46 items
The 46 articles were a compilation of the Frankfurt guild uprising of the guilds raised Reformation , civil rights and social policy demands. On April 22, 1525, the rebels forced the adoption of the articles by the council of the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main and took over political power in the city. Some of the articles were probably written by Gerhard Westerburg . They were based on the Twelve Articles printed in March 1525 , supplemented by specific Frankfurt issues.
They were immediately published in print and served as a template for our own complaint articles in various cities along the Rhine, in the Wetterau and in northern Germany. Under the pressure of the princes victorious in the Palatinate Peasants' War , the guild uprising failed at the end of June 1525. On July 18, the council brought the guilds to hand over the article letter they had been given and delivered the original of the letter to the Count Palatine in Heidelberg .
The political situation in Frankfurt was completely restored and remained unchanged until the Fettmilch uprising in 1614. The spiritual and social demands of the 46 articles, on the other hand, formed the basis for the emergence of an Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main and thus for the introduction of the Reformation and urban welfare for the poor .
content
The 46 articles were based on a submission by the Christian Brothers to the council, probably written by Gerhard Westerburg , which had already been submitted on April 13, 1525. The input contained 11 articles, which largely coincided with the first 12 of the 46 later articles. After the outbreak of the guild uprising on Easter Sunday, April 17th, the guilds put together a complaint in 43 articles on April 20th - actually 42 articles and a postscript. In an introduction, the guilds justified their revolt by invoking the Gospel and blaming the immorality of the clergy.
On April 22, leaders of the insurgents, Hans von Siegen and Kaspar Schott, added three more articles, which were inserted as numbers 43 to 45. The complete notice of appeal thus comprised 45 articles and a concluding remark about their origin and purpose. On April 22nd, it was introduced by the Council, certified and sealed . In return, the council demanded a renewal of the citizens' oath , which was also sworn by all guilds.
The articles were compiled without any particular system. They can be divided into three categories, although not entirely without overlap: Demands on church conditions in Frankfurt (Articles 1–5, 13–14, 41 and 43–45), on politics and justice (Articles 10, 24, 31, 34, 36 and 39) as well as economic and social demands.
Church conditions
Article 1: The pastors should in future be appointed and removed by the council and congregation and “nothing else then preach the pure word of God, the holy gospel unmixed human statutes, so that the people are strengthened in correct teaching and not deceived”. This central concern of the Reformation can already be found in the first Reformation sermon in Frankfurt, which Hartmann Ibach gave on March 9, 1522 in the Katharinenkirche , as well as in the Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants.
Article 2 called for an end to celibacy and the scandalous coexistence of numerous clergymen with concubines : “that all those who want to live here, whether spiritual or worldly, should moderate the great vice of fornication and so sit down not suffered, so that no offense may arise for the neighbor, and where one is not to live chaste, that the same person should become married and no one should not be allowed fornication at all. "
Article 3 provides that ministers should be required to bear all the civic burdens, "that all those who want and be yourself but famous clergy ... to service, Bede and all other civil complaint guards, hats, control and Ungeld as the Citizens should sit and carry. "
Article 4 required of the monastic orders, “that which, according to their ancestors and they have begged off the citizens and skimmed off with false clergy, is sent away to other cities that a community and they were not entitled to ... to bring here again. Nor should any monk be allowed to beg, not to preach or to hear confession . "
Article 5 demanded the dissolution of the monasteries: "They should not accept any more young monks, not even nuns, and so now monks or nuns are in monasteries that they may go out freely, whether they like."
Articles 13 and 14 stipulated that all benefices and wills bequeathed alms should in future go to a common alms box for the city's poor welfare , so that the poor were no longer dependent on begging. Nobody should be obliged to annual commemorations of the dead , brotherhoods and funerals in order not to keep the citizens from earning a living and to concentrate the worship service on the sermon.
According to Article 41, the income of the calibration system to which the provost of the Bartholomäusstift was previously entitled should go to the common caste. Article 43 called for the abolition of soul masses , Article 44 for the Beguines to be concentrated in two houses and a ban on new admissions. According to Article 45, concubines "who previously lived illegally with priests and other persons" should not be accommodated in a citizen's home, but should leave the city.
Political and legal conditions
Article 10 stipulated that court proceedings for rich and poor alike should be concluded within four weeks if possible and that the fees for judges and advocates should be halved if possible. According to Article 24, no citizen who could provide a surety should be detained before a court ruling, except for peace breakers, violent criminals, thieves, villains and those who failed to comply with a court summons. Article 25 stated that Jews were not allowed to sell or collect pledges without a written judgment. Article 27 limited the compensation for damage caused by one citizen in another's field to the rate set by the farm court. According to Article 31, only those should be accepted into a guild who had "honestly learned and worked with synergies". Article 32 limited the number of paid riders to 12 because a larger number of the community was "more harmful than useful", but it should be left to an honorable council to change this article according to its will. Article 33 required homeowners to be on guard duty.
Article 34 touched on the confidentiality of letters : only the guilds themselves were allowed to open and read letters addressed to them. If the contents concerned the authorities, the guilds forwarded the letter to a mayor. Article 35 confirmed a previous prohibition of drinking and blasphemy by the Council . Offenders should be punished ruthlessly. Article 36 stated that only sincere, discreet, experienced, and skilled men should be elected councilors, regardless of friendship or kinship. Direct line relatives and brothers should not sit on the council at the same time. According to Article 39, the council was not allowed to change any guild statutes without the knowledge and will of the guilds.
