Office Uerdingen

Uerdingen city wall and owl tower

The Uerdingen office was an administrative and judicial district in the Electorate of Cologne from the end of the 13th to the end of the 18th century . The office was in the northern part of the archbishopric and was one of the oldest offices in Kurköln.

It was disbanded in 1794 after the French revolutionary troops marched in and a civil administration for the occupied territories was set up by the French authorities .

Emergence

After a flood disaster , Alt-Uerdingen, north of today 's Uerdingen, which was given city ​​rights by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden in 1255 , was not rebuilt, but a new city was built further west, which Archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg granted urban privileges again in 1290 .

Official territory

At the end of the 13th century, the various sovereign rights of the Cologne archbishops in the Uerdingen area were combined to form a district. The official area (officium) was established in the middle of the 14th century (1347). Anyone who lived within the official limits was obliged to obey the Archbishop of Cologne or his bailiff and was subject to the Uerdingen court. Already in 1287 Uerdinger lay judges were active, in 1299 Rembodo von Budberg was the first bailiff.

Honors

The honors belonged to the Uerdingen office

• Vennicle
• Concealment
• Rath
• Hohenbudberg was added as an honor since the 17th century.

Court association of the Archbishops of Cologne

The Archbishops of Cologne had extensive property in the Uerdingen district. A large part of the property belonged to a court association , whose farms were subject to curvature . The court court, which sat in the courtyard, consisted of a court scholar, ten court judges and a court messenger. In 1464 49 farms belonged to the farm association. Other goods subject to curfew were paid to the Hohenbudberg farm and the Zwingenberg farm, which was managed by a Halfen around 1400 .

Mansions

To consolidate the archbishop's sovereignty in the official territory, the archbishops acquired the open house rights to the allodial fortified castles Haus Rath 1271, Burg Dreven, the courtyard with the fort 1301, and Burg Zwingenberg (castrum) 1342 in return for payment of a sum of money. The sellers then received their castle as Fiefdom back. The exception was Zwingenberg Castle, which Goswin von Zwingenberg sold to Archbishop Walram von Jülich , who transferred it as an open house to his bailiff in Uerdingen Wilhelm von Friemersdorf. In return, Wilhelm undertook to build a house in the ruined castle. His successor Philipp von Landsberg was enfeoffed with the castle as an open house for life in 1345. He committed himself for 500 marks from Cologne to expand the facility for better defense. After 1359 the castle, the location of which is unknown, is no longer mentioned.

House Rath was given in 1442 by the Count of Moers and his successors as a fief. (The reasons for the double loan are not known)

Spiritual property

House Traar came into the possession of the Teutonic Order in 1274 as a gift from the Are couple .

Of the other ecclesiastical possessions in the Uerdingen office, the landownership of the Kamp monastery with a court in Traar was the most important.

Official seat

The walled city with four gates had been the headquarters of the district since the middle of the 14th century. The castle, located in the southeast corner of the city fortifications, became the seat of the bailiff , the winery and the court with lower and high courts .

Duties of the bailiff

At the head of the office of Uerdingen stood a bailiff as the representative of the sovereign, who received this office from the archbishop and was bound by his instructions. Duties and powers of the bailiff were described in the appointment documents:

• Respect and protect rights of residents
• Order to official residents for sovereign services and transports,
• To protect the rights of the Archbishop, not to carry out unauthorized acts.
• Responsible for the occupation and defense of the archbishop's castle
• Protection and maintenance of roads
• Arrest of criminals and extradition to court
• Supervision of the city ​​of Uerdingen

The gentlemen's things , in which the wisdom was read out and border inspections were carried out, took place, like the brigade interrogations, on fixed dates under the chairmanship of the bailiff. In 1454, the Herrengeding and the Brieten interrogation took place under the chairmanship of the bailiff, Count Gerhard von Kleve-Mark , to whom the office was pledged.

Waiter's duties

From the middle of the 14th century, the bailiff had been assisted by a waiter appointed by the archbishop who administered the income of the Uerdingen office. The collector, 1357 collector reddituum, has been called waiter (celerarius) since around 1400. The cellar's tasks are described in the cellar regulations for Linn and Uerdingen from around 1450. He was responsible for the castle staff, for the annual repairs of the Landwehr , observing the good use of fields and pastures. The archbishop's income from the Kirschkamp, ​​Budberg and Zwingenberg farms, from the mill, the Rhine fishery, the Grut and the land tariffs were recorded in a collection register.

dish

While the bailiff was still chairman of the court at the end of the 13th century, the division of duties between bailiff (officiatus) and judge (called bailiff or mayor) (advocatus / scultetus) was completed by the middle of the 14th century. A mayor exercised the jurisdiction together with the lay judges . The cast also included a clerk and a courier. The court probably existed since 1255 and was set up at the same time as the town charter was granted. The jury had held a jury seal since 1317 .

