towers. Immediately east of the Stone Bridge stood the Kräncher Tower, a round tower with a crane on top, which served the interests of trade on the quay. Obviously, the Wurstkuchl restaurant must have been built after the construction of the city wall, as this wall formed the back wall of the inn. Archaeologists have excavated the garbage dumps of the kitchen on the quayside, which show that meat dishes were typically prepared here, with poultry, beef, pork, rabbit, lamb and goat bones making up the bulk of the finds.

In 1616, the old restaurant was demolished to build the Salzstadel, but after the construction of the huge warehouse that still dominates the image of the city from the Danube, they rebuilt a new building on the exact same spot with a trapezoidal floor plan. This curious shape is explained by a special 4 m by 40 cm section of Hans Georg Bahre's 1630 drawing of Regensburg from the north, i.e. from the Danube. This engraving shows two gates on either side of the Wurstkuchl. These gates ensured the traffic circulation between the Danube quays outside the city walls and the city itself. This quay was quite narrow, as it is unfortunate if the enemy has too much space to lay siege. And in such a narrow area, it would probably be difficult for the carts to turn onto the gate without hitting the tavern, so it was obvious to knock down both protruding corners and build the tavern in a trapezoidal shape. 

The trapezoidal shape meant that the interior, which has to share a space with the kitchen, is rather small, with only 25 guests can be seated, and a total of four flood signs adorning the walls inside. There are a further four flood signs on the outside walls; two on the west and two on the north, either side of the entrance to the Wurstkuchl. It is a rare coincidence of cultural, culinary, hydrological and urban history curiosities where the history of the Danube is so dense; the eight flood signs commemorate seven floods in total, as there is a sign both outside and inside commemorating the March 1988 flood. The order of the flood plaques on the walls of the Wurstkuchl is as follows: 

1893. February 16. ice flood ~700 cm

2013. June (4.) 682 cm

1882. December 29. ice flood 670 cm

1988. March 27. (2 signs) 659 cm

1954. July 645 cm

1965. June 643 cm

2011. January 15. 627 cm

Bavarian idyll with Danubian flood signs (1988 and the bit worn one from 2011) (source)

Each of these floods could be the subject of a separate article, as these years do not always correlate with the major floods in Hungary. This is mainly due to geographical distance, as flood curves may flatten towards the lower sections due to lack of replenishment. This is especially true for icy floods, such as the one we are now discussing, the flood of 1893, which was one of the highest floods in Regensburg, while it peaked at a lower flood level in Vienna, it again flooded villages (e.g. Gerjen) in the Hungarian section due to ice jams forming in the river bends. In Regensburg, the sign for the flood that peaked on 16 February 1893 was the highest on the wall of the Wurstkuchl, but it should be added that ice floods are always separated from ice-free floods by hydrology, This is because it is not always clear where the water ends and the ice begins, and in the case of certain structures, such as the aforementioned Stone Bridge of Regensburg, the swelling effect of the ice jams must be taken into account. 

The two highest flood sign on the Western wall of the Wurstküche.

It is therefore unclear on what basis the owner Fritz Schricker put the second flood sign on the wall of his sausage kitchen. The building was presumably inaccessible at the time of the icy flood, and it was only after the flood had receded that the extent of the damage could be seen. In any case, the flood mark is at least one large span higher than the maximum ice-free flood level, which is also the record level on the Hungarian stretch of the Danube, with the exception of the water gauges at Dunaszekcső and Mohács. The 1893 flood in Regensburg, which peaked just 132 years ago, is also a curiosity in that it has already been photographed, with seven of them available on the Hochwasserschutz Regensburg website, three of which are available in higher resolution below: 

