Aachen religious unrest

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The time of the Aachen religious unrest or also Aachen religious turmoil , as mentioned in the current history books, means a period from around 1530 to around 1614 in which there were sometimes massive and civil war-like disputes with mutual successes between the Catholic and Protestant citizens of the Free Imperial City of Aachen came. These unrest had a significant impact on the economic and social life of Aachen and could only be contained through repeated measures by the emperor and through military support of troops loyal to the emperor.

Beginnings

Around 1530, the Reformation gradually began to gain a foothold in Aachen . Initially, only a few Aacheners, mostly members of the influential Wollenambacht (cloth makers' guild) and the Kupferschlägerambacht, as well as families of traders and scholars, joined this new faith. In the following years, well-respected Protestant cloth maker families from the counties of Flanders and Artois as well as the Duchy of Limburg , from which the radical Reformation Anabaptists came, also settled in the city.

Melchior Colyn (1500–1559), who was elected mayor of Aachen for a year more than ten times between 1532 and 1558, was tolerant of these religious changes, although he himself always remained connected to the Catholic faith. He campaigned for these immigrants to be granted civil rights on October 4, 1544, as well as suitable rooms for living and working and any necessary loans to be granted. With this support, they founded small craft businesses, joined the corresponding guilds, where they met families from Aachen who had also converted, and led their own, albeit limited, religious life. However, the citizens of Aachen, especially those from the old aristocratic class, as well as influential city councilors were soon complaining about the " decline of the Catholic faith ". They stalked the Protestants with abusive letters and slander and they were then temporarily excluded from all public offices. A mayor, Adam von Zevel († 1580), elected from among the immigrant families of clothiers, swore his oath of office in 1552 only on the condition that necessary steps were to be taken to exercise tolerance towards the Protestant religion. Word of this incipient unrest got around up to Emperor Charles V and Mayor Melchior Colyn pleaded with the Roman-German King and later Emperor Ferdinand I as part of the negotiations on the peace of religion in Augsburg in 1555 for the freedom to practice religion .

Although it was permitted after the Augsburg Religious Peace to profess either the Catholic or the Protestant faith, the council, which was still predominantly Catholic, could not be induced to show a minimum of tolerance and courtesy. When, for example, the following year the foreign cloth workers appointed a French clergyman at their own expense under the pretext that they did not understand the German preachers, and under the protection of Zevel, who was elected mayor for the second time, they were denied this on January 26, 1556. In the same year the Reformation Anabaptists were banished from the Aachen Empire . With these constant quarrels, the mutual pursuits continued. Influential rulers such as King Philip II of Spain , who particularly persecuted the Dutch fleeing from the newly founded Spanish Netherlands and mostly Calvinist , interfered with threatening letters. But the Dukes of Jülich , who were responsible for Aachen as bailiffs , tried again and again to hinder the free exercise of religion, which was then officially prohibited for the first time by Emperor Ferdinand I himself in 1560.

1560-1598

As early as 1559 the Protestant members left the council and Mayor Zevel retired to his estate "Gut Kuckum" in Bardenberg . Nevertheless, in the following years, due to a further influx of foreign immigrants, now mainly from the Dutch, who fled from the notorious new governor, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba , the proportion of Protestants increased, including a large one There were many Calvinists, who were not particularly respected by the Lutherans . Around 1570 the Dutch exile community in Aachen alone comprised around 3,000 people, making it the third largest in Germany after Wesel and Emden. They thanked the incumbent mayor with a valuable and labeled mug. The whole situation in Aachen now led to the fact that on July 23, 1574, the supporters of the new teaching at the city council succeeded in being allowed to elect Reformed people to the council. From 1576 onwards, thanks to the significant support of the guilds, the council was temporarily occupied by a majority of Protestants.

