Walternienburg Office

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The Amt Walternienburg was an exclave between the Duchy of Magdeburg (later: the Kingdom of Prussia ) and the Principality of Anhalt , a territorial administrative unit of the County of Barby, which had been directly imperial since 1497 . After the division of the County of Barby in 1659, it fell to the Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst as a fief .

The office was under feudal sovereignty of the Electorate of Saxony and was affiliated to the Kurkreis .

Until it was ceded to Prussia in 1815, as a Saxon office it formed the spatial reference point for the collection of sovereign taxes and compulsory services , for the police , jurisdiction and military service .

Geographical expansion

The small office Walternienburg was an exclave of Kurkreises between the county Barby in the West, an exclave of the continental Kurkreis Office Gommern in the East and the Principality of Anhalt in the south and north (exclave of the Principality). The official area was west of Zerbst / Anhalt and east of Barby on the east bank of the Elbe . Four exclaves belonged to the office. The area was traversed by the Nuthe (Elbe) . The official area is now in the center of the state of Saxony-Anhalt .

Adjacent administrative units

The data refer to the rule after the division of County Barby in 1659.

Principality of Anhalt (Gödnitz exclave) Duchy of Magdeburg (later: Kingdom of Prussia )
County Barby Neighboring communities Office Gommern (exclave)
Office Rosenburg ( Duchy of Magdeburg , later: Kingdom of Prussia ) Principality of Anhalt

history

The place Walternienburg was first mentioned in 973. In the 10th century, the town and castle Walternienburg came as an imperial donation to the Quedlinburg Abbey . Its abbess enfeoffed the Counts of Arnstein with it. In 1359, the suffix "Walter-" appeared for the first time, possibly going back to Count Walter II von Arnstein-Barby.

From 1356 the Ascanian dukes of Saxony were feudal lords of Barby and Walternienburg, who were formally enfeoffed in 1359 by the Abbess of Quedlinburg. The last Ascanian Elector of Saxony Albrecht III. Although he had transferred the fiefs of Barby and Walternienburg to his Ascanic relatives of the House of Anhalt , they were nevertheless transferred to the Wettins through imperial fief , who became new rulers of the Electorate of Saxony in 1423 after the Ascanian electors died out. The rule of Barby was raised to the status of an imperial county by the later Emperor Maximilian in 1497 .

The entitlement to the county after the extinction of the male line of the Counts of Barby , which Elector Friedrich II had given the Prince of Anhalt in 1435 , was limited in 1652 by Elector Johann Georg I to the office of Walternienburg.

After the death of the last Count of Barby in 1659, the office of Walternienburg fell back to Kursachsen and was transferred by Johann Georg I of Saxony to his son August von Sachsen-Weißenfels , who entrusted the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst with it. After the Weißenfelser sideline of the Wettins died out, the feudal sovereignty fell back to the Electorate of Saxony in 1746 .

When the extinction of the Zerbster line was foreseeable, the three other Anhalt lines of Bernburg , Dessau and Köthen turned to the Elector of Saxony in 1791 with a request for this fiefdom to be re-awarded. In a contract dated June 15, 1796, the parties involved agreed, according to which the elector handed over the office of Walternienburg and its accessories to the princes of Anhalt as man-made goods . When Zerbst was divided, the office was transferred to the Dessau Line and a "Princely Court" with an appointed court clerk and subordinate staff was set up for its administration and exercise of jurisdiction.

After the end of Napoleon's foreign rule, as a result of the defeat of the Kingdom of Saxony, allied with Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, territorial cedings to the Kingdom of Prussia were decided. This concerned u. a. the entire Kurkreis with its offices. The Electoral Saxon feudal rights to the Walternienburg office were ceded to Prussia . Walternienburg was as an official of the Principality of Anhalt in the Prussian province of Saxony built and the district Jerichow I attached.

Administration of the office by the Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst

The fiefdom was administered in a similar way to the other Anhalt-Zerbster offices of Zerbst , Roßlau , Coswig , Lindau , Dornburg and Mühlingen . The offices were headed by an official who had economic, police, judicial and financial functions. He led u. a. the personnel supervision, administered income and expenditure, had to provide for border regulations in the field marks and road improvements and supervised forests and fisheries. He was responsible for maintaining public safety. The bailiff acted as an examining magistrate in the first instance, who at the same time had enforcement powers and the right to pronounce judgment. He had to enforce the sovereign orders in legal disputes, raise the judicial sentences and exercise the voluntary jurisdiction. He was also responsible for regulating guardianship matters. To support his work, he was assigned sub- officials : locksmiths , clerks , Meier (also court master or bailiff) and wood forester. In the princely villages, the judge was subordinate to him as the sovereign representative.

Associated places

Cities
Villages
Other property
  • Poley Mill
  • Trebnitz (Vorwerk; exclave)
  • Tochheim (customs house)

literature

Web links