TRAVEL FACES: Germany's Wandering Carpenters

Meet some of the fascinating people I've met travelling - the first of a series.

Max and Robin

We’re in a Dusseldorf brewery eating dinner and enjoying a local beer when in wander two strangely-dressed young men.

They are wearing black corduroy suits with flared pants, and matching blue ties with gold pins. One sports a black top hat while the other favours a battered floppy version. Both wear waistcoats and carry curled, wooden hiking poles, known

as Stenz, and old-fashioned knapsacks tied with handkerchiefs to wrap up their belongings.

They are wandering carpenters, also known as journeymen or craftsmen or “Wandergesellen”, who travel door to door, in a Mediaeval tradition, known as “Wanderjahre”.

They set out for travel for at least three years and one day after completing their apprenticeships, and rather than accepting pay are fed and bedded by those they work for.

They have come into the brewery to ask for a meal in return for doing jobs here.  

Their 

names are Max and Robin; they have left off their last names, adopting the name of their organisation as their surname, in this case, Rolandschact, or a knight in Medieval times.

“We are joiners or furniture makers, in a tradition that is about 900 years old,” Robin says.

“After your apprenticeship you do this for at least three years and one day. We both have been doing it for one and a half years now.”

It’s said to be one of the oldest traditions in Europe and two seats on the European Union are kept for such journeymen.

It’s also alive in France, where it’s known as the Compagnons du Tour de France.

But in Britain the tradition has died, with only the title, journeymen, still remaining as a reference to young men travelling throughout the country.

In Germany, the journeyman must be unmarried, childless and debt-free - so that they don’t use this as an opportunity to run away from social obligations. In modern times the brotherhoods they join often require a police clearance.

They must present themselves in a clean and friendly manner in public, which helps them find a bed for the night and a lift to the next town. These two both wear earrings in their left ears and I discover later that in the Middle Ages gold bracelets were also worn which could be sold to pay the gravedigger if a journeyman died on his journey.

Some say the song, Waltzing Matilda (Banjo Patterson’s poem about the swagman), comes from the tradition of the jo

urneyman's Walz (or song).

While the Nazis banned the tradition, it came back into vogue in the late 1980s, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall with economic changes and renewed interest in tradition.

We go outside to take photos and Max says he has just returned from South Africa while Robin has spent his time in Germany, learning the traditional craftsmanship. Max is the first in his family to follow the tradition but his father wasn’t that keen on the idea. Still he says that didn’t stop his own journey.

“You used to have to do it 100 years ago. I met quite a few journeymen and it was clear to me I should do it too,” Robin says. “I don’t think it will die out that easily.”

They are an incredible reminder of the ancient traditions of Europe that have not been forgotten.

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