Office of Birkenau

Birkenau Castle , the center of office

The office of Birkenau was an office of the imperial knighthood family Wambolt von Umstadt and later in the Grand Duchy of Hesse .

geography

The Birkenau office was in the western Odenwald , near Bergstrasse . It included:

• Birkenau
• Kallstadt
• Rohrbach

The center of the office was Birkenau Castle , which was rebuilt around 1770.

function

In the early modern period , offices were a level between the municipalities and the sovereignty . The functions of administration and jurisdiction were not separated here. The office was headed by a bailiff who was appointed by the rulers.

→ Main article : Office (historical administrative area)

history

The office of Birkenau was a Mainz fief since 1721 to the family of the Wambolt von Umstadt. Therefore, the Mainz land law and - subsidiary - the common law applied if the Mainz land law did not provide any regulation for a matter. This legal situation was only replaced on January 1, 1900 by the civil code that was uniformly applicable throughout the German Empire .

With the Rhine Confederation Act of 1806, state sovereignty over all imperial knighthood possessions fell to the larger states surrounding them. The office of Birkenau fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and was assigned to the province of Starkenburg here . However, it was now subject to the state sovereignty of the Grand Duchy, but the sovereign rights of the Wambolt von Umstadt family had to be preserved. These included, above all, the sovereign rights that arose from the patrimonial jurisdiction . The Grand Duchy naturally disrupted these competing sovereign rights in its own sovereignty claims.

However, during the administrative reform between 1820 and 1822, the Grand Duchy largely managed to integrate the office into the state structures. With this administrative reform, jurisdiction and administration were also separated at the lower level . District districts were created for the administrative tasks previously performed in the offices, and district courts for the first instance jurisdiction. The Birkenau office was dissolved, its administrative tasks transferred to the Lindenfels district and its judicial tasks to the Fürth regional court . To this end, the Grand Duchy had reached an agreement with the Lords of Wambolt zu Umstadt, according to which state administration and jurisdiction were active in the area of ​​the former office, but did so in the name of patrimonial rule.

Individual evidence

1. ^ L. Ewald: Contributions to regional studies . In: Grand Ducal Central Office for State Statistics (ed.): Contributions to the statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Jonghaus, Darmstadt 1862, p. 48.
2. ^ Georg Wilhelm Justin Wagner : Statistical-topographical-historical description of the Grand Duchy of Hesse: Province of Starkenburg . tape  1 . Carl Wilhelm Leske, Darmstadt October 1829, OCLC 312528080 , p. 20th f . ( Online at google books ).
3. ↑ Arthur Benno Schmidt : The historical foundations of civil law in the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Curt von Münchow, Giessen 1893, p. 109, map.
4. ↑ Art. 25 Federal Act on the Rhine .
5. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessisches Regierungsblatt dated July 20, 1821, p. 403ff.
6. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessian Government Gazette of July 20, 1821, p. 406.
7. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessisches Regierungsblatt dated July 20, 1821, p. 407.
8. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessisches Regierungsblatt dated July 20, 1821, p. 407.