Auctions as Multifunctional Systems in the Rhine Valley, Germany, in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Introduction In investigating a social phenomenon of recent centuries it is often worthwhile to glance at today's version of the same event. In relation to auctions, taking stock of North American and Canadian public sales in rural areas may provide a starting point for such an examination: In the predominantly rural area of Pennsylvania, the public sale is one of the few regularly attended traditional social events. It is an event of economic and cultural value: economically it provides an opportunity for purchasing cheap, used household and farm items; it also serves a similar function of social interaction, as do the Grange, camp meetings, county fairs and family reunions (Marsh and Aspinall 1971, 133). Attending at auction sales is a favourite pastime for many Prince Edward Islanders, especially for residents of eastern Prince County. Islanders regard their auctioneers as entertainers and expect to have fun at an auction sale (Thurgood 1994, 103). Are auctions, then, social events with both economic and cultural values, and an appealing form of entertainment? Could this kind of perspective enable us to reach a better understanding of nineteenth-century auctions in the Rhine Valley, Germany? Since auctions have been, and still are, a very complex and multifuncfional phenomenon, it is necessary to study them on different levels. In the following discussion some of the results of a research project conducted by Hildegard Mannheims and Peter Oberem under the author's supervision at the University of Munster, Germany, between 1998 and 2001, are presented (Mannheims and Oberem 2003). The aim of the project was to demonstrate the special importance of auctions as multifuncfional systems within the context of social, economic and urban history, as well as the history of mentality. On the basis of the historical background of the Province of the Rhine in the nineteenth century and its special system of justice, the so-called Rhineland Law, the research focus was concentrated on two regions--the city of Bonn with its rural hinterland, and the agricultural region of Lindlar (Oberbergland). The main sources used in the research were the records of moveable property auctions, committed to writing by notaries on the basis of French models, between 1815 (the first year of the Prussian Rhineland Province) and 1900 (the introduction of the new Civil Code). The database was created from the one hundred and three auction records from the urban and country district of Bonn, and the one hundred and thirty-six auction records from the Magistrate's Court in Lindlar. As these notarial data precisely document how second-hand moveable goods changed hands, there is plenty of information concerning the prior ownership of the items offered for sale, the reasons why they were being sold and the auction conditions. Every lot contained the name of the object offered for sale, the name of the person who had made the highest bid (forename, surname, profession and place of residence) and the auction price. The professions of the prior owners recorded in the data represented a broad spectrum of occupations, and included priests, entrepreneurs, officers, academics, pensioners, merchants, craftsmen of the city of Bonn, farmers, factory workers, craftsmen, grocers, and the local upper class consisting of civil servants, inn-keepers and mayors in the region of Lindlar. The research programme was strongly influenced by inventory studies carried out in the late 1970s, in the department of Volkskunde/European Ethnology at the University of Munster (Mohrmann 1990; 1993; 2003). The objects themselves were seen as the pivotal link in the research enterprise, and questions considered to be of central importance for the conduct and analysis of the research data were those such as: What second-hand goods were offered at town and country auctions in Bonn and Lindlar in the nineteenth century? …