Ice jam above the Stone Bridge seen from the Oberer Wöhrd

The flooded Protzenweiher marketplace in Stadtamhof

Ice jam as seen from the Stone Bridge with the Unterer Wöhrd

One might think that modern flood defences are already capable of protecting urban facilities in the most developed states of Germany, but instead of a positive outcome, it should be noted that the largest floods will continue to flood the Historiches Wurtsküche, despite the fact that a mobile dike system has already been built along this stretch. This is because the flood defences are unable to protect the restaurant from the water pressure rising from below. This is not a problem in the neighbouring Salt Barn, where the weight of the huge building can counteract the rising water table, but this is not the case in the small Wurstkuchl, which is forced to let the Danube break into the building, as this would cause less damage. Thus, it is expected that in the centuries to come, the walls of the small sausage kitchen in Regensburg will bear further flood marks, while there will be no fear of visitors being left behind during periods of low water. 

Literature:

• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historische_Wurstkuchl
• https://www.heimatforschung-regensburg.de/2486/1/1063113_DTL1774.pdf
• https://www.regensburgnow.de/wurstkuchl/
• https://hochwasser-regensburg.tumblr.com/image/52136760733
• https://www.wurstkuchl.de
• https://www.hochwasserschutz-regensburg.bayern.de/dok-historische-hochwasser/galerie-eisgaenge.html
• https://www.regensburg.de/fm/121/hochwasser-bedeutende-pegelstaende.pdf
• https://www.hnd.bayern.de/pegel/donau_bis_passau/regensburg-eiserne-bruecke-10061007?
• Christine Schimpfermann: Hochwasserschutz im Denkmalensemble – Strategien zur Konfliktlösung am Beispiel Regensburg

The Bridgeman of Regensburg

MAGYARUL

The stone bridge of Regensburg is the oldest crossing on the Danube, and the second permanent crossing on the Danube, besides Emperor Trajan's old bridge at Turnu Severin. Its eventful history of nearly nine centuries is full of legends, the most famous of which is the rivalry between the builders of the bridge and the cathedral, which is usually linked to the statue of Bruckmandl on the bridge. This legend probably originated later, the meaning of the statue, like many other figurative representations of the bridge, having been lost centuries ago. Indeed, the statue we see today does not even resemble the version that was damaged earlier. 

The oldest illustration of the Bruckmandl (Georg Hufnagel, 1594. source)

It's quite a coincidence that the statue, known by its many names (Brücken-Männlein, Bruckmandl, Brückenmännchen), still stands on the bridge, defying the centuries. Other similar decorative elements have long since disappeared, collapsed, worn away, dismantled, but the young man with curly hair, sitting on the saddle roof and dressed in a swimming gown, has been restored each time and is still the most photographed work of art by tourists in Regensburg. 

The renovated statue on the stone bridge in Regensburg.

One can only guess who, when and why decided to build this statue. What is certain is that it was placed in its present location after the stone bridge was completed. Regensburg was already an important river crossing before the foundation of the Roman fort Castra Regina in 179 AD, despite the fact that it is a relatively wide stretch of river, dotted with gravel banks and islands. At times, a pontoon bridge could have provided a temporary crossing between the province of Raetia and the Germanic territories, and later between the northern and southern Germanic territories. We have already discussed the changes in the riverbed of the Danube at Regensburg, where we have already described the different conditions prevailing in the riverbed at the time the bridge was built. Presumably, after considerable preparations, such as the accumulation of wood and stone building materials, money and royal approval, work on the riverbed could have begun in the year of our Lord 1135, in an extremely dry, droughty summer, marked by extreme low-water on the Danube, with the foundation of the stone piers.

It took 11 years to build the bridge, opening to the public in 1146, and was hailed as one of the architectural wonders of Europe even at the time of its completion. It is no coincidence that the legend of its construction includes the devil, since it was not at all a natural phenomenon to walk across such a large river, even in the upper, German section, with dry feet in the Middle Ages. The stone bridge was built of sandstone, originally with sixteen piers covering 1/3 of the entire cross-section of the riverbed, which still has a relatively serious backwater effect on the Danube. In the meantime, the bridge has been slightly shortened, with a northern and a southern pier built into the bank. Over the centuries, the piers have been continuously widened by piles and stone deposits, mainly to protect against icy floods. Over time, these piers grew so large that various workshops were built on them, harnessing the energy of the Danube swollen by the bridge piers.