Pledges

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the archbishops needed large sums of money, which they received from donors, through war or through the acquisition of territory to expand the territory. For this purpose, income from customs duties or an office with its income were pledged.

The Uerdingen office was almost a permanent pledge in the 15th century . No sooner had a pledge been redeemed than the office was pledged again. Archbishop Dietrich von Moers , who was heavily indebted to Wilhelm Sohn von Wevelinghoven, his bailiff from Uerdingen and Linn , pledged the income from the city and office of Uerdingen to him in 1419. After the debt had been repaid, Archbishop Dietrich pledged the castle, town and office of Uerdingen for life to Count Gerhard von Kleve-Mark in 1424 , who in 1430 pledged Uerdingen to the Bishop of Münster . Archbishop Dietrich redeemed the pledge in 1436 in order to subsequently pledge the castle, town and office of Uerdingen to Arnt von Brempt, who became the custodian in Uerdingen. Count Gerhard had the right to redeem the pledge that he exercised in 1447 after the Soest feud . After Gerhard's death in 1461, only half of the pledged property fell back to the Archbishop, the other half was pledged by Gerhard to Johann von Jülich, Vogt zu Bell. In the Cologne collegiate feud , in which Archbishop Ruprechts had allied himself with Duke Charles the Bold , Uerdingen was captured on behalf of the Burgundian Duke in 1474 and recaptured in 1477 by the troops of Archbishop Hermann von Hessen . Bell's claims were suspended during the Burgundian occupation, but they did not expire until 1491 with the settlement of the daughter Eduards Vogt von Bell.

This was followed by a pledge to Ruprecht von Blitterswick, which replaced Ambrosius von Virmond in 1519. The pledge remained with his descendants until it was redeemed in 1569 by Archbishop Salentin von Isenburg .

Church conditions

The turn to the Reformation was very different in the offices of Linn and Uerdingen. In Amte Linn there was hardly any Reformation influence, while in Amte Uerdingen, with the exception of Hohenbudberg, almost half of the inhabitants had turned to the Reformation. This development was documented in the visitation protocols of 1569. A decree with the requirement to put an end to all grievances had no effect. Only after the Truchsessian war did the number of Protestants in Uerdingen decline under a committed pastor. A decree that no non-Catholics were tolerated in Uerdingen had to be published several times because it was not observed.

Office Uerdingen and Office Linn as dual office

Since the establishment of the Uerdingen office, the bailiffs were also responsible for other offices. From the end of the 13th century to the beginning of the 15th century, five of the 12 bailiffs were simultaneously bailiffs in Rheinberg, three in Linn and two in Liedberg. The bailiff Ritter Rembodo von Budberg, named in 1297, was bailiff of Uerdingen and Liedberg. Similar to Hermann Schilling von Buschfeld 1313–1318. Since the acquisition of Linn 1388-1392, the offices of Linn and Uerdingen have been administered several times as a double office. After the decades of pledging, the offices of Uerdingen and Linn were usually linked in personal union from the middle of the 16th century .

Three electoral officials with separate residences, bailiff, waiter and mayor, administered the two offices. The castle and city of Uerdingen survived the Truchsessian War without major damage, but in the Hessian War in 1642 the castle was so badly destroyed that it could no longer serve as an official residence.

The bailiff lived in his private residence and was mostly represented by an administrator who lived in the city of Uerdingen. The office administrator held Brüchten interrogations, selected the lay judges, checked the honors and the Uerdingen city bills. After the castle was destroyed in 1642, the mayor lived in his house in Uerdingen. The court for both offices, which was occupied by the mayor, lay judges and a clerk, sat in the council chamber of the Uerdingen town hall or in the mayor's house. Three armed country messengers who exercised police force worked for both offices.

In the 18th century the mayor family Erlenwein had an important position of power, since they had also held the position of administrator from 1731.

The waiter lived in the outer bailey of Linn Castle. The waiter's invoices from Linn and Uerdingen were presented together to the Hofkammer in Bonn .

The taxpayers in the cities of Uerdingen and Linn were informed of the amount of the Simplen that had to be paid as a sovereign tax since the 17th century and that they paid the required amount in a house assigned to them. After collecting the money, the mayor sent the money to Bonn.

In the Honschaft the Honnen took over this task and settled the accounts with the waiter.

