Office Steinbach (mountain)

The office of Steinbach was one of the Bergisch offices into which the County of Berg (later the Duchy of Berg ) was divided. The office got its name from Steinbach Castle in Untersteinbach near Lindlar above the Sülz . The castle was initially the official seat of the office, but later the Neuenberg Castle . The last remains of the wall were removed from Steinbach Castle in 1962, while the ruins and large remains of the walls of Neuenberg Castle, which was razed after the Thirty Years' War , are still preserved.

Office Porz and Office Steinbach 1789

A large number of sovereign estates were grouped around Steinbach Castle, namely Steinbach itself, Ommerborn , Hembach, Dörpe, Hollinden, Peffekoven, Müllerhof , Feld, Brochhagen (Brochhagener Mühle) and Neuenberg Castle . This castle also belonged to the domain of the sovereign and was therefore owned by the Counts of Berg.

In a document dated September 6, 1363, the then existing offices of the county of Berg were noted for the first time and the Steinbach office was assigned the places Wipperfeld , Bechen , Kürten , Olpe , Lindlar, Overath , Engelskirchen , Hohkeppel and Wipperfürth . The city of Wipperfürth was within the office, but as a city it had its own administration and jurisdiction. Only the areas outside the city were part of the administrative district. The official seat was Neuenberg Castle until its destruction .

Judiciary in the Steinbach office

In 1363 the Steinbach district had the nine regional courts of Wipperfeld, Bechen, Kürten, Olpe, Lindlar , Overath, Engelskirchen, Hohkeppel and Wipperfürth .

Since the district court of Eckenhagen had temporarily no consultation in the Windeck office , a judgment had to be obtained from the district court of Lindlar in dubious cases and announced at the next appointment in Eckenhagen.

The upper court was in Porz . In dubious legal cases, the regional courts in the Steinbach office were subordinate to this; unclear legal matters were submitted to Porz to seek a judgment there or to have it established. After the decision of the higher court, the only option left for the regional courts was to deliver the verdict. In addition, Wipperfürth had a city court that could consult the departmental court in Siegburg if anything was unclear .

Parishes and honors

The individual parishes of the office were divided into honors , namely:

Lindlar in 9 honors: Breun , Scheel , Ober- and Unter-Helling , Dorf , Breidenbach , Ommer , Stolzenbach and Remshagen
Overath in 7 honors: Löderich , Heiliger , Burg , Oderscheid , Miebach , Balken and Vilkerath
Wipperfürth in 8 honors: Scharde , Eichholz , Dellweg , Flosbach , Lüttgenau , Bovenholz , Biesenbach and Bever
Kürten in 4 honors: Engeldorf , Breibach , Kohlenbach and Ober-Honnschaft
Olpe in 3 honors: Olpe , Berg and Dierdorf
Engelskirchen in 2 honors: lower and upper parish
Hohkeppel in 2 honors: Tüschen and Vellingen
Wipperfeld in 2 honors: Black and Schneppen
Bechen consisted of only one honors of the same name .

The mathematician and geographer Erich Philipp Ploennies wrote in his description of the country in 1715:

“ From Ambt Steinbach. This consists of 9 church games, 1. Wupperfurth, 2. Lindlar, 3. Oberrath, 4. Bechen, 5. Ulpe, 6. Kürten, 7. Hochkeppel, 8. Wipperfeld, 9. Engelskirchen. The 3 first church games are the largest and all together are related to the Catholic religion. It is a very large ambt, but a bit rough because of the many barren mountains, and therefore hardly bears anything but habitat anywhere. Fruits are rarely found in it, but you will find more cattle and pigs. It has no main forests, but only to make bushes for firewood and frost for barrels, as it were, from which not a few people in the ambt feed themselves; Then 17 of these are all brought to Cologne or Bonn and sold there. Many stone carvers live in the village of Lindlar, because there are beautiful stone and slabs there. "

- Topographia Ducatus Montani - Amortization and description of the Duchy of Berg in 1715

The area later formed the Wipperfürth district . Only Overath came to the Mülheim am Rhein district .

Bailiffs

The following officials are documented:

1313: Heidenreich von Ehreshoven, officiatus
1340: Gerhard (the elder) von Waldenburg called Schenkern, ambtman
1372–1373: Engelbert the Vogt, amptman yn the veste van Steynbech
1380–1390: Bruno von Zweifel, amptman in Steinbech
1641: Johann Georg von Bellinghausen (according to sovereign acts)

literature

Johann von Lülsdorff: On the development of sovereignty in the individual parts of the Duchy of Berg. In: magazine of the mountain. History Association. Vol. 70, Wuppertal 1949, pp. 253-318.
Albrecht Brendler: On the way to the territory. Administrative structure and office holder of the County of Berg 1225–1380. Dissertation University of Bonn, 2015, p. 162-177 .

Individual evidence

^ Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rhineland Berg Department , Documents, No. 354; published by Theodor Joseph Lacomblet : Archive for the history of the Lower Rhine. Volume 4. Voss, Düsseldorf 1863, pp. 147-158 ( digitized version ).

↑ Brendler (2015), p. 162.

↑ Brendler (2015), pp. 176–177.

↑ Renate Leffers: The neutrality policy of Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm as Duke of Jülich-Berg in the period 1636–1643 , Bergische Forschungen, Volume VIII, Neustadt an der Aisch 1971, p. 94.

[1] Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rhineland Berg Department , Documents, No. 354; published by Theodor Joseph Lacomblet : Archive for the history of the Lower Rhine. Volume 4. Voss, Düsseldorf 1863, pp. 147-158 ( digitized version ).

[2] Brendler (2015), p. 162.

[3] Brendler (2015), pp. 176–177.

[4] Renate Leffers: The neutrality policy of Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm as Duke of Jülich-Berg in the period 1636–1643 , Bergische Forschungen, Volume VIII, Neustadt an der Aisch 1971, p. 94.