Stiftland

In the north-east of the Upper Palatinate, the Waldsassen Abbey owned a lot of land that it had initially received through foundations. The Abbey was later able to realign and expand their land through purchases. The monastery dominated and thus shaped the region. Therefore, the area was given the name Stiftland. One meaning for das Stift in German is the properties, including facilities, furnishings, equipment and land owned by a monastery. In southern Germany and Austria, the German word das Stift is sometimes used as a synonym for monastery or abbey.

Many of the towns and villages in Stiftland can trace their origins back to the Middle Ages. Back then, people cleared areas in the abundant forests. It was on these forest clearings that they founded their villages.

They built their houses around the Dorfanger (1), the central village square. The villagers utilized the land behind each building to create farmyards. These fields stretched to the edge of the forest and were therefore given the name Waldhufe (2), forest farmyards.

It was here that the villagers cultivated the land. They divided the yards into three equally sized fields and grew different crops on them on an annually rotating basis; a practise which is called three-field crop rotation.

In the museum, a Waldhufe or forest farmyard settlement with buildings from the area of Stiftland has been reconstructed. This reconstruction displays how the different inhabitants of such a village lived.

Smaller and larger farms (3, 4, 5), a craftsman’s house (6) and a cattle herder’s house (7) surround the Dorfanger (1), or village square. Most of the buildings’ upper floors are built in the style of Fachwerk, a half-timber frame construction, from the region of Egerland. A diamond-shaped pattern is typical for these buildings. The museum’s farmers cultivate the fields (2) on the farmyards according to the three-field crop-rotation system.