The long gone old towers of the stone bridge (Matthäus Merian)

The decorations and superstructures of the Regensburg stone bridge underlined the political, strategic and economic importance of the structure, as it was much more than a river crossing. Not only did the stone bridge represent the power and wealth of the imperial city to passing merchants, ambassadors and armies, but its construction further enhanced the city's power and wealth by focusing north-south transit traffic to Regensburg. The most striking of the structures were undoubtedly the gate towers. These restricted and controlled the flow of traffic through the city. There were originally three of them, one in the north at Stadtamhof, one at Regensburg (still standing) and one in the middle of the river, on the administrative border between the two towns, roughly where you could get down to the island of Oberer Wöhrd, which belonged to Regensburg. It was this tower that was the first to be destroyed when the city was hit by severe flooding in 1784. The Black Tower of Stadtamhof was damaged during the Napoleonic Wars, when there was heavy fighting on the bridge, and had to be demolished in 1809. 

But medieval travellers would find it difficult to recognise the bridge as we know it today. Over its nearly nine centuries of history, the bridge has gradually lost its decorative elements, its towers and statues, like a Christmas tree that is slowly taken down after the Epiphany. The difference is that the "Christmas tree" in Regensburg has got back a decoration, the Brückmännchen. Some of the ornaments on the bridge are well known, some have been saved in the city museum, while others have been lost forever. 

The third Bruckmandl on a postcard (wikipedia)

There was a basilisk relief on the bridge, on the 10th pillar from the south, on the downstream side, which kept away evil spirits. By this is not meant demons specifically, but e.g. floods and ice and similar harms that threatened the existence of the bridge (=the wealth of the city). Next to it, on the 9th pillar, a weasel was depicted, which, interestingly enough, was able to keep the basilisk in check. This relief, however, had worn off by 1835. Opposite the present statue of the Bruckmandl there was a relief of two fighting roosters, which had a biblical meaning of light and vigilance, but also a secular meaning, perhaps more representative of everyday life in Regensburg: the political struggle between the imperial city of Regensburg and the Duchy of Bavaria, which was separated by the bridge. A statue of a lion, which had lost its head by 1821, stood above the 10th bridge deck from the south. The rest disappeared around 1916/1917. There was also a reclining lion relief on the bridge above pier 11, probably the coat of arms of Emperor Conrad Hohenstaufen. This section of the bridge was blown up by German troops in April 1945, but fortunately it was recovered from the river by divers in 1952 and is now in the city museum. The bridge also featured the coat of arms of the town, the two crossed keys.

Compared to these ornamental elements, the Bruckmandl is a particularly new monument, having spent less than 170 years of its nearly nine-century history in its current location, at the highest point of the bridge, built into its western parapet. The figure himself sits astride the saddle of a superstructure on a massive column, his hands raised to his eyes, looking south towards the cathedral as if to shield his eyes from the scorching sun. This statue was erected on its present site on 23 April 1854, designed by the architect Michael Maurerer, the figure sitting on the roof is the work of the sculptor Anton Blank and has little or nothing to do with the earlier Bruckmandl, to which urban legends are linked.

The city museum has a sandstone sculpture torso with missing arms and legs and a head perched precariously on its neck. It depicts a young man dressed in a loincloth that could pass for a bathing suit. His head is covered with shoulder-length curls, and there are teeth in his half-open mouth. His upper body is turned to the left as he sits on a saddle roof, while a ribbon on the roof is engraved with the Gothic inscription []chuk wie heiß. The front of the inscription is worn away, and the initial letter is presumably an "S". 

