Witzenhausen Office

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The Witzenhausen office with the Ludwigstein office was a territorial administrative unit of the Landgraviate of Hesse and, from 1567, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel . From 1627 to 1834 the Witzenhausen office with the Ludwigstein office belonged to the territory of the so-called “Rotenburger Quart”, the partially sovereign Landgrave branch line Hessen-Rotenburg .

Until the administrative and territorial reform of the Electorate of Hesse in 1821 and its associated dissolution, the Witzenhausen office with Ludwigstein as the office formed the spatial reference point for the demand for sovereign taxes and compulsory services , for the police , jurisdiction and army successes .

Geographical location

The offices of Witzenhausen and Ludwigstein were located in the far northeast of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel between Kaufunger Wald in the west, Eichsfeld in the east, the Principality of Göttingen in the north and the Soodener Bergland in the south. The area was traversed from southeast to northwest by the lower Werra and its tributary Gelster . The office had an exclave in Laubach .

The majority of the official area is now in the northeast of the state of Hesse and belongs to the Werra-Meißner district . Only the places Laubach, Mollenfelde and Reckershausen are in the southernmost part of Lower Saxony and are now part of the Göttingen district .

Adjacent administrative units

The territory of the office bordered:

history

The Ludwigstein Office

A “Amt Witzenhausen” was mentioned in 1361 for the first time. In 1379 it was one of the four offices on the lower Werra that were subordinate to the officials Heinrich von Gladebecke and Hermann von Rusteberg.

To protect the running in the valley of the Werra trade route and against the ruling in neighboring kurmainzischen Eichsfeld Herren von Hanstein was Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse in 1415 compared to the Castle Hanstein the Ludwigstein build. In 1416 Hans von Dörnberg the elder became the first bailiff of the new Ludwigstein office established there, to which the protection of the Witzenhausen office was also transferred. Since then, Witzenhausen and Ludwigstein have been completely united and at times also mortgaged together. In contrast, the city of Witzenhausen had its own mayor , who was also responsible for Hundelshausen and Trubenhausen around 1555.

Ludwigstein Castle remained the seat of a Hessian bailiff and the center of administration and jurisdiction in the Hessian Werra area until 1664. According to a register of 1466, the Ludwigstein office included lands and income in the villages of Oberrieden, Wendershausen, Hilgershausen, Hundelshausen, Weißenbach, Roßbach, Kleinalmerode, Bischhausen and in Witzenhausen; in the 16th century further villages were added around Witzenhausen, Eichenberg and Friedland. Hans von Dörnberg was succeeded as bailiffs by a number of Hessian nobles who were also pledges of the castle at times. The most important among them was Hans von Dörnberg the Younger , son of the first Ludwigsteiner bailiff, who rose to be the Hessian court master and de facto regent of the landgraviate.

As a counter-deal to provide for relatives of his bigamistic second wife Margarethe von der Saale , Landgrave Philipp Burg and Amt Ludwigstein transferred his valet Christoph Hülsing and his descendants as a man's fief . Philip's son, Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel , succeeded in buying back this property only after long negotiations . After that, the castle was again the seat of Hessian officials, mostly civil ministerials .

Rotenburger Quart and Witzenhausen Office

After the death of Philip I, the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided into an inheritance in 1567, with the Ludwigstein Office and the Witzenhausen District Office becoming part of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. In 1627 both offices came as part of the Rotenburger Quart to the landgrave branch line of Hessen-Rotenburg , to which they belonged until 1834.

In 1664 the Ludwigstein office was combined with the Witzenhausen municipal school district office, whereby Ludwigstein lost its function as the seat of a sovereign bailiff. The castle became a landgrave's domain . The high school in Witzenhausen was now also responsible for the Witzenhausen office.

During the French occupation from 1807 to 1813 the area belonged to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia and was divided as follows:

Division of the Witzenhausen District Office during the French occupation
department District Canton Associated localities
Department of the Werra Eschwege Witzenhausen Town of Witzenhausen, Blickershausen, Berlepsch Castle, Huebenthal, Ziegenhagen, Ziegenberg, Ermschwerd, Stiedenrode, Hubenrode, Kleinalmerode, Ellingerode, Wendershausen, Dohrenbach, Fahrenbach, Roßbach, Rückerode, Hundelshausen, Oberrieden, Ludwigstein
Department of the Werra Eschwege Sooden Hilgershausen, Trubenbach, Uengsterode, Weißenbach
Department of the Leine Goettingen Friedland Bischhausen, Marzhausen, Eichenberg, Berge, Hebenshausen, Gertenbach, Gut Neuenrode, Reckershausen, Unterrieden, Hermannrode, Albshausen, Gut Arnstein
Department of the Fulda kassel Münden Laubach
Department of the Fulda kassel Kaufungen Epterode

After the dissolution of the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1813, the Electorate of Hesse was re-established with its previous administrative structure; The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, who held sovereignty over Hesse-Rotenburg, had received the electoral hat in 1803 , and his territory was therefore designated as the Electorate of Hesse from 1815. The Hessian Office of Witzenhausen existed until 1821 and was then assigned to the Witzenhausen district in the course of the Hessian administrative reform . Through a border treaty between the Electorate of Hesse and the Kingdom of Hanover , the places Laubach and the Hessian half of Mollenfelde came to Hanover in 1831/32. Reckershausen also came to the Kingdom of Hanover after 1815.

Associated places

Cities
Villages
Castles and Palaces
Yards and goods
Desolation
  • Hungershausen (near Kleinalmerode)
  • Bremerode and Eibingen (near Hebenshausen)
  • Eilersgewende, Bremerode and Gerwardshausen (near Marzhausen)
  • Eberhardshausen, Willershausen, Stempelshausen and Rengershausen (near Witzenhausen)

Lien holders and officials

  • 1430: Hermann Diede
  • 1455: Wilhelm Meisenbug
  • 1460: Hans von Dörnberg
  • 1464: Georg von Buttlar
  • 1486: Parakeet and Kaspar von Berlepsch
  • 1488: Raven of Herda
  • 1503: Ludwig and Hermann von Boyneburg
  • 1515: Christian von Hanstein
  • 1545–1573: Ludwigstein and some villages separated out as a man fief of Christoph Hülsing, then occupied again by Witzenhausen officials.
  • 1555: Witzenhausen city school responsible for Witzenhausen, Hundelshausen and Trubenhausen
  • 1628-1835; to the Rotenburger Quart
  • 1664: Hessen-Rotenburg combines the office of the Witzenhausen city school with that of the bailiff on the Ludwigstein. Since then the Oberschultheiß zu Witzenhausen was also responsible for the office.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Witzenhausen, Werra-Meißner district. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ^ Homepage of the city of Witzenhausen

Web links