StandortMarktplatz
Market place
The market place beneath the Bonhage-Museum and the Kilian´s Church once was the market place of the old town. It lay at the crossing point of the old trade routes and military roads Frankfurt - Bremen and Köln - Leipzig. For a long time the market place was considered to be the centre of social life. Market was held four times a year. The public, peasants, traders, craftsmen, gleemen, jugglers and many visitors used to meet there. Not every city was allowed to hold a market. The market right was granted to Korbach together with the municipal right in 1188.
Today the "Mittelalterliche Markt" (medieval market) still recalls the old market life. In the past, lengths were measured in cubits ("Ellen"). One cubit reached from the elbow to the fin-gertips. However, it was not unusual that people were arrested for offences against the market order, as there were many regulations in former times, too. Concurrently with the municipal law Korbach obtained the jurisdiction.
Formerly, on the foundation walls of the restaurant "Zur Waage" was the Altstädter Rathaus (the old town city hall). The count´s court as well as the town court met here. During the large smut in 1664 the Altstädter Rathaus fell victim to the flames. Judgements also were executed on the market place. The pillory and the vice stones at the house front of the restaurant still bear witness to this. According to old reports it also came to decapitations and burnings, especially in times of witch-persecution. In the middle of the triangular place stands one of the four preserved "Kümpe" (town wells) with a façade from the 19th century. Two metres deep, amongst other things it served as extinguishing water basin and source of water for man and beast.
© Noah Bonck/ M. Möller
Literatur:
Hans Osterhold: Meine Stadt. Korbacher Bauten erzählen Stadtgeschichte, hrsg. vom Magistrat der Kreisstadt Korbach, 3. Aufl., Korbach 2004.
Ein Rundgang durch die alte Stadt, bearb. von Ursula Wolkers, hrsg. vom Wilhelm Bing Verlag und Magistrat der Stadt Korbach mit Förderung der Sparkassenstiftung Waldeck-Frankenberg, Korbach 1999.
Marie-Luise Lindenlaub: Korbach steckt voller Geschichte(n). Reiseführer in die Vergangenheit einer Stadt, Korbach 2008.