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The replies from Upper Franconia concerning the “survey” of the Bayerischer Verein für Volkskunst und Volkskunde, 1908/09

The collection of the “survey” contains 88 replies from the administrative district of Upper Franconia. One of them was originally submitted to the Upper Palatinate and comes from the town of Kirchenlaibach, which changed its district association with the administrative reform in 1972. Over the course of time, at least four letters disappeared from the holdings.

Who replied?

The answers marked by name, i. e. 84 out of 88, are written by male authors. Fifteen times two people answered together, on one occasion one person sent answers from two places. In fact, 98 people are known by name. Nearly half of them were local teachers and chief or senior teachers, almost a quarter were public officials, mostly mayors. In the latter case, only their function in local government is known, not their actual profession. Only about one-seventh of the answers came from pastors and other clergymen; one answer was written by a writer, one by a “man of private means”, and two pharmacists or doctors were involved as well. More than two thirds of the answers from Upper Franconia are between one and nine pages long, a good fifth are up to 19 pages long, eight consist of up to 29 pages and two reach a length of 39 pages. The longest reply of 41 pages came from Weißenstadt in the district of Wunsiedel.

Population structure of the villages

In c.1900, slightly less than half of the villages had a population of less than 500 inhabitants, just over a third had up to 1,000 and a fifth had over 1,000 inhabitants; the statistics do not include data of social stratification. Half of all places surveyed were predominantly Protestant, one third predominantly Catholic. More than 70% of all places were of mixed denomination. In eight places only Catholics lived, in another eight only Protestants. Inhabitants of Jewish faith were only represented in nine places, other religions are listed as “others” for 13 places. The answers, however, hardly take differences in faith or denomination into account. An impression of the regional distribution is given by the map, which Torsten Gebhard presents in his essay “Bemerkungen zur volkskundlichen Umfrage” (Remarks on the Folkloristic Survey, Bayerisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 1986/87, p. 10).

Selected collectibles from the “survey” of 1908/09

>> This collection concerns the “survey” of the Bayerischer Verein für Volkskunst und Volkskunde (Bavarian Society for Folk Art and Folklore) from the collection of the Institut für Volkskunde (Ethnological Institute).