Bavaria (Bayern) Land and Property

Bannprotocoll
A “Bann” describes a fenced off area around a settlement, i.e., a village, a city. For instance, a “Bannmeile” or “Bannrecht” was enforced to keep out people of a certain trade to not practice their profession within the perimeters of the Bannmeile in order to protect their own people who practiced the same profession. Administrators kept a “Bannprotokoll”, in which the owners of all properties within the Bann were listed. This book contained all houses and farms, pieces of garden, acreage and meadows. A Bannprotocoll can give the location of the village well and of all paths leading to and from the village. Bannprotocolle were revised often because the levying of taxes made it necessary to obtain more accurate information. Therefore, a Bannprotocoll is a small time capsule which will show the development and uses of the land.

Before the metric system was in place in Germany (1870/71) there existed an array of measurements of varies length. Originally, measurements were according to a man’s body measurements or according to his work capabilities. A “Morgen” was the amount of land a man was able to plough in one morning or which he could mow. “Viertel” and “Ruthen” were other measurements, as well as “Schuh” and “Fuss”. Here are some equivalent measurements in metrics: 1 Schuh = 29,75 centimeters 1 Ruthe = 16 Schuh = 4, 76 meters 1 Morgen = 128 Ruthen

The author Rainer Holz has published the Fehrbacher Bann Protocoll from 1721. His work was published through the Zweibrücker Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Familienforschung. The book is available through www.familysearch.org Family History Library Catalog, call number 943.3/F7 R2h