the münchnerkindl
It was my last day in Germany, or the last day I had to myself. I wanted to spend it doing things I found fun, things I would miss. Walking down Schellingstraße, my favorite little downtown nook right by the university, looking for interestingly patterned paper for a collage. Spending quite a few euro because it fits into a suitcase so well and I wanted one last little thing to take home with me. Being charmed by the gentle bustle of the city, the mood where every day feels like Saturday. Patrons enjoying outdoor-seating, the Lost Weekend coffee shop in full swing. I wanted to visit a little art gallery I had been to before, just to see it one last time.
It's a small place. Kunstantiquariat Monika Schmidt. Their focus is on their Japanese collection of woodblocks and prints, but I was there for the European stuff. 16th-century maps of Bavaria!! Copper plate engravings of nobles enjoying feasts! And all for sale. When I was there on a previous occasion, I had bought a tiny piece of an illuminated manuscript, circa 1610, from Naples, Italy. A single capital letter N on vellum embellished with gold leaf, and using blue, black, and yellow inks. The yellow ink, the shopkeeper told me, was most likely from goat piss. There was a slight mark on the paper, which she said was from the page being turned so many times over the years. I couldn't believe it! To own my own little fragment of medieval history, and for only 40 euros… I had stayed and chatted with the shopkeeper for an hour past closing time; she was so willing to continue answering my questions. She teaches art history during the semester, she told me, but unfortunately not while I was there. A very lovely conversation and I came away from it with a treasure :)))
On this day, my last day in Munich, I wanted to return to this place and say goodbye to her. But she wasn't there! Another woman was manning the shop. This woman was a lot less friendly, telling me I could only take three pictures while there. I started asking her questions about the artworks, but her knowledge didn't go as deep as her colleague's, so she went to retrieve her from the back room.
[in German] "Do you know anything about the Münchnerkindl? Someone's asking about it."
Her colleague started to respond without looking up from her work, but when she saw that it was me, she switched seamlessly to English. I feel a bit hurt when people do that - I can speak German, and I don't like being underestimated - but I know when people do that they're just trying to make things easier for you, a nonnative speaker. It's a politeness thing. I persisted with German in my follow-up questions and she switched back without missing a beat.
The Münchnerkindl, the "Munich child", features on the coat of arms of the city of Munich, as well as just about everywhere else in the city. It's a picture of a monk. The story goes, before the city of Munich was founded, there was a bridge in the area near a rival town, in the ideal location of a crossroads between East and West, North and South. Directly on the Isar river. And this bridge was attracting a lot of traffic and a lot of trade, since it was the only way for merchants laden with goods to cross. So it was a prime location. And there was a monastery in the area , a group of monks (Mönchen = monks). The king at the time, Henry the Lion, noticed how important the location of this bridge was, and he wanted to capitalize on it. So he had his own bridge, by the monastery, be built. And by cover of nightfall the bridge in the rival burgeoning town was destroyed. So that when travelers who wanted to cross asked where they could go, the answer would be "Go to the monks": "Geh zu den Mönchen." Mönchen > München, or Munich. And that is the story of how the city of Munich came to be.
That is the story that I had heard going in. But there's also the tradition of the Münchnerkindl, a child (usually a girl) who wears monk's robes and represents the city at festivals and other things. Why is she a girl? And why is she always blond? I wanted to ask these questions and more as I prepared to leave Munich.
Apparently, the Münchnerkindl tradition is based off of a real person. The real Münchnerkindl's name was Paul Otto, and he was the youngest of several children. As was explained to me, his story is actually rather sad - in his family, he was just another mouth to feed, so his family sent him to a monastery which would clothe and shelter him. Paul was very young, about fifteen, when he helped build an important monastery, and because of his important role wound up serving as a figurehead – the monk of Munich. Because he was so young, he had a very androgynous appearance, so later artists would interpret the Münchnerkindl in more feminine directions.
There's a tradition of appointing a young woman from Munich to embody the Münchnerkindl, sort of like a city beauty pageant, who then leads a parade to announce the beginning of Oktoberfest. To be chosen, the candidate must be a woman between ages 20 and 29, born in Munich, with her parents or grandparents born in Munich as well. It's very similar to the Christkindl tradition, of electing a young girl to represent… Christ… at Christmas markets. I know, it sounds a little weird to foreign ears. Jesus was male, so why choose a girl to represent him? Just one of those little quirks of Germany I guess. Anyway, the Münchnerkindl's gender swap probably was influenced by this tradition.
I had one last question for the art historian. Sometimes I see the Münchnerkindl in shoes, and sometimes he's barefoot - why? She answered, he's barefoot when he's at home in München, and he wears shoes when he's on a pilgrimage to another cloister. Such a cute little story. Anyway, I left the shop impressed with her ability to answer every question I gave her, and happy to know all these inside details about the city I want to call home.