Workshops attached to the bridge's piers, the Bruckmandl sits behind the second from the left (source)

The Bruckmandl originally sat on top of the gateway to a hydro-powered grinding mill near the 3rd pier on the east side of the bridge (see initial image) until 1791. By then the plank workshop was gone, and the tower in the middle of the bridge had already been knocked down by the flood of 1784. In 1791, a toll house was built on the site of the tower, which fortunately also had a saddle roof, so the statue was given a new roof to continue looking out over. In 1809 he lost his hands and legs in the Napoleonic wars. Local historiography is typically silent on the fact that most of the damage in Regensburg was probably caused by Bavarian troops allied with Napoleon as they tried to drive the Austrians out of the city. The statue, which must have become unstable during the battle, was knocked onto the bridge by a spring storm in 1817, when the head of the statue broke off. Temporarily repaired, the statue was re-installed on the roof of the tollhouse for a few years, where it continued to withstand the elements until 1826, when the tollhouse was demolished. The Bruckmandl's torso was first taken to the antiquities collection in the cloisters of the cathedral, from there to the Historical Society's collection at the Ulrich Church and then to the city museum. In 1849, on local initiative, a completely new statue was erected in a completely new location, at the highest point of the stone bridge.    

The earliest pictorial representation of the Bruckmandl dates from 1594, Georg Hufnagel's sketch for copper engreving depicts the city of Regensburg from the hills above the Stadtamhof, with a separate enlarged image of the Bruckmandl in the lower left corner. There is a stone gateway with a saddle roof on top. As the structure was part of the eastern parapet of the bridge, the bridgehead faces south, which is the same as the torso in the museum. The inscription 'Schiuck wie hais' is inscribed on the ribbon next to its right leg. However, it is quite certain that this sculpture is not original. This is confirmed by the inscription on the gate: RENOVIERT ANNO 1579, above which is the coat of arms of Regensburg and a date of 1446, presumably the date of construction of the gate, which may have been damaged together with the statue in the fire of 1555.    

Several theories have tried to explain the meaning of Bruckmandl. Some simply saw it as an advertisement for a nearby bath. Such a baths existed in Regensburg, but it is unlikely that the bridge's owner would have allowed such an advertisement to be erected, at least no similar analogy is known. A somewhat more reasonable astronomical theory is that the statue is a direction indicator, an 'angel of the south', showing travellers the direction of south with its dress, its gaze and its hands covering the eyes. This may have been necessary because the stone bridge did not exactly follow the north-south axis, with the northern part of the bridge deviating eastwards and the southern part westwards from the imaginary line. The third theory is relatively modern, and it is about the rivalry between the master mason of the dome and the master builder of the bridge. It is no wonder that the bridge builder won the competition: the construction of the St Peter's Cathedral in Regensburg has begun 127 years after the bridge was opened and was not completed until 1872, when the two towers were also completed in Gothic style.   

Along with the statue, the mysterious inscription has captured the imagination of many people. Some thought that it might refer to the heat and drought that ravaged the area when the bridge was built, but there was also an urban Jewish legend that it was the first words of a mute child thrown into the Danube instead of a fire. A note from a nearby monastery, however, has led to the discovery of a complete version of the text, but it has not been of much help to researchers:

Schuh wie haiß / zu Regensburg seyn dy Heuter feist

The text presumably captures a joke of the time, but its meaning has been lost in the past. At the time of its construction it was understood by everyone, but over time the meaning has faded, but it is similar to the Hungarian saying 'A dead frog croaks on the wet shore of a dry lake': 'It is so hot that I'm freezing,  the horses in Regensburg are so skinny that they are binging'. 