Sovereign services

The Uerdingen honors, like the Linner honors, had to do manual and tensioning services, including the transport of goods by ship's horses that the elector from the Netherlands had landed in Uerdingen. At a certain point (the lowest stone bridge) they were replaced by the Linnern, who took over the further transport to the border between Heerdt and Neuss. The most important services were the required Rhine services, which had to be carried out under threat of punishment. The services mainly consisted of reducing the damage caused by flooding caused by the Rhine flood. The dykes were repaired, cribs were created and the banks were planted.

Flood and ice

Although the Rhine was navigated every year to check the bank reinforcement and the dikes in the presence of the bailiff, waiter, mayor and lay judges, the subsequent measures carried out by the honors were ineffective against the violence of the water floods. Every few years there were floods and ice drifts with serious consequences: deaths, material damage and loss of land. As early as 1639, the landing site for the Uerdingen shipping was relocated due to the flood. With several breakthroughs in the Rhine (1651 and 1658), the offices of Uerdingen and Linn were flooded, and the city of Uerdingen, located directly on the Rhine, threatened to be washed away several times if the Rhine broke through the city walls and the water flooded the city center. There was great danger in 1784 when the ice came loose and a subsequent flood broke through the dikes and walls. In the city, which was flooded for three days, the water caused great damage, but the worst fear, the total destruction of the city, did not materialize.

List of officials

1297 Rembodo von Budberg and bailiff

1318–1321 Hermann von Buschfeld

1335 Arnold Schalun (von Rode) p. 382

1342 Wilhelm von Friemersheim

1347–1350 Isebrand Preut from Friemersheim

Before 1363 Johann von Broichhausen

1372 Johann von Moers

1374 Arnold of the Alps

1384-1388 Tilmann von Brempt

1401–1405 Friedrich von Moers

1406 Tilmann von Brempt zu Uerdingen, Linn, Rheinberg, Xanten

1406 Johann von Reifferscheid, Uerdingen and Linn, Kempen, Oedt

1415 Wilhelm Sohn zu Wevelinghoven

1424 Gerhard von Kleve-Mark

1436 Arnt von Brempt

1447–1461 Gerhard von Kleve-Mark held half office

1447–1491 Bailiffs von Bell held half office

1490 Reinhard von Kriekenbeck called Spor

1491 Ruprecht von Blitterswick

1519–1541 Ambrosius von Viermond

1541–1566 Johann von Virmond

1566–1576 Johann von Virmond

1586–1607 Ludwig von Lülsdorf

1607–1611 Heinrich von Lülsdorf

1611–1625 Werner Quad zu Buschfeld

1625–1654 Ludwig von Lülsdorf, son of Heinrich

1654–1668 Wilhelm Christoph von Linzenich zu Schakum

1668–1686 Wolfgang Günther von Norprath

1686 by Doubt, Administrator

1687–1690 Franz Friedrich von Norprath

1690–1693 Heinrich Ferdinand von Bernsau administrator

1693–1703 Franz Friedrich von Norprath

1703–1705 Heinrich Ferdinand von Bernsau administrator

1705–1715 Heinrich Ferdinand von Bernsau

1715–1747 Franz Arnold von Hersel

1747–1794 Clemens August von Hersel.

literature

• Reinhard Feinendegen and Hans Vogt (eds.): Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. From the early days to the Middle Ages. Krefeld 1998. ISBN 3-9804181-6-2

• Reinhard Feinendegen and Hans Vogt (eds.): Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. From the Reformation to 1794. Krefeld 2000. ISBN 3-9804181-7-0

• Kurköln. Land under the crook. Series of publications by the district of Viersen, Volume 35a. Publication of the state archives of North Rhine-Westphalia, Series C, Vol. 22, Kevelaer 1985. ISBN 3-7666-9431-6

• Georg Dehio (Gre.): Handbook of German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia I, Rhineland. Munich, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-422-03093-X

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reinhard Feinendegen and Hans Vogt (eds.): Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. From the early days to the Middle Ages, Krefeld 1998. pp. 365–368
2. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 376-378
3. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 404-416
4. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 372-374
5. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 378-384
6. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 398-401
7. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 1. pp. 378-380
8. ↑ Reinhard Feinendegen and Hans Vogt (eds.): Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. From the Reformation to 1794. Krefeld 2000. pp. 81–89
9. ↑ Reinhard Feinendegen and Hans Vogt (eds.): Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. From the Reformation to 1794. Krefeld 2000. pp. 517-519
10. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. pp. 491-497
11. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. pp. 514-517
12. ^ Norbert Andernach: The sovereign administration. In: Kurköln. Land under the crook. Series of publications by the district of Viersen, Volume 35a. P. 247
13. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. pp. 502-514
14. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. p. 379
15. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. p. 615
16. ↑ Krefeld. The history of the city. Volume 2. P. 612, Annex 4, Officials