Economic and social conditions
Article 6 called for the cancellation of all unsecuritized spiritual or secular loans. Article 7 opposed speculation in the grain trade: all grain and other crops should be freely traded on the city's markets, where the poor also had access, and should not be bought up in front of the city by wholesalers ( mothers ) who then increased it Prices resold to the citizens. For normal household quantities (one to two and a half eighths ), cash payers should have the right of first refusal from wholesalers who make their purchases on credit . Article 8 allows homeowners to carry out certain construction work on their houses, for example stairs, thresholds, roof trusses and cellars, without commissioning the city builder for money. Article 9 called for the great Ungeld , an indirect tax on staple foods , to be halved and poor citizens to be abolished entirely.
Article 11 gave the option to redeem securitized perpetual interest for a one-off payment. Unsecuritized perpetual interest should, as required in Article 6, be omitted without replacement. Article 12 accused the Frankfurt Jews of usury and demanded their exclusion from trade and the free surrender of lost property if a Christian citizen claimed ownership of them. They were allowed to sell old clothes and pieces of cloth, but not by the yardstick as in the usual cloth trade.
Article 15 called for the abolition of the levy for the permit to clear and cultivate undeveloped land, Article 16 for the abolition of the "double gel" on pigs fattened in the house. Articles 17 to 20 were directed against the excessive use of the Frankfurt city forest by foreigners and demanded the restoration of traditional rights of the citizens: the foresters should no longer sell the annual beech tree yield , but allow the poor to graze their cattle in the forest to let. Article 18 limited the penalty for unauthorized logging to cases of willful damage to the forest. According to Article 19, the poor should be given preference in the annual wood allocation so that the rich, who had better transport options, could no longer collect the best wood before the poor. According to Article 20, the grazing rights of the Sandhof and Neuhof should be prohibited within the Frankfurter Landwehr and those of the Hellerhof outside the Landwehr restricted so that the citizens could feed their cattle.
Article 21 called for the abolition of "home-grown", a tax on home-made wine; the bridge fee , which was raised by Sachsenhausen vineyards and was used to maintain the Main Bridge , should be retained. According to Article 22, the bridge tariff for citizens who transported goods across the bridge should only be due “between Bartholomäi and Egidij” (from August 24th to September 1st).
Article 23 called for the restoration of rights of use to common land and fishing waters that had been restricted and privatized over time . According to Article 26, the fee to the field guard for guarding the vineyards should be limited to six and for fields and meadows to four Heller , according to Article 28 the minimum wage for field workers should be increased by two Heller per day. According to Article 29, the tax should be abolished "from milk and other things", according to Article 42 the "cart money" at trade fairs . Article 30 called for the "currency money" for notarisation of real estate transactions to be halved, and Article 37 for the wages to be halved.
Article 38 called for the abolition of the small tithe on garden crops, fodder and small livestock. Under Article 40 new charges (should estimates or Bede ) only with the consent of the community and to the ability to pay principle to be introduced.
Article 46
In their concluding remarks, the authors emphasize that the articles were not devised out of self-interest, but to the best of their knowledge and belief for the praise of God and for the benefit of the community. They swear the articles in civil loyalty to the community and as obedient subjects of the imperial majesty and seal the document with the seals of the city and the guilds so that no one can reduce or change the approved articles out of malice, disfavour or dislike of the community. Given on the Saturday after Easter 1525 (April 22nd).
swell
- Rudolf Jung : Frankfurt Chronicles and Annalistic Records of the Reformation. Along with a depiction of the siege of Frankfurt in 1552 . Frankfurt am Main 1889, p. 184–191 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Jürgen Telschow, legal sources on Frankfurt church history , Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISSN 0344-3957, pp. 1–4
literature
- Sigrid Jahns: Frankfurt am Main in the age of the Reformation , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (Hrsg.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 , p. 151-204 .
- Michael Matthäus: Hamman von Holzhausen (1467–1535) - A Frankfurt patrician in the age of the Reformation . Frankfurt am Main 2002, Waldemar Kramer publishing house. ISBN 3-7829-0528-8 , pp. 328-355.
- Jürgen Telschow: History of the Protestant Church in Frankfurt am Main. Volume I - From the Reformation to the end of Frankfurt independence in 1866 . Series of publications of the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main, No. 40. Cocon-Verlag, Hanau 2017, ISBN 978-3-922179-53-5 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Rudolf Jung : Frankfurter Chroniken and annalistic records of the Reformation time. Along with a depiction of the siege of Frankfurt in 1552 . Frankfurt am Main 1889, p. 178 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ^ Georg Ludwig Kriegk : Frankfurter Bürgerzwiste and conditions in the Middle Ages: a contribution to the history of the German bourgeoisie based on documentary research . Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1862, p. 161 ff . ( digital-sammlungen.de ).
- ↑ For pigs that were fattened in the house, the double tax was charged as for pigs that went with the city herd.
- ↑ The visor measured the wine barrels in order to calculate the “wine money”, the indirect tax on wine.
- ↑ This reversed the tax reform of 1495, which favored the wealthy at the expense of the dispossessed.