istropolitan.skIn the Beginning Were the Vagantes and Goliards
The student fraternity is considerably older than is commonly assumed. In its original form it appears at the same time as the emergence of the medieval university (Barbarossa’s privilege in Bologna in the year 1158). The students of the Middle Ages were divided into four groups: local students, Extra bursam stantes (students living with relatives), Vagantes (vagantes – wandering students) and Bursales.
The vagantes belonged to the so-called travelling folk, alongside minstrels, knights, market criers, jesters and their like. They were called Goliards or Bacchants; they were truly an international, colourful little people. Among them were many poets who sang and wrote verse in praise of the joy of life. Among the most famous were the “Archipoeta” (12th century) and François Villon (French poet of the 15th century). They founded the tradition of the student song. The best-known collection of vagant poetry is the “Carmina Burana”, discovered in the year 1803 in the monastery of Benediktbeuern, which Carl Orff set to music in the year 1936.
Nationes and Bursae
The students at the medieval universities founded their own protective communities, the so-called Nationes (nations), in order to secure the freedoms granted by the sovereign. They existed as the first student associations. Their organisation was based on the linguistic and regional origin of the students, i.e. on the student’s mother tongue. The institution of the Bursa was a residential community for an orderly communal life at the universities. The first of its kind was the Collegium Sorbonicum, founded in the year 1257 in Paris. Anyone who did not obtain the “Baccalaureate” within seven years had to leave the Collegium – which makes clear the importance of the academic principle. This form of communal living spread rapidly and was given the name “Bursa” (purse), i.e. a place where one lives from a common purse. The resident of the Bursa was called Bursarius or Burs. From this designation arose the word Bursch, and from that in turn the designation of the association as “Burschenschaft”.
The Bursae were not only lodgings but also places of instruction, in which a monastic order and a fixed daily routine prevailed (rising at 4 a.m., lights out at 9 p.m.). They possessed their own self-administration and were consulted on important legal questions and ecclesiastical matters. In order to be solemnly admitted to the university, the applicant first had to apply to a Natio or a Bursa; only then could he be entered in the matricula (the register of students). Admission to the university took place in three stages: through the rector to the university, through the dean to the faculty, and through the senior or the rector of the Bursa to the Natio or the Bursa.
The New Nationes: the Landsmannschaften
Since the Reformation, a large part of the German universities had to give up their closer connection with the Church and therefore came under the power of the sovereign. The influence of the Bursae waned, and the old Nationes, which could no longer fulfil their tasks, dissolved – but not the students’ wish to lead a communal life. Moreover, in the year 1514 Emperor Maximilian I granted the students the rights of free citizens, including the right to bear arms.
From around the year 1615, new Nationes arose, organised as Landsmannschaften (this information is not precise, since the Landsmannschaften were entirely secret organisations, because the official academic authorities did not approve of this type of association).
Although the new Nationes – the Landsmannschaften – pursued similar communal aims to the old ones, what was new about them was the landsmannschaftlich principle of student education. After the elimination of all social differences, a purely student right of seniority based on the length of membership was introduced. Every student, whether rich or poor, had to submit in his first year of study (the so-called Pennaljahr) to the instructions of his older fraternity brothers (the so-called Schoristen or (honorary) Burschen). The older members then educated the younger ones, sometimes not without the use of physical means. Because of their growing social influence, the Landsmannschaften were for the most part banned by the authorities, for example in the year 1654 by a resolution of the Imperial Diet of Regensburg. Joining a Landsmannschaft was often simply punished with relegation (expulsion from studies).
Gradually, democracy and more refined manners developed, and the Landsmannschaften flourished especially in Leipzig and Jena, where numerous Landsmannschaften arose under many different names (Collegium Philobiblicum, Musicum …). Among the best known were the Lusatian Preachers’ Society (Societas Lusatorum Sorabica, known as Sorabica) in Leipzig and the Moselle Landsmannschaft in Jena. These were the first forms of organisation with a senior and further officers (Chargen), who were responsible for representing the Landsmannschaft and protecting its members. The admission ceremonies with an oath and a fraternity name also date from this period; one must not forget, however, that membership of the Landsmannschaft ended with exmatriculation. “Alumni (Alte Herren)”, or the principle of lifelong membership (Lebensbundprinzip) as understood today, did not yet exist.
