The Staadeler is the great riddle among Maastricht gablestones. Not only is the meaning of the caption IN THE GREEN INNKEEPER unknown, but the representation also raises questions.
Clever people have racked their brains about it, resulting in a series of hypotheses.
The word "stalre" is Middle Dutch for someone who displays goods, lives in a stable or owns one. The linguistic development from stalre to staldere and finally staadeler is possible.
The adjective green could indicate young, lively.
Green staadeler could therefore mean an alert merchant or young farmer.
Also in Middle High German the word staedelaere is known and means tenant or owner of a stadel, which can be either a barn, a storage place or an inn. Then staadeler would be synonymous with the Middle Dutch stalwaarder and the Latin stabularis, which can also mean innkeeper. Green could mean cheerful, good-humoured. So here we have a cheerful innkeeper, although he could have looked more cheerful on the stone.
Continuing from the previous point, where the meaning of stadel can be extended to include garaging, granary, or business where vegetables and field crops are sold, a connection can be made between this stone and a strikingly large number of vegetable merchants in this neighbourhood, as the district master list of 1777 shows.
To complete the story: green is an appropriate colour in this case, and the strange decoration around the head would be a wreath of vegetables.
Possibly, staadeler also has something to do with "stadlander", a name that used to be given to houses, country houses, inns or places of entertainment on the land in the vicinity of the city.
This green staadeler, however, was located within the city walls.
The least concrete evidence is the use of the name Staadeler as a family name. In 1753 Frans Stadeler from Austria, master of the brewing trade, took the oath as a citizen of Maastricht. In 1768 Joseph Stadleer married in the St. Martinus church, and later Johannes Staedeleer did the same in the Catherina church. Around that time there was also a Stadeler who was a gunner in the Staatse army and was garrisoned here.
Or does the name staadeler come from the cloth industry, where we know the name "steelmaster"?
Or is there a connection between this head and especially what comes out of his mouth and various Romanesque images with tendrils from mouths and basins?
Or is a staadeler a....., well, never mind.
A "stameleer" (Maastricht for stutterer) would have been simpler.
Between 1930 and 1952 the stone was in the depository of the Bonnefanten museum on the Helpoort, but was then returned to its place of origin.
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