Second trip to Michelstadt

Last week was very full. It started on Monday with a short trip to the city where the German government offices for this area are. We finally got our Visas to remain in Germany for 23 months. They didn't give us a single extra day. We also applied for drivers' licenses. Elder Howlett didn't need one because his license from 1961 is still good, but they come in a smaller format now. His old one is the same size as the old US Passports used to be. Even our new passports are smaller. He decided to get a new drivers license so he could have a smaller one with a picture that was less than 48 years old.

Tuesday night he was to teach the German language class they have for the expatriate missionaries. That took a lot of preparation.

Wedesday early we drove to Michelstadt again. This time we were to work with our tutor for three days. We didn't have any traffic problems, and we had left early, so we arrived early, and spent a few minutes looking over the city. We went to a cemetary up in the hills, and found it to be very interesting. Obviously there is a lot of committment to family members who have passed on.

Our "modern" chapel in Michelstadt
We were delighted to get into the study time and find that we had progressed quite a lot from the first time we were there. But we had much more to learn. What amazed us the most was to find out how much influence Rome and its Latin language had on German (and English) Elder Howlett was aware of some of the influences that came about because of the "Classical" period of English culture during which the education of the elite consisted mainly of a grammar school education (in Greek and Latin Grammar)followed by extensive reading of the "Classical Literature" (of Greece and the Romans). We were aware of this period's influence on the European and English languages, but there was an even greater influence that dates back to the time when Rome ruled as overlords of Europe and England. That came to an end between 500 and 600 AD when Rome was itself conquored.

Our hosts - Br. and Sr. Frost in front of their family pedigree chart.
The Romans who had been posted to the conquored nations of Europe and England were called home to help defend their homeland, but they had already had a huge impact on these foreign lands. The legacy we inherited includes the "Alphabetical" writing system which matches written characters and sounds. That is not the only type of writing system in use even today - consider Chinese for example. Also our mathematical system based on powers of ten came from Rome, though the "Roman Numerals" were already out of date at the time and had been replaced by them with the "Arabic" system for writing the numbers.

The home of the Frosts where we stayed is in the hills above Michelstadt and is very nice
Our system for measuring time in years, months, days, hours, even minutes and seconds was passed to us by the Romans. One little tidbit that impressed us was the way the months were named. Believe it or not, the first month in the Roman calendar was in the Spring - March. The seventh month was simply called the "Seventh" = "Sept"ember, followed by the "Eighth" = "Oct"ober, then the "Ninth" = "Nov"ember and the "Tenth" = "Dec"ember. Everyone should recognize the last one because we use the "Dec"imal system which is based on ten. There are some who think that the early Roman year may have contained only ten months, with July = "Julius" and August = "Augustus" being added to the end of the year and named for the two Caesers.
We are certainly not experts on all this history, but we had to learn some of it to read the old records of interest to family history research. When you see "xbris" what month is it? Or "7bris" or "8bris" or "9bris?"
We had two long, hard days as students. On the third day we had an appointment to be in the temple in Fredricksdorf in the evening, so we planned to leave early enough to make it back. Our host decided we would progress just as well if an hour of our study time were devoted to looking at some of the historical sights of Michelstadt.

He took us first to see the old Gothic Basilica. We found out that this building is the best example in existence of the old Gothic architectural style. The building was made before lime and mortar, so stones were set together without them. Such construction isn't very strong, so they had to build huge walls with support "buttresses" to keep everything in place. When this was done, the result was described as being like three ships. The big ship in the middle formed the major part of the church. The "naves" on the side were built in the part that formed the buttresses. There were arches in the sides of the central ship to allow those in the outer ships to see in. The artistic legacy this building offers the world is so great that they are currently doing a huge renovation project. They have taken the tiles off of the roof for cleaning and "re-hardening." They have built a huge scaffold around the whole building with a roof on top so the building will be protected during this project that will last a couple of years. In the forground you can see a stone model of what the original building looked like. By carefully comparing the midel to what can be seen of the original it is possible to visualize what the original was like. It had no tower or steeple.

Excavations to the side of the present building uncovered the foundations of an even older church that possibly dates back to the time of the missionary work of the original apostles. Our host postulated that this could have actually been the first German temple that existed before the apostasy. The foundation would fit the purpose.

Next to this old church, the local castle caught our interest. It was built by a family of Dukes over quite a period of time starting about 1300. The oldest part was well-built, but shows evidence that the builders didn't have the skills that were used for later additions. One of the later features is a large (nearly 100 feet) arch that connects two parts of the building. The residence of the Duke (Which, by the way, is still in use by descendents of the Dukes) is at one end and contains three major structures with five large buildings roughly in a U shape.

A hundred yards from the opening of the U is the outbuilding area for the servants and workers. There were sections obviously designed to hold the carriages, a mill area where flour could be ground, dozens of apartments for servants, etc. All is still in pretty good condition, though much of it has undergone extensive repair. These repairs have left the exterior much as it was origiinally, though we are sure the interior has been modernized.

The basilica and the castle are at one end of what was originally a large walled fortress. There was even a mote around it. The walls still stand in some places, and people in modern times have used that wall as one of the walls in their modern structures.

Inside the walled area are many interesting buildings. One of the pretiest is the old Rathaus (council house for the government)

For some reason most of it was built on stilts and is 12-15 feet above the ground. Only one of the ends comes clear down to the ground level. The date of construction was carved into two places on the wood stilts, and the date looks like 1888 except that the bottom of the first and last 8s is missing.

This is called a "half eight", so the date is really 1484.

This style of construction is called "Fachwerkbau." I have also heard it called "Schwäbischemann" = swabish man. It is made by first assembling a framework of heavy timbers in such a way as to create a stable structure. The cross bracing and angled braces give it the appearance of a man standing with spread legs and arms. Rocks and mud are then used to fill in around all of the timbers, and stucco is put over all of that, but leaving the timbers exposed to view.

You will see a lot of this type of construction in the pictures we have taken. Go back through the pictures in the blog and you will see it in several of the buildings.

This picture shows the team out decorating the christmas tree in the square in front of the Rathaus. It is so big they are using a cherrypicker to do the job.

There will be a big Christmas Fest that will fill all of the open spaces within the old city wall. It is quite famous. There will also be such a thing in Frankfurt in the "Advents" weeks (Four Sundays before christmas). We'd like to go visit Michelstadt again during this time, but we have much to do here as well, including the 50-bell chiming from ten churches that is scheduled for next week. We'd like to go to Michelstadt, however, because they have a Glockenspiel (Carillon) that allows them to play music -- like on the BYU campus.