The Orders
The student orders were of extraordinary importance for further development. They formed around the middle of the 18th century in open opposition to the Landsmannschaften. Their ideas came from the Freemasons. An order was a supra-local umbrella association with two or more lodges under a common grand master of the order and a mother lodge. Under the influence of the Enlightenment (Illuminism), they strove for true friendship and for the happiness of mankind. For the first time they created a “brotherhood statute”, in which the acknowledgement and reciprocation of mutual services among the members was laid down as binding. As an outward sign, the members wore the cross of the order on a ribbon on which the motto (only in abbreviated form – the Zirkel), the type of order and the founding date of the order were indicated. Through the introduction of the principle of friendship and of the care of new members, the existing student customs were refined. Membership of the order applied until death. Despite the differences from the Landsmannschaften, a written agreement on a common Comment was concluded in Jena in the year 1791, and the obligation of secrecy (the secrecy of the Convent), the couleur name (fraternity name), the Zirkel and the designation of the officers (x, xx, …) were introduced.
The Corps
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Landsmannschaften and orders perfected themselves and attained great importance. In the year 1783 the extended Zirkel in its present form came into being. From the fusion of the principles of the Landsmannschaften and the orders, a new form emerged, which was at first called “Landsmannschaft”; however, since the authorities reacted allergically to this designation, a new name was sought. In the year 1810 the designation “Corps” came into use.
Napoleon’s rule weighed heavily on Europe, and so the students took up arms. As early as the year 1799 in Vienna and in the year 1809 in Innsbruck, a short-lived academic corps was formed for the struggle for freedom against Napoleon. After the victorious conclusion of the Wars of Liberation, they finally adopted the name Corps. The Corps were bearers of the pre-Burschenschaft concept of honour: they held (and in many cases still hold today) to unconditional satisfaction and the necessity of the duel. The oldest Corps (Onoldia) was founded in the year 1798 in Erlangen. Soon they introduced ribbon and caps, although the ribbon only became generally established around 1830.
The currents of classical idealism, led by Schiller and Goethe, contributed very strongly to the development of the Corps and the Burschenschaften.
After 1815 the old Corps – the Landsmannschaften – were pushed back by the Burschenschaften. After 1848 came liberalism, anticlerical tones (declarations), the unrestricted principle of duelling and, in the year 1859, the introduction of the Mensur (student fencing bout).
The Urburschenschaften
After Napoleon’s victories, the desire to shake off the foreign yoke grew. Freedom was from the very beginning a matter close to the students’ hearts. The Lützow Free Corps consisted almost exclusively of students. The poets and thinkers of that time (e.g. Gottlieb Fichte with his “Addresses to the German Nation”) called for resistance and liberation.
In the year 1808 Leagues of Virtue (Tugendbünde) arose, which Napoleon, however, banned. In the year 1810 the constitution of an Urburschenschaft was presented, which promoted the freedom of the people and the fatherland.
After Napoleon had been defeated (Congress of Vienna), the students returned to the universities. Members of the Lützow Free Corps and other local associations, inspired by the idea of freedom, founded the Urburschenschaft in Jena on 12 June 1815, from which the Allgemeine Deutsche Burschenschaft emerged in 1818 (ADB). The black-red-gold flag of the Urburschenschaft was raised, and a constitution was drawn up which professed the motto “God, Honour, Freedom, Fatherland”. Grammar-school pupils, gymnasts and others also took part in the Burschenschaft movement.
The aim was to bring these ideals to the awareness of the whole world, and so on 17 October 1817 the first Wartburg Festival was held (Wartburg near Eisenach in Thuringia). It was a general festival, at the same time commemorating the 300th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation (Protestant ideas) and the 4th anniversary of the victory over Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations). Around 500 students came from almost all German universities and burned the books of those authors (e.g. Kotzebue) who had “sinned against the German people”.
On this occasion 35 demands were published (among others the demand for political, ecclesiastical and economic unity, for the building of an armed force, for the development of a constitutional monarchy with a constitution, for legal unity and for freedom of opinion and of the press), which attracted the attention of the authorities and gave the impetus for the persecution of the Burschenschaften.