The third version of the Bruckmandl has been restored in 2012-2018 for the last time (source)

There must have been a logical connection between the sculpture and the text, leading many to believe that the saddle roof could represent the skinny horses of Regensburg, although it is likely that in this case there is a much more complex story behind the story. 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Literature:

• Karl Bauer: Regensburg. Kunst-Kultur- und Alltagsgeschichte. Buchverlag 2014. 6. kiadás
• https://www.regensburg.de/kultur/kulturdatenbank/eintrag/118949
• https://www.regensburger-tagebuch.de/2013/01/das-regensburger-bruckmandl-teil-2.html
• https://www.regensburger-tagebuch.de/2013/01/das-regensburger-bruckmandl.html#more
• https://www.bernd-nebel.de/bruecken/index.html?/bruecken/3_bedeutend/regensburg/regensburg.html

The Ancient Peninsula of Regensburg

MAGYARUL

It is a generally accepted view among local historians in Regensburg that the city's islands were formed from an extremely long and extremely narrow peninsula by the catastrophic flood of 1304. This serpentine stretch of land stretched from the mouth of the Naab to Regensburg, i.e. the estuary of the Naab ran parallel to the Danube for about six kilometres. There are, however, some aspects that may call into question the existence of this rare hydrological phenomenon.

I first came across the above illustration on the inside cover of the publication "Regensburg zur Römerzeit", which depicted the hydrological situation shown in the above picture as a fact. According to a brief description of the landscape, the Naab did not flow into the Danube at Mariaort in Roman times, but ran parallel to the Danube for almost six kilometres, passing Kneiting, Winzer, Steinweg and Stadamhof, taking the Regen river on the left bank and flowing into the Danube somewhere at the lower tip of the present-day Unterer Wöhrd, east of Regensburg. In other words, when the second stone bridge was built on the Danube between 1135 and 1146, the famous Steinerne Brücke was still arching over this peninsula to the north bank. The huge peninsula was carved up into four separate islands (Mariaorter Wöhrd, Winzer Wöhrd, and in Regensburg the Lower and Upper Wöhrd) by the catastrophic flood of 23 May 1304. Local vernacular is calling the Danubian islands Wöhrd, which derives from the Middle German word 'werd', while in northern Germany the more familiar sounding form 'Werder' is used.

The "Regensburg Peninsula" already appear in the work of Otto von Freising, who said that the Naab flowed into the Danube at Regensburg. The local chronicler Eberhard von Regensburg is consistent in his description of the events of 1304:

„Anno Domini 1304. Cum aqua Danubii transiens per pontem Ratisponensem omnio versus litus apuilonare declinasset, et litora prope civitatem sicca et arida reliquisset, ceves Ratisponenses artificiose et mulits laboribus et expensis ipsam aquam, ut iterum prope civitatem flueret, ad loca pristina per strues lignorum et congeries lapidum reduxerunt.”

Early medieval hydrographic conditions were already described by the local historians of Regensburg, Plato-Wild (1710-1777), Gemeiner (1726-1823) and Gumpelzhaimer (1766-1841), whose views were later confirmed by detailed research by Adolf Schmetzer. Karl Bauer, in his monumantal local history book (Regensburg - Kunst, Kultur und Alltagsgeschichte), adds to the above theory that at the time of the construction of the Roman legionary camp Castra Regina (A.D. 180), a change in the riverbed probably caused the Unterer Wöhrd to form a separate island. At Bauer, the date of the flood disaster was two days later, 25 May 1304. On that date, the Danube between Winzer and Pfaffenstein broke through the Regensburg Peninsula and the main riverbed was moved into the old bed of the Naab between the present-day Oberer Wöhrd and Stadtamhof. According to some local oral traditions, the northern branch of the Danube was still called the Naab around 1915.

The section of the Danube between the Naab and the Regen in 1829 (source)

The result was that the free imperial city of Regensburg lost its Danube port, its customs revenue, its mills ran dry, all of which threatened the city's economical power. As the city was in frequent dispute with the town of Stadt am Hof, on the other side of the old Naab, under the jurisdiction of the Bavarian prince-elector, the locals had to act very quickly. It is not clear whether in the same year or in the summer of 1305, during a very dry period when it was possible to cross the shallow Danube, a water control structure called Wöhrloch was built at the top of the Oberer Wöhrd, which was intended to both return most of the Danube's discharge to its original course and leave some (border) water between the Regensburg-owned Oberer Wöhrd and the neighbouring Stadamhof. The Wöhrloch, consisting of a combination lock and weir, was, like the stone bridge, a marvel of engineering on such a grand and rapid scale. However, for centuries it was the source of strife between the city of Regensburg and the Bavarian prince-elector, who wanted to widen the basin to allow larger ships to enter Stadtamhof, boosting trade. Disputes over water management sometimes led to the Wöhrloch being destroyed by the military.

