STADTRUNDGANG HAMBURG IM MITTELALTER

• City Walks

Please note: It is possible that an event has been cancelled but is still listed on this website. For the latest information about cancelations or postponements please check the organizer’s website.

This tour of Hamburg's old town, passing several main churches in Hamburg, deals with the life and customs of Hamburg's residents in the Middle Ages.

At the beginning of our tour, we beam back to 1330. At that time, Hamburg was still fighting for its freedom! A foreign city. Fortunately, we have a city map from that time. So we quickly recognize that we are in Steenstrate at the beginning of our tour. We are in the St. Jacobi parish, a poor district where many inmates live. Illegal immigrants who are used as cheap labor in the city of 5,000. The poor devils ran away from their nobles in the country ...

It is not far from St. Jacobi to St. Maria, a large, powerful cathedral that can be seen everywhere. Behind him on the Reykenstrate is the Olde Market, where there is nice hot spiced wine and it also smells of beer. Almost 400 breweries can be found in this district alone. No wonder, because the Hamburg beer "makes sterile women fertile again, gives dark faces a reddish color", as even the Swedish bishop acknowledged ...

Then it continues to the Roland statue, which has been a symbol of freedom, freedom from the nobility, in the city for several years now ...

Shortly afterwards we are at Olde Radhus, where a review is being read out by Mayor Kersten Miles. There we meet Simon from Utrecht. A Dutchman who now has civil rights. He is talking about his campaign against Claus Störtebecker ...

Note: Since there are no buildings from this old period (with the exception of the archaeologically uncovered foundation of the former bishop's tower), this tour lives through the stories of the city guide, who slips into the role of a councilor during the tour. The structure of the city, whose essential spatial features have been preserved to this day, can be clearly seen on the basis of an old map, which each participant receives as a copy. Certain symbols that can be recognized on different buildings, including the course of certain streets, serve as stopping points to give the narrative of the city guide a spatial reference.

Back then, Hamburg was still fighting for its freedom. How this happened is the subject of this tour. Just like the Hamburg tradition of brewing beer. Because at that time beer was the main export good for Hamburg residents ... But the participants also learned a lot of other interesting things: What was the role of women in Hamburg at the time? Was there tourism back then? Why was the Alster dammed up? Was there already a citizenship or how was the almighty city council appointed?