Geisa Office

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The Geisa Office , also called Geisa Office or Office Rockenstuhl , was a territorial administrative unit of the spiritual principality of Fulda . With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the ecclesiastical principality was dissolved and handed over to Friedrich Wilhelm von Oranien-Nassau , until Napoleon I annexed the area in 1806 . In 1810 it became part of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt .

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the province of Fulda was dissolved, as a result of which the Geisa office was given to the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach in 1815 .

Until the administrative and territorial reform of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1850 and the related resolution made it as official spatial reference point for claiming nationalistic taxes and labor services , for police , judiciary and military service .

Geographical location

The Geisa office is located in the northern part of the Rhön , today's Thuringian Kuppenrhön . The landmark of the Geisa office is the 529-meter-high Rockenstuhl basalt cone . The most important river of the office is the Ulster , a tributary of the Werra . From the Rockenstuhl area, the Apfelbach flows into it from the left, as does the Geisa , which flows into the Ulster in the town of Geisa.

The Geisa office is now located in the south of the Thuringian Wartburg district on the state border with Hesse, which had remained meaningless to the population after it was first established in 1815, but with the division of Germany between 1945 and 1990 hampered the further development of the region. Geisa is today the westernmost town, Reinhards the westernmost point in Thuringia and until 1990 was also the westernmost point of the GDR and the Warsaw Pact . The southern part of the office around the Rockenstuhl has been enclosed on three sides by Hessian territory since 1815.

Adjacent administrative units

Mansbach rule (clerical principality Fulda) Office Vacha (Landgraviate Hessen-Kassel) Völkershausen Court (from 1648 to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel)
Rasdorf Abbey (clerical principality of Fulda) Neighboring communities Amt Fischberg (Fulda fiefdom of the county of Henneberg, after 1583 partly part of Saxony-Eisenach)
Office Hünfeld (clerical principality of Fulda) Amt Bieberstein (clerical principality of Fulda) Reign of Tann

history

The ministerials from Rockenstuhl

The first written evidence of the history of Geisa comes from the time of Abbot Ratgar von Fulda , who signed an exchange contract with Emperor Ludwig the Pious (778-840), through which he u. a. the dairies Geisa ( Geisaha ) and Spahl ("Spanelo") acquired. The area around Geisa and Rockenstuhl was owned by the bishops of Fulda from 817 to 1803 .

Already in the 12th century the Rockenstuhl Castle was built by the Fulda Monastery on the Rockenstuhl mountain of the same name and given as a fief to the ministerials of Rockenstuhl, first mentioned in 1185 . When after 1254, during the period of the so-called interregnum (1256–1272), the rulership relationships in the empire were inconsistent, some nobles were in dispute with the monastery, including u. a. the gentlemen of Rockenstuhl. They became highwaymen and robber barons. In response, the Fulda abbot Bertho II von Leibolz initiated the construction of the city wall around Geisa in 1265 and the destruction of Rockenstuhl Castle in 1271. Under Abbot Heinrich V (1288–1313) the castle was re-fortified as a bulwark directed against Thuringia and came as a fief in the possession of the Counts of Henneberg .

The Fulda office of Rockenstuhl

At the beginning of the 14th century, the administration and jurisdiction of the Geisa office was transferred from Geisa to the "Castle" Rockenstuhl, which the Fulda prince abbots have since used as their residence. The Fulda office Rockenstuhl is mentioned for the first time in 1327, which included the district of the Geisa office. The Geisa settlement was elevated to a town in 1302 and removed from the administrative and judicial district. For several centuries, knights who were obligated to repost ruled the Geisaer Land in the name of the Fulda Monastery.

The prince abbey of Fulda was heavily in debt in the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century. Since the bishopric of Fulda leaned closely to Kurmainz at this time , also in order to secure the Fulda independence from the Landgraviate of Hesse , Fulda was involved in the Mainz-Hessian War of 1427 between the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Landgraves of Hesse for territorial supremacy today Hesse drawn into it. In the course of the peace treaty concluded in Frankfurt in December 1427 , the Prince Abbot Johann I von Merlau pledged two thirds of Geisa and Rockenstuhl to Landgrave Ludwig and Archbishop Konrad. This pledge was not redeemed again until 1496. In the following time until 1670 Geisa was pledged several times and redeemed again.

During the Peasants' War (1524-1525), insurgent peasants from the neighboring Tann rule , a center of the Reformation, tried unsuccessfully to conquer the Catholic Geisa. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the Fulda region followed until 1634 . After several changes of denomination, according to the religion of the respective sovereign, the population of Geisa returned from the Protestant to the old Catholic faith.

In 1699 the castle on Rockenstuhl is said to have been destroyed by lightning. The stones of the castle were used as building material in Geisa, so that today almost nothing can be seen of it. The administrative and court headquarters of the Geisa office were moved back to Geisa.

In the 18th century the office was called Oberamt. Formally, a noble bailiff was at its head. However, this office was sinecure at the end of the HRR . In fact, the chief official was actually the bailiff.