In the period that followed, one Lutheran and three Reformed congregations emerged. They set up their places of prayer in rented or acquired houses, of which the Klüppel semi-detached house later served as the central prayer house of the Reformed community from 1588. Nevertheless, the majorities in the council changed constantly. In the spring of 1580 the Reformed petitioned the council in which they categorically demanded the free exercise of their faith and attempted to have the imperial ban of 1560 declared invalid. The city council did not comply with this, even under pressure from Duke Wilhelm V von Jülich, and repeated warnings from the new emperor Rudolf II were also repeated . In the end there were violent riots, during which the Protestants seized the Aachen town hall and the city treasury and marched through the streets noisily, some Catholics being killed and others wounded. Before the regular appointment, the Protestants elected Johann von Lontzen and Simon II von Engelbrecht, two mayors from their ranks, in May 1581 , to whom the Catholics, Albrecht Schrick and Johann Fiebus, also presented two of their own candidates, of which only von Lontzen was elected and fiebus were confirmed. As the excitement increased every day, many respected Catholics emigrated and several Catholic council members fled to Jülich. The Protestant majority of the council now for the first time and officially allowed the practice of Protestant worship services and meetings that had been practiced for many years. In 1581, Emperor Rudolf II decreed that the councilors had to profess Catholic doctrine, that the evangelical councilors had to be removed from the council and that the effects of the destruction had to be removed and, in order to enforce his measure, left the city with Spanish troops loyal to the emperor under the leadership of the Bishop of Liège, Duke Ernst of Bavaria . Even a delegation in 1582 under the leadership of the former Aachen mayor Matthias Peltzer to the Reichstag in Augsburg , where the Aachen problem was on the agenda, could not change the disadvantaged situation for the Reformed.

Due to the politically and religiously tense situation of the last few years and the economic disadvantages that were felt despite the temporary majority of the council and ultimately also because of the siege of Aachen, many reformed craftsman and trader families, such as the Pastor , Peltzer , Schleicher , Amya and Lynen families, decided , Prym and parts of the von Trier bell- founding family or the de Spina family of doctors to leave the city for the most part and to the neighboring Burtscheid , the nearby Republic of the United Netherlands , to Hamburg and Lübeck ( Leers family ) or to those also not far away To move to places Stolberg and Monschau , where these families then built up successful branches of industry. Conversely, this led to an economic bleeding of the city and to financial impoverishment, from which the city would only recover after the French occupation, despite small booms.

Bonifacius Colyn (1533–1608), son of the former mayor Melchior Colyn, remained faithful to Catholic teaching all his life, but just like his father tolerant of people of different faiths, was asked by the evangelical fellow citizens, as their envoy to the emperor, for a mitigation to advertise the punitive measures. After the following negotiations with the emperor and the Catholic councilors who had evaded to Jülich and with the compromise to adhere to the conditions of the Augsburg religious peace, a phase of relative calm followed and the imperial troops finally withdrew six months later.

But the mutual dislike ran deep and the unrest continued unabated. Again and again there were taunts and riots, both from one side and from the other, although now within Aachen the majority of the Catholic citizens were being pursued. However, since Aachen was surrounded by predominantly Catholic principalities, their attacks on Protestant traveling salesmen in turn resulted in a form of economic blockades for the city's residents. This Catholic "encirclement" and a lack of external support for the Protestants, with the exception of the Electors of the Palatinate and a few others, were decisive factors in the fact that the Reformation could not be implemented in the long term. Nevertheless, the city council remained firmly in Protestant hands for the next few years. Further negotiations, again led by Bonifacius Colyn, who had meanwhile been elected mayor, followed at the city days in Ulm , Speyer and Heilbronn , whereby a consolidation of the situation for the Protestants and an official confirmation of the continued free practice of their religion were negotiated. Although this calmed the situation in the city itself, the emperor disliked the confessional change in “ his ” imperial city, which, as the coronation city of the German kings, was particularly close to the Catholic Church.

Finally, already declared in 1593 Rudolf II. Of Aachen's 1,591 threatened imperial ban , the emperor faithful but five years later, and after another tough and inconclusive negotiations in July 1598 and again by the widespread use troops was carried out. The decision of the emperor was a logical consequence of the past few years, and with it the weak and religiously neutral-minded emperor followed the pressure of his numerous Catholic sovereigns. The years of disregard of his various decrees and the almost anarchic-looking conditions in Aachen ultimately tipped the scales to finally enforce the earlier decree of 1560. The evangelical council then resigned and the still predominantly evangelical citizenry faced a city council consisting solely of Catholics under the leadership of the mayor Albrecht Schrick, who was deposed in 1581 and a vehement representative of Catholicism. From now on the evangelical citizens were excluded from any say and all their preaching houses and schools were closed. Many leading Protestants and officials were expelled and, in return, all displaced Catholics were brought back. In addition, the new council demanded heavy fines from the approximately 126 prominent outlaws. Further conflicts were thus predetermined under these conditions.