The poet and state councillor August von Kotzebue polemicised sharply against the Urburschenschaften and against the entire nature of the universities. In order to render a service to the fatherland, the theology student Carl Ludwig Sand stabbed him to death in Mannheim on 23. 3. 1819. Sand had taken part in the Wartburg Festival and had been, albeit only for a short time, a member of a Burschenschaft. Prince Metternich took this as an occasion to issue a general ban on fraternities on 20. 9. 1819. Thus arose the Carlsbad Decrees, which applied not only to the Urburschenschaften but also prohibited associations and assemblies.
This law was regularly extended until 1848, but some fraternities nevertheless continued to exist as secret societies.
The Burschenschaften
The Burschenschaft movement split because of internal antagonisms. Those who advocated political activism formed the majority.
In the 1840s many Burschenschaften turned into politically radical “Progressverbindungen” (progressive fraternities), which wanted to reform traditional student life, while the strongly combative student tendency drew closer to the new Corps.
After 1848 the ban on fraternities in Germany was lifted; the Burschenschaften at the German universities were revived, joined together on 20. 9. 1881 to form the Allgemeiner Deputierten-Convent and on 20 May 1902 adopted the name Deutsche Burschenschaft.
The Emergence of the Christian Student Fraternities
Religious student circles had been endeavouring since as early as 1830 to keep away from all the radical methods of the Burschenschaften and were seeking a new path. The rejection of unconditional satisfaction, of duels and Mensuren (that which was cultivated above all by the Corps), of political and economic liberalism, as well as the hostility of the Burschenschaften towards the Church, led to the founding of the first Christian and Catholic fraternity.
In the year 1844 six theology students in Bonn founded the first Catholic fraternity, “Bavaria”, which, however, perished in the turmoil of the revolution. In the year 1848 twelve grammar-school pupils in Munich founded a Catholic reading society, which later became the oldest Catholic university fraternity, “Aenania”, in Munich. This fraternity and the fraternity “Winfridia” in Breslau (Polish: Wrocław) concluded on 6. 12. 1856 a “Schutz- und Trutzbündnis” (alliance for mutual defence), from which emerged the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen (CV), which later united all German and Austrian fraternities. The non-couleur-wearing societies split off in the year 1913 and formed the Kartellverband katholischer Studentenvereine (KV).
In Austria, all student fraternities were banned after 1848. In the year 1862 only academic societies were permitted; in the year 1858 the “Helvetia Oenipontana Innsbruck” was founded. In the year 1864 the oldest Austrian Catholic fraternity still active today, “Austria” Innsbruck, saw the light of day. The oldest Viennese corporation, “Austria” Vienna, was founded in the year 1876 and already in its initial phase endeavoured to found an Austrian federation.
Developments in the 20th Century
While in Germany, as a result of the clear denominational division (Protestants predominantly in the north, Catholics in the south), there were no overly serious direct conflicts between Christian and duelling (schlagende) fraternities, in Austria a strong polarisation set in as early as the beginning of the 20th century: the so-called Kulturkampf. In the wake of the “Away from Rome” (Los-von-Rom) movement, Protestants very frequently tried to join duelling Burschenschaften and Corps and to impose German-national ideas as a counterweight to the Catholic faith. The Catholic fraternities, small in number at that time, were the only student associations that defended the Catholic faith at the universities – even at the risk of their own lives.
Street battles were the order of the day around the turn of the century. Especially in Graz the situation was extremely tense, and this continued until the end of the monarchy.
With the growing importance of nationalism and Hitler’s later seizure of power (1933), the duelling corporations believed they had achieved their goal, and the Deutsche Burschenschaft officially dissolved itself on 18. 10. 1935, with several corporations being taken into the National Socialist German Students’ League (NSDStB). The Austrian Burschenschaften formed the Burschenschaften der Ostmark and, after the Anschluss, were incorporated into the NSDStB with amended statutes as Kameradschaften.