Territorial affiliation after the dissolution of the clerical principality of Fulda

After the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the 1802 secularized Hochstift Fulda was dissolved and handed over to Friedrich Wilhelm von Oranien-Nassau until Napoleon I annexed the area in 1806. In 1810 Fulda and his offices became part of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt and in 1813 it was placed under Austrian administration.

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 finally destroyed the region. The northern and central part of the former Principality of Fulda went to Kurhessen , the southern part to Bavaria and the eastern offices of Geisa and Fischberg / Dermbach were annexed to the Eisenach part of the Thuringian Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach .

The political and ecclesiastical separation of the centuries-old connection between the Catholic office and the episcopal city of Fulda initially led to some friction with the new Protestant government. A formal continuation of the Fulda administration was to be prevented for understandable reasons, so negotiations were carried out with the diocese of Paderborn to find a solution. In 1829 the offices of Geisa and Dermbach were re-assigned to the diocese of Fulda .

In 1849/50, jurisdiction was separated from administration in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . The Geisa office was merged with other offices in the Rhön to form the Dermbach administrative district , which was also referred to as the IV administrative district , with its seat in Dermbach . This comprised the southern part of the former Duchy of Saxony-Eisenach , which was also known as the Eisenacher Oberland in the 19th century . The Geisa office became the Geisa Justice Office . In 1879 it was converted to the Geisa District Court .

Associated places

The Geisa office consisted of 23 parishes, including 1 city (Geisa). The majority of the residents belonged to the Catholic Church.

Cities
Villages
Individual goods

u. a.

  • Fischerhof (to Borsch)
  • Jakobshof
  • Lützenbachshof (to Borsch)
  • Stalking house on the Roßberg
  • Wassermannshof
  • Weidhof

Office building

District Court building

The building, built in 1540, initially served as a cellar and granary. From the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century, the building was owned by Melchior von Dernbach called Graul, bailiff in Brückenau, imperial councilor and Fulda court marshal, brother of Abbot Balthasar von Dernbach and father of Peter Philipp von Dernbach , who later became the Prince-Bishop from Bamberg and Würzburg. Under the prince abbots Placidus von Droste (1678–1700) and Konstantin von Buttlar (1714–1726) it was converted into an office and court seat. Although the Geisa district court was dissolved in 1949 as part of a structural reform, the building has kept this name to this day. For many years it served as a residential and office building and to house the after-school care center . Today the guest house of the Point Alpha Foundation is located in the district court building. The rooms have been extensively renovated and modernized. The result was an extension that can be used as a modern conference room with space for up to 120 people, as well as stylish hotel rooms in an interesting atmosphere of old and modern. The district court is bordered to the west by a single-storey outbuilding with a gateway that bears the coat of arms of Konstantin von Buttlar and used to house the prison.

Bailiffs

Ministeriale von Rockenstuhl

Geisa had the Fulda Abbey administered by special officials named after the city. 1138 is listed as a witness in a document from the Fulda Abbey: Hartwig v. Geysaha; 1160 in a document from the abbot von Hersfeld: Herwig von Geisaha.

In a document from the year 1185, the first ministerials from the Rockenstuhl were listed. In 1186 a Gerlach vom Rockenstuhl is named as a witness, as well as a Berthold vom Rockenstuhl in 1187, and in 1222 Eckard and Tragebote vom Rockenstuhl appeared as witnesses.

Feudal knights

From the beginning of the 14th century the Geisaer Land was ruled from the Rockenstuhl for several centuries by feudal knights who were subordinate to the Fulda monastery. They had the task of administering the prince's chamber property and of taking care of the taxes (mostly in kind, later money) of the farmers who were required to pay a loan. They were also responsible for the security of the region, e.g. B. responsible for escorting the streets and for the judiciary.

High spiritual dignitaries emerged from the ranks of the bailiffs from the Rockenstuhl - the von Dernbach family provided a Fulda bishop and a prince-bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg. The following representatives of this family were bailiffs from the Rockenstuhl:

  • Melchior von Dernbach
  • Balthasar von Dernbach (* 1548; † 1606), brother of Melchior von Dernbach, was Prince Abbot of Fulda (1570–1606) and, as a declared opponent of the Reformation, led the population of the Geisa region back to the old Catholic faith.
  • Peter Philipp von Dernbach (* 1619; † 1683), Melchior's youngest son. He reached the highest offices in the von Dernbach family. Among other things, he was Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg (1675–1683).
  • In 1800 Karl Alexander von Dalberg was named as senior bailiff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Office Rockstuhl in Rhon lexicon
  2. ↑ ruin Rockstuhl in Rhon lexicon
  3. ↑ Book: The Geisa Office: Memories in old pictures
  4. ↑ http://www.hehl-rhoen.de/pdf/kronfeld_landeskunde.pdf
  5. ↑ Rockenstuhl in the Rhön Lexicon
  6. ↑ Des Fürstlichen Hochstift Fulda state and stand calendar, 1800, p. 82, digitized

literature

  • Kronfeld, Constantin: Thuringian-Saxon-Weimar history. - Weimar: Böhlau, 1878. - (Regional studies of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach; T. 1) / [reviewed by:] Ulrich Stechele
  • Anneliese Hofemann: Studies on the development of the territory of the imperial abbey of Fulda and its offices. 1958, pp. 90-93.

Web links