1598-1614

After the violent implementation of the imperial ban in 1598, the respected goldsmith Johann Kalkberner developed into the spokesman for the Protestants who remained in Aachen. Although in the meantime he was prosecuted for his spokesmanhood with a short term imprisonment and material punishments, Kalkberner managed in the following years to reorganize the Protestants. He benefited from the fact that the childless Duke of Jülich-Kleve-Berg, Johann Wilhelm , died in 1609 and the succession of rule over the bailiwick of Aachen could only be clarified through the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute . Both successor aspirants were Lutherans , whereby Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg prevailed for Jülich-Berg , who, however, converted to Catholicism himself in 1626 . This meant that the Catholic “belt” around Aachen was interrupted for the time being and thus initially no longer any direct threat to the imperial city.

After the Catholic city council arrested some Protestant citizens who had attended Protestant services in the surrounding area in 1611 and wanted to revoke their citizenship, it came after thirty years, this time with the help of Kurbrandenburg troops and with tolerance by the new ruler of Jülich- Berg, Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg, on July 5, 1611, on the renewed storming of Protestants on the town hall and the Aachen Jesuit college . The two incumbent mayors and the Jesuit fathers were captured. Every citizen now had to swear allegiance and obedience to the new mayor Johann Kalkberner. Some former officials managed to escape from Aachen, including the former Catholic mayor, Joachim Berchem , who reported the recent incidents in Aachen to the emperor. The emperor repeatedly urged the Protestants to obey, but died a few months later in 1612, as did his loyal follower, Ernst von Bayern, who had been feared in Aachen since his invasions in 1581 and 1598. After the death of the old emperor, the elector of the Palatinate and responsible imperial vicar Friedrich V first made a decision in favor of the Protestants. They were now allowed to officially practice their religion again alongside the Catholics and take part in council elections. After the Protestants again held the majority of the council, they in turn pursued the Catholics and prevented them from building a secure existence or from carrying out their official business.

The new Emperor Matthias , an advocate of the Counter Reformation , could not agree with these events in Aachen and, after months of negotiations, imposed a second imperial ban on Aachen in August 1614, which was supposed to restore the conditions of 1598. This decree was passed through a commission, this time supported by a Spanish army from the Netherlands under the command of the Marquis Ambrosio Spinola . In view of the more than 16,000 soldiers in front of the city walls, the city council had to admit defeat without a shot being fired. Two years later, harsh sentences were passed against the Protestants. Two citizens were sentenced to death and 77 families were exiled.

former column of shame on the market square

As a warning to the population, a " pillar of shame " was erected on the market square in 1616 for the leader of the Protestant uprising, Johann Kalkberner , which was only removed in 1793 by the French. It bore the inscription:

"Sic pereant / Qui hanc Rempublicama) / Et Sedem Regalem / Spretis Sacraeb) Caesareaec) Maiestatis / edictis / Evertere moliuntur
Ad / damnandam memoriam / Ioannis Kalckbernerd) / In ultimo tumultu Anno MDCXIe) / Hic excitato / Inter ha perduelles / Antesign ex decreto / D (ominorum) f) Subdelegatorumg) Sac (rae) h) Caes (areae) Maiest (atis) / Erigi iussa / III. Nonas Decembris anno MDCXVI

Translation : So perish those who seek to overthrow this community and this royal seat by despising the ordinances of the Holy Imperial Majesty. In the damnable memory of Johann Kalckberner, the leader of the last tumult, who had been conjured up between the enemies here in 1611, it was ordered that this pillar be erected on the 3rd day before the Nones of the Holy Imperial Majesty's emissaries December 1616. "

As a result of this entire situation, economic life in Aachen was repeatedly weakened and a renewed strengthening of Protestantism in Aachen seemed hardly possible due to the events, although there were still isolated attempts to achieve this. In fact, the Roman Catholic denomination was to remain the only dominant religion until the end of the Old Kingdom. Since the Protestants could not form their own congregations, most of the Lutheran and Reformed residents now mainly joined the congregations in Vaals and the surrounding area or Burtscheid. This resulted in the construction of the Hervormde Kerk in Vaals in 1649 with the German liturgical language, in 1667 the construction of the Waalse Kerk for the French-speaking believers who had moved from Wallonia and in 1737 the construction of the Evangelical Lutheran Church De Kopermolen , also for the German population.

Religious freedom was finally introduced in Aachen when the French marched in during the First Coalition War and the associated occupation of the left bank of the Rhine .

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cup with inscription for the city of Aachen, entry in the inscription catalog Aachen, DI 32, City of Aachen, number 71 + (Helga Giersiepen)
  2. ↑ pillory for Johann Kalkberner; Entry in the inscription catalog Aachen, DI 32, City of Aachen, number 106 + (Helga Giersiepen)