Aschaffenburg

One of the first places David and I went in Germany was to Aschaffenburg. I don’t know why we went there. This city is not on the usual tourist route, and it has nothing of particular distinction.

Before the unification of Germany in the 19th Century, Germany was carved up into dozens of little independent states, some ruled by dukes and counts and some ruled by prince-bishops. Aschaffenburg was once the “capital” of a principality owned by the Catholic Church.

David and I did not tour the bishop’s palace but went instead to the museum in what had been a monastery. We walked around on the wide plank flooring through many rooms looking at church art.

A guard motioned to David to come up a short flight of stairs into a small, white-washed room. It was a torture chamber, with heavy chains to attach men to the walls, just like in the cartoons, only this was for real. This was also the first time I saw an actual rack for stretching men’s bodies until their joints broke.

The guard showed David other instruments of torture. Surprised, David said, “A torture chamber in a church?”

I told David about the terrible wars over religion. The Thirty Years War in Germany was particularly brutal, Catholics and Protestants torturing, burning down churches with people inside, and killing each other as viciously as Shias and Sunnis bomb and fight among themselves today. The fanatical Muslims who want to kill Christians are following examples set by Christians who killed Christians in the 16th Century.

With that gruesome lesson in mind, we walked through the rest of the rooms in this former monastery. I could not find a cloister. In Medieval times monasteries were built around courtyards, where monks could walk under the porches which surrounded the enclosed gardens while they meditated. (I almost wrote “medicated”.) We call these enclosed gardens “cloisters”. In New York City there is a beautiful museum of Medieval art, called “The Cloisters”, with cloisters transported from several European countries. But in the former monastery in Aschaffenburg I went through many rooms but could not find a doorway into the cloister.

I went to the front desk and asked the little, gray-haired woman on duty, “Where is the cloister?”

I don’t speak German. Her English was limited. When I kept repeating, “Cloister?” She looked puzzled, then said firmly, “Here is Kloster.” She waved a slender hand around to indicate the entire building.

Finally I understood. In German “kloster” is the word for “monastery”.

Just another example of how things are misunderstood between people of nations and cultures who speak different languages. It also happens between individuals who think they are speaking the same language.