Festival: Soest's feud part 3
It's the third year the city is doing this. While I think the root of this whole festival is a little ... well, true, we won the feud but finally this city lost its importance, so in a long run we also lost the war. But it's kinda cool with what one group of amateur actors came up with some years ago. What begun as a mix from church-party and an open air play is become a huge event during three sommer-days which always also brings in a lot of tourists into town.
The history:
[History lesson]
Soest, my hometown, was former a valuable member of the hanseatic league, during times this city was the headquarters of the whole bound. Soest always was a proud city with proud citizens, mostly traders but also we had a salt-mine not too far away and a huge business in dying clothes. The city itself was build exactly on the Hellweg, the, let us say, freeway in the middle ages. The Hellweg crossed back then nearly every European country, from Sweden and Norway in the North to France and Italy in the South. Soest had a central position, so it was a pretty rich city and was sometimes dealt as "the secret capital of the Holy Roman Empire".
Somewhere long before the reason for today's festival started Soest was also part of the property of a nobility. But the trader of Soest did their best to get rid off that family, and the Schaumburgs didn't have so much interest in a city full of rebels, or whatever else happened. I think there also was a lot of money involved because it's not known that there were any fights back then. The nobilities stepped away and the bishop of Cologne took over, as new "owner" and also as allie. This alliance was built on sand since the beginning and it didn't took too long before this little game began.
Soest's traders build a wall to protect the city. They obvisiously didn't thought twice about a second betrayal because that's what they did. They stopped the payment for Cologne. The answer came short time later when an army under the leadership of the bishop of Cologne stood before the gates. Same gates closed immediatly and the the first siege began.
I mention first because the same situation happened at the end three times. And, fortunately for Soest, this city won every of this sieges. The feud ... that's another question as during years after this whole mindgame lasted no citizen of Soest should better show up in Cologne or vice versa.
During the third siege Soest's traders had enough from the bishop and sent out a request to the bishop of Paderborn to get his protection. Paderborn was thrilled to get hold on a rich city like Soest, so they came to help "us" and afterwards Soest was (and still is) part of the protectorate Paderborn. Cologne's bishop on the other hand had a huge grudge against this city and began his own little mindgame. Paderborn's bishop wasn't interested in helping Soest, he only wanted the money. He got it and left the traders alone with their little (huge) problem. Not that long later Soest lost his former influence, the former "secret capitol" sank into oblivion.
Last part came during the reformation of the church when Soest's traders tried to get rid off the bishop of Paderborn. This they tried in form of trying to confert the complete city into the new faith. Didn't work very well as Soest also had one of the biggest monasteries in this area. So, every church not related to that abbey became Protestant while the cathedral, the abbey itself, the guesthouses and the hospital were still the property of the bishop of Paderborn.
Well, this was the history. I think, the whole idea for the festival began to work 15 years ago when one of the churches had an anniversary. As the Petrikirche IS the oldest church in town (it was originally built somewhere between 600 to 800 our time) they also decided to do a middleage market. It was a huge success and pretty much fun. Back then there only were a couple of traders and musician from "outside" involved, the main part was managed by members of the church. Because of its success they repeated the festival several times before the church stepped back because they weren't able to fund the whole thing all alone.
During that time of this small parties also began the plan of an amateur play and someone wrote down the first "Soester Fehde aus der Sicht der Magd XXX". For this the city itself gave the greenlight and during one weekend a couple of years ago the whole inner city did a journey back in time into the middle ages. Again, the play was a bringer and a huge success, again the idea began to grow, again the group itself came to the conclussion that they couldn't effort the whole thing all alone.
This time the city council itself stepped in and the "Soester Fehde"-Festival was born. This year it was the third time and for me the first time to go there. And, I swear to you, it was a lot of fun. The following now I will show you some photos I took during the last two days in hope you can imagine the fun I had - well, ignoring the heat ...
Soest's feud in pictures:
Looks like I'm now keeper of my own key ;). My new friend, Miriam gave that one to me as a little gift. Well, it IS definitely little
