Landshut Local Customs

Hochzeitszug is the name of the historical wedding parade that will take place every sunday afternoon at 02.00p.m.
2000 participants will walk or ride through Landshut according to an old fresco and as explained in the history-books of Landshut. You may see the bride and the groom, their family and friends, diplomats from other countries, kings and noble people, the servants of the bride, who had to leave Poland togeather with their princess, artists, soldiers etc. - all of them in their traditional historic costumes.
In 1475 the historic parade was going to the wedding-church, and the Hochzeitszug of nowadays will end at the Turnierplatz, where the next performance will start right after the parade :
The tournament of the knights - see my next tip !
Hochzeitszug / wedding parade through Landshut will take place each sunday afternoon at 02.00 p.m.
Seats at the terraces along the street are 24,- or 27,- Euros
lots of standing places are available as well and free of charge !

Reiter & Ritterspiele is an event that always follows the Hochzeitszug on sunday afternoon:
It is a revival of the historic tournament of the knights and was explained in many history-books. Noble knights were fighting tournaments and made competitions in order to win a price, donated by the young princess Hedwig.
Tickets are 26,- and 29,- Euros for the seats
I am not sure if any standing places are available
The Reiter & Ritterspiele start at 05.00p.m.
at Turnierwiese, next to the place where you may watch the life in the camp.

Falconry is a sport dating back to the medieval times and it was great for me to watch this falcon carried by its master in a crowd of hundreds of people without getting nervous.
Falcons will also be part of the festivity called "Lagerleben" , where in a large tent several falcons will sit and wait for the moment they may start to fly away for hunting.
Other places, where you may watch falconry in action and with performances during the summer-season are :
Cochem a small town along the river Mosel
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Burg Maus in St.Goarshausen (Rhine-valley)
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Rosenburg (in Austria)

Landshuter Hochzeit is an event, where you cannot participate, simply because you have some sort of old costume at home. Everything that you see there is absolutely authentic and historians make sure, that everything looks exactely like during the original wedding in the year 1475. The traditional Landshuter drinking-mug is a good excample. You may see it fixed on the right side of the belt, when the "inferior" people are walking. Noble people of course would never carry around such a mug, they have their servants to do so and they would go to noble places to have a drink out of glasses of course.
You may buy this drinking-mug as a souvenir - BUT be prepared it is made of copper and quite expensive !! (200 Euros or even more)

The participants of Landshuter Hochzeit seem to have the greatest fun posing for your pics, they will always smile and will be very friendly. In General you do not have to pay anything when seeing them in the streets, you only pay for the seats at the big parades on saturday and sunday, standing-places along the streets are free of charge and it is recommended to take with you a ladder or something else to step on for a better view. Also the musicians in their great traditional costumes will play in the streets all day long and will end with a nice shouting of HELLO...
....the audience will also shout hello and you never will be able nor ever asked to throw money into a box for the musicians, you may just attend them and enjoy the great music by the traditional instruments.

Visitors are welcome from anywhere in the world, BUT you have to live in the area around Landshut in order to be allowed to participate and play one of the characters.
When you see these people in their fancy and precious costumes you might get the idea, they are just walking around, in fact they are playing a certain character and follow a certain choreography, made by specialists who try to get as close to the real historic wedding as possible.
Don't try to get a historic dress and mingle between them - you will be detected quite soon, as all of these people are part of a club called "Die Förderer" (the supporters), they know each other and all the characters. "Aliens" are detected easily, mostly by their shoes...

Landshuter Hochzeit is the biggest event of this kind in Europe and it started in 1902 with only 50 participants. Today 6000 participants in traditional costumes may be seen during the 2 weeks of the performances and already the children may participate and when they grow up they will step into characters of elder persons step by step. The very top of such a LaHo-carreer is certainly to become the actor of the royal bride or groom, it is a special honor and you will get your place in the local history.
The bride of 2005 is now 18 years old, like the original bride and she started already in the age of 2 years to participate in LaHo, she had been twice in the children-group and once as one of the noble young girls, accompanying the princess. Different to the original bride Hedwig in 1475, the bride and groom have to be born in Landshut. The actors of today have to be in the right age of 18 years for the bride and 20 years for the groom and a cometee will choose umong them.

Becoming the bride in Landshut was the 2nd choice for Hedwig, the daughter of the Polish King Kasimir. Her father had tried first to have her married with the hungarian King Matthias, but somehow he did not succed.
Such a marriage had of course nothing to do with love or sympathy, BUT it was a contemporary way to gain more power, money and influence...
So the negotiations took quite some months and finally the bride was given away for 32.000 guilders ( today's equivalent is 6.500.000 Euros).
She was married to one of her relatives, as the mother of the bride and the father of the groom were cousins - so they had to ask the pope for permission to be allowed to marry - and the pope agreed ( against a "donation" of 300 guilders / 70.000 Euros)