The Wöhrloch in 1638 (source)

In addition to the historical plot, which is worthy of Ken Follett's 'Pillars of the Earth', the question arises: can such an unstable formation be created hydrologically on a river with such a variable flow over such a long period of time? Although the historical sources are clearly "pro-peninsula", there are some hydrological factors that may call into question its existence and its persistence over many centuries.

• The Danube reaches its most northerly point at Regensburg, where it makes an almost right-angled bend at Winzer, changing from a northeasterly to a southeasterly course. There is also a bend with similar parameters just above the mouth of the Naab, both of which have in common that they head towards a steep hillside. The development of the bend in the river has therefore washed the left bank year after year, and has thinned the peninsula most in the vicinity of Winzer, which is consistent with what historians say about the site of the 1304 breach. 
• The parameters of the peninsula also suggest that it was not very stable: it was 6 km long from the mouth of the Naab to Regensburg and probably 100 m wide at most. If we take the distance between the Roman castellum of Großprüfening and the hillside above Mariaort, the peninsula was located in a river floodplain cross-section of up to 600 metres in width. In such a section, major floods have had the opportunity to breach the floodplain several times over a period of 1200 years.
• The only permanent watercourse between the Naab and the Regen is on the left bank, the Brückelgraben. This is a relatively short stream with a low discharge, but it probably built up a cone of sediment in the Danube (or earlier in the Naab bed) from the alluvium carried by the hillside area during major rainfalls, forcing the river of the northern branch southwards, which may ultimately have caused the gradual thinning of the land mass. 

Based on the sources, it seems more likely that the Danube's longest peninsula did exist, but reconstructing exactly how long and how its gradual thinning took place would deserve further research.

Sources and literature:

• Christian Heinrich Kleinstäuber: Geschichte und Beschreibung der altberühmten Steinernen Brücke zu Regensburg. 1878.
• Iris Nießen, Doris Wollenberg: Aus Fluss wird Stadt – Die Stadtentwicklung im Osten von Regensburg im Fokus von Hochwassern und Landgewinnung. 2019.
• Oliver Wetter: Urban stream works in Central Europe 1200–1700: municipal administration, hydraulic engineering and flood reconstruction. 2019.
• Karl Bauer: Regensburg - Kunst, Kultur und Alltagsgeschichte. Buchverlag 2014. 6. kiadás
• Karlheinz Dietz, Thomas Fischer: Regensburg zur Römerzeit. Friedrich Pustet Verlag 2018.

The devil's bridge in Regensburg

MAGYARUL

There are two opinions why Regensburg is the northernmost settlement. First, its inhabitants say the ancient Ratisbon or Castra Regina looks like the northernmost Italian city. Second, the Danube reaches its northernmost point, latitude 49 next to this city. If we do not count emperor Traian’s bridge, the first permanent stone bridge was built here. There is a legend linked to its construction and also a Danubian island is connected to our story.

Die Deutsche Donau

Immer wenn es Herbst wird, wenn im Wind schon der Geruch von welkem Laub und die feuchte Kühle von kommenden Nebeln zu ahnen sind, dann denke ich an die Donau im Süden des reiches, an ihre Auen mit dem silbrigen Glanz der Weidenbäume, an die Altwasser in den dunklen Tiefen des Erlengestrüpps und an die steilen Hänge der Wachau, zwischen denen das Wasser des Stromes nun klarer wird und schon hier und da ein wenig von dem Blau zeigt, das an den Abenden im Spätherbst alles mit seinem Leuchten erfüllt. 

Die Breg windet sich durch den Schwarzwald