The Catholic fraternities and federations (KV and CV in Germany; in Austria the ÖCV founded in 1933, the ÖKV, the Catholic Landsmannschaften and the secondary-school fraternities in the MKV) put up every conceivable resistance, but their members were persecuted by the National Socialist regime because of their Christian and democratic stance, and many of them died in concentration camps. Although they had been officially dissolved (banned) by the regime, the Christian fraternities continued to exist in secret and were active as far as was at all possible, so that they could later also be re-founded (Alpinia Innsbruck).
After the Second World War the Burschenschaften were re-established and in the year 1950 formed a new Deutsche Burschenschaft, which to this day sees itself as a political student community that officially wishes to adhere to the ideology of the German Volkstum idea and of German unity.
The Christian corporations found their way back to one another and joined together. They cooperated more frequently and more closely, and developed and spread their Christian-democratic attitudes in the university as well as in the social sphere – up to the founding of the European Cartel Association of Christian Student Federations (EKV).
Ladies in Couleur Student Life
Women were also able to take part in the Wartburg Festivals, and in the second half of the 19th century the status of the “Couleurdame” came into being. The first fraternity of couleur-wearing women students was founded as early as the year 1899 as the women students’ society Hilaritas in Bonn. This and later fraternities joined together in various federations. However, since hardly any woman was given the opportunity to study at a university, these corporations had no significance whatsoever.
Today there are more active Pennalien than fraternities at the academic level, and all of this only in the denominational camp (Catholic or Christian fraternities), since the duelling and the optional-duelling (freischlagende) corporations have not granted women any significant role. Since 1988 the Verband farbentragender Mädchen (VfM) has existed at secondary-school level within the EKV.
At the academic level, the Akademische Verbindung Austria Innsbruck launched an experiment in the year 1977: the Association of the Friends of Austria (Vereinigung der Freundinnen der Austria), which ended in the year 1983. At present the AV Austria knows only the status of “Couleurdamen”.
In the year 1978 the Veritas Baden came into being – with the same name as a fraternity in the CV –; this purely ladies’ fraternity has not been active since 1987. In the same year the AV Vindelicia Innsbruck in the ÖCV introduced for its ladies a very highly developed ladies’ statute, which provided for a ladies’ board of officers (Damenchargenkabinett) and involved the ladies in fraternity life. The ladies, however, did not strive to develop their statute towards full integration into the fraternity – or into the ÖCV. In Vienna there is the Norica Nova, which is closely linked with the men’s fraternity Norica and strives neither for independence nor for full integration into the ÖCV. In Innsbruck the Claudiana was founded in the year 1984 as a mixed fraternity. Its approximately 20 members, however, currently hardly engage in any regular activities, and no information is available as to whether the fraternity still exists or has been dissolved.
Since 1992 there has existed the Vereinigung Christlich-farbentragender Studentinnen (VCS), which is composed of purely ladies’ university fraternities: K.S.H.V. Juvavie Salzburg, C.A.St.V. Salia Babenberg Wien, C.O.St.V. Elisabethina Wien, K.A.St.V. Lenzia Wien.
In Germany the Schwarzburgbund and the Verband christlicher Verbindungen in part also admit women, e.g. the Hercynia in Heidelberg. In the year 1972 a fraternity in the Technischer Cartell-Verband (TCV) admitted a woman for the first time. Today, for example, the Graphia in Stuttgart is mixed. Furthermore, women are admitted to the Sondershäuser Verband, to the Deutscher Wissenschafter-Verband and to the Verband Deutscher Ingenieur-Corporationen. The first ladies’ fraternity after the Second World War was the textile-technology ladies’ fraternity “Ferra Floris” in Münchberg, which was founded in the year 1977. It was followed by “Letitia” Tübingen, “Lysistrata” Berlin, “Meruhausia” Freiburg, “Amazonia Nova” Marburg and “Nausicaa” Heidelberg.
Notes:
- “Kulérni študenti” (couleur students) – this Slovak expression is borrowed from Czech, namely from the word kulér, which denotes a student fraternity; the word goes back to the German expression Couleurstudenten, i.e. students wearing colours (a ribbon).
- Comment – a term encompassing all student customs and symbols.
- Pennalien – secondary-school fraternities.
Edited by: Rastislav Pavlík