OLD GERMAN NOTGELD COIN GARBECK SCHÜTZENBRUDERSCHAFT DREI KONIGE 3KING RELIQUARY

Balve is a town in the Markischer Kreis district, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in Honnetal, a narrow valley created by the river Honne, which is near the Sorpe Dam, formerly part of Balve, and at the north end of the Sauerland, near Dortmund. The town was established in 1975 with several divisions including Balve, Beckum and Eisborn and Garbeck.

The first disputed reference to Balve was in around 780, when it was mentioned that a Widukind owned a farm called Ballowa, another name for the town. The first undisputed reference was in 864, in which a blind girl from Balve was said to be healed at the grave of the Saint Ludger in the crypt of Werden Abbey.

Ballowa is also mentioned in the Thidrekssaga, a chivalric saga written in the mid-13th century in Norway. In the saga, Ballowa is the home of two dwarfs who taught Weyland much about making iron weapons. At the time of writing, Balve belonged to the county of Arnsberg.

In 1358 the town became the property of the Duchy of Westphalia, which belonged to the Archbishops of Cologne. In 1430 it was given the right to be called a city. During the Napoleonic period, it belonged for a short time (1802–1815) to Hesse, after which time it became part of the Kingdom of Prussia.

In 1975, during a local government reorganization, the city was enlarged by the addition of the several former independent municipalities from the abolished Amt Balve, including Asbeck, Beckum, and Eisborn.

Points of interest
There are many caves in the Honnetal, including the Balver Hohle at Helle, a large cave used for cultural events such as concerts, stage acting and the annual marksmen's festival, and the Reckenhohle, a cave 1,478 ft in length that has flowstone. Experts have found signs of cannibalism in some of the caves.

Other points of interest include
Beckum, where scientists found bones from eight kind of species of dinosaurs from the cretaceous, and The Luisenhütte, the only surviging 18th-century blast furnace that is still in workable condition, situated close to the 14th-century castle Schloss Wocklum, the home of Count Dieter von Landsberg-Velen.

Coat of arms
The town's coat of arms references the history of Balve. The eagle is taken from the arms of Arnsberg, and the black-and-white cross from that of Cologne. Both symbols were present in old seals of the city, of which the oldest known example dates from 1462. The coat of arms was officially granted on June 24, 1911, and confirmed on February 6, 1976, after the local government reorganization of 1975.

The bottom part of the coat of arms of the former Amt Balve is identical Bolve's town arms. The top half showed St. Peter, wearing a red coat and holding in his left hand a golden key and in his right a golden book. This coat of arms was granted on March 5, 1957, and expired when the Amt was dissolved in 1975.

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St. Three Kings (Garbeck)

The Roman Catholic parish church Hl. Drei Konige is a landmark church building in Garbeck , a district of Balve in Markischer Kreis ( North Rhine-Westphalia ). The community belongs to the Pastoralverbund upper Honnetal.

History and Architecture 

The building was built in 1867 according to the plans of the diocese master Arnold Güldenpfennig . After severe structural defects occurred, the tower was first broken off, in its place was added from 1942 to 1947 an annex; the plans were probably created by Paderborn master builder Kurt Matern (1884-1968). The old church was demolished in 1952, leaving only the entrance, which became the new sanctuary.

The new church was built from 1952 to 1953 under the direction of Kurt Matern in Blockermauerwerk. The window openings are set in stone . The tower with a transversely saddle roof stands sideways on the south side. The southern portal cultivation looks low. The building is a hall church with narrow side corridors, which are separated by arcuate arcades on rectangular pillars. The wooden ceiling with transom is tilted flat. The vaulted choir and the nave are separated by a pointed arch . The walls are divided by pointed arch and segmental arched windows. A three-piece gable window is over the backSee gallery . Bernhard Gohla equipped the back wall of the sanctuary with figurative representations in sgraffito and mosaic . Otto Peters made the glass windows in the ship in 1953. The Werkstatt Winkelmann renewed the Tabernacle, the altar and the Ambo in 1989.

Literature 

Heinrich Otten: The Church in the Archbishopric of Paderborn from 1930 to 1975 . Boniface Verlag, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-89710-403-7

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Schutterij

Schutterij (Dutch pronunciation: [sxɵtəˈrɛi]) refers to a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands, intended to protect the town or city from attack and act in case of revolt or fire. Their training grounds were often on open spaces within the city, near the city walls, but, when the weather did not allow, inside a church. They are mostly grouped according to their district and to the weapon that they used: bow, crossbow or gun. Together, its members are called a Schuttersgilde, which could be roughly translated as a "shooter's guild". It is now a title applied to ceremonial shooting clubs and to the country's Olympic rifle team.

Function

The schutterij, civic guard, or town watch, was a defensive military support system for the local civic authority. Its officers were wealthy citizens of the town, appointed by the city magistrates. In the Northern Netherlands, after the formal changeover in civic authority after Beeldenstorm, which depending on the town, was sometime between 1566 and 1580, the officers had to be a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. Its captain was usually a wealthy inhabitant of the district, and the group's ensign was a wealthy young bachelor (often recognizable in group portraits of Schutterijen by his particularly fine clothes and the flag he is carrying). Joining as an officer for a couple of years was often a stepping-stone to other important posts within the city council. The members were expected to buy their own equipment: this entailed the purchase of a weapon and uniform. Each night two men guarded their district in two shifts, from 10:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., and from 2:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., closing and opening the gates of the city. At a set time each month, the schutters would parade under the command of an officer.

The ideal was that, for every hundred inhabitants, three would belong to the schutterij. The Dutch Mennonites were excluded from a position in the schutterij in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and paid a double tax in lieu of service. Roman Catholics were permitted in the lower regions. Persons in the service of the city (such as the minister, the city-physician, the teacher, the sexton, the beer-bearers and peat bearers), and the city's Jews, did not need to serve. The beer and peat bearers had to serve as the town's firefighters instead.

Training grounds

The schutters (traditionally archers) or cloveniers (musket bearers) met at target practice grounds called Doelen (targets). These fields were generally adjoining a large building where they met indoors for gymnastic exercises and held their meetings. It was in these great halls where the large group portraits hung for centuries, and many paintings suffered dramatically from enthousiastic gymnasts over the years. These locations were not the only place the schutters met each other. These guilds also kept altars in local churches, where they met for religious reasons. Most schutterij guilds had as patron saints Saint Sebastian, Saint Anthony, Saint George (St. Joris in Dutch), or Adrian of Nicomedia (Dutch: St. Adriaen). These religious duties were a significant part of the guild membership since that is also where they paid their dues.

After the Protestant Reformation, all the altars were disbanded in the Dutch Reformed churches in the Northern Netherlands, and membership dues were no longer paid in church, but at the city hall. In Amsterdam, the guilds were no longer allowed to make rules or spend money on their own, but in Haarlem, there were two guilds who kept their original rules (St. Adriaen and St. Joris), such as holding banquets and collecting for sick members or widows. Though they moved premises several times, some of the old Haarlem schutterij Doelen halls still stand where the schutters met and where their group paintings hung, though these paintings are now preserved carefully in the Frans Hals Museum.

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