Office of Wolkenburg

Amt Wolkenburg 1789 based on a map by Wilhelm Fabricius

The office of Wolkenburg was an administrative unit of the Electorate of Cologne , which originally had its seat on the eponymous Wolkenburg in the Siebengebirge . It included the parishes (now the city) of Königswinter and (later the municipality) Ittenbach .

The office was created in the course of the constitution of offices introduced by the Archbishop of Cologne, Walram von Jülich , from 1332 to 1349 and belonged as a sub-office to the office of Godesberg-Mehlem , which had its administrative seat in Godesberg on the left bank of the Rhine and opposite Königswinter . On the right bank of the Rhine as an enclave of the Electorate of Cologne, the office was surrounded by other territories, since the 15th century entirely by the Duchy of Berg with the offices of Löwenburg in the south and north and Blankenberg in the northeast. Koenigswinter, then known as a patch or freedom , was located in the official area, but in the Middle Ages it formed its own rule with its own jurisdiction.

After the Viscount of Wolkenburg mid-14th century extinct, will be the first kurkölnischer bailiff on November 30, 1344 Henry of races Mountain , canon of Cologne, Archbishop Walram appointed for life. In the years 1372/1373, the office was connected to the glory of Vilich through joint fiefdom recipients or bailiffs . On May 13, 1425, the office of Wolkenburg was pledged by Archbishop Dietrich II of Moers to the burgrave Göddert of Drachenfels , who was resident in the official area . The castle lords of Drachenfels, who only owned territories on the left bank of the Rhine ( Drachenfelser Ländchen ), mostly remained pledges of the office - from 1530 these were the barons of Mirlaer zu Mylendonk - who exercised lower jurisdiction in this area . After the Wolkenburg began to fall into disrepair in the 16th century, the administrative seat of the office was relocated to Königswinter by 1611 at the latest, where the court met at the market in the Myllendonker Hof of the Drachenfels lords. Later the pledge fell temporarily to the abbot of Heisterbach in the course of a legal dispute , in 1692 it was awarded to the Waldbotten von Bassenheim zu Gudenau together with the burgraviate Drachenfels .

After 1794, during the occupation of the Left Bank of the Rhine by French revolutionary troops, the Godesberg office was dissolved, while the Wolkenburg office (also known as the Königswinter office ) remained in Kurköln. In 1803 the office was assigned to the Principality of Nassau-Usingen as a result of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and in 1806 it was transferred to the Grand Duchy of Berg in connection with the formation of the Rhine Confederation . The office of Wolkenburg was dissolved, its former administrative area was part of the expanded office of Löwenburg until the introduction of the municipal constitution at the end of 1808 and then belonged to the Mairie (from 1813 mayor's office ) Königswinter .

literature

• Wilhelm Fabricius : Explanations of the historical atlas of the Rhine province, 2nd volume: The map of 1789. Bonn 1898, p. 61 u. 91/92.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Sinzig: The race castle near Linz , in Heimat-Blatt and Geschichtschronik ... , 16/1933, p. 129 ( www.dilibri.de )
2. ^ German Hubert Christian Maaßen : History of the parishes of the dean's office in Königswinter. Cologne 1890, p. 138 .
3. ^ German Hubert Christian Maaßen: History of the parishes of the dean's office in Königswinter. Cologne 1890, p. 200 .
4. ↑ Winfried Biesing: From the office of Wolkenburg to the canton of Königswinter , Königswinter 1984, p. 16 ff