Burgerbibliothek - History Lab https://historylab.es Thu, 19 May 2022 15:04:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://historylab.es/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-icono-historylab-32x32.jpg Burgerbibliothek - History Lab https://historylab.es 32 32 Gypsies in front of the city of Bern https://historylab.es/gypsies-in-front-of-the-city-of-bern/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gypsies-in-front-of-the-city-of-bern Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:21 +0000 https://historylab.es/2022/02/19/gitanos-ante-la-ciudad-de-berna/ Illustration by Diebold Schilling showing a group of gypsies at the gates of the city of Bern, Switzerland (1485)

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]]> Although the Gypsy culture has been and still is largely ungrammatical, the linguistic influences to which the Gypsies were exposed have made it possible to trace their origins to India, specifically to the north, in the Punjab region. Settled in tents on the outskirts of villages, it is quite likely that they were engaged in the manufacture of baskets and iron tools, as members of a lower caste. Although the dates of their departure from India remain unclear today, an early reference to their exodus is found in the testimony of the Persian poet Firdusi (11th century), who said that the Gypsies would have arrived in Persia in the 5th century to serve the Sassanid king Bahram Gur as dancers and musicians. In any case, they must have remained in Persian territory long enough for Semitic elements to be incorporated into their language. Around 750, when Persia was under Arab domination, the Gypsy people split into two distinct groups and headed for Syria and Armenia, where they settled long enough to adopt Armenian words. Attacks by Byzantine soldiers in the 11th century caused them to look for a new location, this time in Byzantine Greece. At the dawn of the 12th century they were taken to be descendants of Simon Magus – a Samaritan race associated with witchcraft and animal poisoning; in the 13th century they were taken to be soothsayers and snake charmers; and during the 14th century they were assimilated with the descendants of Cain, son of Noah, who were characteristically very dark-skinned. Before the end of this century, the Gypsies had already reached the Balkans. The Turkish invasion brought them into Western Europe from 1417 onwards, and they expanded rapidly. In 1485 they reached the city of Bern in Switzerland and stayed at the city gates, as recorded in Diebold Schilling’s Spiezer Chronik. In the picture the Gypsies form a compact group, characterised by their tanned skin and brightly coloured clothing in shades of blue, green, red and yellow. The men, in the foreground, cover their heads with pointed hats, while the women, with children in their arms or attached to their cloaks, wear turbans.

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