Banner run

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With the banner run , a historical uprising began in Bremen from 1365 to 1366, when lower- class citizens and craftsmen protested against the Bremen council and the upper class. The rebels ran in 1365 with a Bremen banner . The action went down in history as a banner run, a name that has since stood for an uprising (see German legal dictionary).

history

prehistory

After an agreement with Archbishop Gerhard I , the city of Bremen and the Archdiocese of Bremen had been on an equal footing for the first time since 1217 . The codification of the Bremen city law according to the previously existing customary law took place from 1303 to 1308. Since 1330, a man capable of counseling had to be born free and in wedlock, be at least 24 years old and own land worth 32 silver marks.

As early as 1349 there is said to have been a banner run of dissatisfied citizens in Bremen. Around 1365 the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen had around 15,000 inhabitants. Very few of them had citizenship . A small, wealthy, but unstable upper class of around 30 families dominated the economic foundations of the city. They made up the incumbent “council third”. They retained the office of councilor for life. The conditions set by them for the election to the council (council ability) of 1330 had the consequence that craftsmen and less wealthy were excluded from council ability. Guild masters had to give up their craft while they were on the council.

The other two non-officiating "council thirds", Wittheit and Meenheit , were only well-off citizens:

  • The majority from the four parishes was the community of citizens, the universitas civitatis Bremensis , who may have elected the mayor before the electoral law was changed. Here were u. a. the master craftsmen, small merchants, boatmen, fishermen, carters represented. The Meenheit was about 1350 times the opposition opponent of the incumbent Council third.
  • The Wittheit was increased at this time of 36 to 114 men.

Each third of the council provided 36 councilors. When a councilor without an heir died, however, there was no election, so that in 1354 the council was very small.

The plague of 1350 and the costs of the war and the release of prisoners from the Hoya feud from 1351 to 1359 increased the city's financial distress. The cost of the war and the release of 150 prisoners (including 16 councilors) led to Bremen going bankrupt. High wealth taxes ( lap ) were then required. Although taxes were only to be paid by the wealthy, social tensions intensified. One reason for this was the repayment of the ransom money paid out. The richer prisoners could very soon redeem themselves by their own fortune.

The banner run

Mayors at the time included Heinrich Doneldey and Albert Doneldey .

A group of ordinary people formed as Granden Kumpanie (also Grande Cumpanien , a term that was not uncommon in Germany or Italy at the time and which in this case was possibly only coined afterwards), who were under the leadership of Remmer and Wildehoens. In assemblies in the churches there were calls for elections to a new council, for the reintroduction of the old rights with the participation of the four parishes and for the strengthening of the rights of the simple craftsmen.

At the beginning of September 1365 "vele mener lude" gathered without the permission of the council. The 16 well-known leaders such as Hinrick Kemmer, Hinrick Wilde (both from Pelzer ) and Johan Hon (brewer) grabbed a ship banner with the Bremen coat of arms . So the leaders and a few common people, mostly from the council third of the Meenheit , protested with arms against the lap and the unjust distribution of the large amounts of money required. Other reasons for the protest remained unclear. They broke into some councilors' homes, abused some family members and insulted the councilors as "traitors and sons of whores". The houses of the mayor Albert Doneldey and the councilor Johann von Reken were also stormed. But they did not take any prisoners.

In return, the council collected the nobles from the monastery and vele guder lude also van buten , put on armor, closed the city gates, rang the storm bells and put down the rebellion. Some of the rebels were seized and sentenced to death by the Vogt . In the evening, 18 (or 16) leading participants were beheaded , their fortunes confiscated and their families banned from the city . However, most (or many) of the insurgents managed to escape. Some of the refugees were deprived of their property and exiled with their families. The confiscated property of the convicts and those who fled was then used for the ransom money of the prisoners.

The incumbent third of the council decided in December 1365, with the consent of Wittheit , that every new citizen now had to take a Bremen citizen oath on the city council, with the introductory words: “I want to be obedient to the council and never act against the council, even in any emergency and dangers, ... ”This oath was valid until 1904. The council had the reins firmly in hand again.

aftermath

In January 1366, four middle-class councilors had to leave the city council. You and the evaded participants of the banner run contacted the Archbishop of Bremen Albert II . This group and the archbishop's servants as well as allies within the city were able to penetrate the city on May 29, 1366, in which they sometimes bypassed the Bremen city wall with eken (small inland ships) . The archbishop had broken the still valid land peace of 1363 from the Hoya feud . The soldiers burned the still wooden Roland in the market square . Some wealthy citizens were caught and imprisoned, and some are believed to have been killed. A new council with more than one hundred members was elected from the majority and the ammets (from the guilds). But who exactly belonged to the Meenheit at that time remains unclear. The "kopman" was missing in the naming, however, they could have been taken into account by the ammeten in the election. The alliance of Meheit with the bishop meant that the simpler craftsmen were adequately represented in the council, but only at the price of subordination of the city to the bishop, i.e. at the expense of imperial freedom . The cathedral chapter of Bremen cathedral interfered in communal affairs and the cathedral provost helped the “traitors”, as they were later called. The Easter gate was secured and Johann Hollemann's house was attached to the Weser.

However, the new council was unable to acquire the necessary support from all citizens. The concessions that the new council had to grant the diocese caused a change of mood. The rioters were also ostracized by the Hanseatic League . They ruled the city only for a short time.

Some of the opposing, old councilors and members of the community were able to flee to Delmenhorst . They went to the Count of Oldenburg . In a letter of complaint dated August 9, 1366, they stated that the Archbishop "de vorreders, de uns unde unse stad vorraden hebbet, to radmanne maket hadde". On June 24th, a Hanseatic day banished the “traitors”. 2000 Oldenburg Marks were promised to the Oldenburger for his help by the old council and perhaps also the support of the Oldenburg in the coming feud against the Butjadinger "peasant republic". As early as June 27th, servants of Count Konrad II of Oldenburg took the archbishop's garrison by surprise and conquered Bremen. The social uprising was over.

The merchant and pirate Johann Hollemann, who was on the side of the rebels, lived at Langenstrasse No. 98/99. His pirates were the reason why Bremen had to rejoin the Hanseatic League in 1358 and had to pursue the pirates. In 1366, after the social uprising, Hollemann and some of his servants were killed or hung in front of his house. Several other "traitors" were whacked and executed, including Councilor Lüder Nakede. Hinrick Kemmer was slain in Mittelbüren . Various leaders escaped.

The Oldenburgers left the city very soon. The returned council restored the old claims to power of the officiating third of the council, the upper classes, who took up their offices again. But the now powerful council also came to terms with the guilds and confirmed the guilds' jurisdiction in their own affairs. Even if the archbishop initially protested against the council, he soon had to capitulate completely in the peace of September 26, 1366, and the peace of 1363 was renewed. Provost and Canon were no longer allowed to oppose the council. Stotel Castle and parts of the Thedinghausen Bailiwick also returned to the city.

Appreciation in history

  • The city's medieval council saw the unrest as a betrayal that had to be met hard.
  • The local patriotic chroniclers Gerd Rinesberch and Herbord Schene saw a betrayal of the rightful authorities of Bremen.
  • The chronicler Nikolaus Roller wrote in 1799 of “notorious leaders” and condemned the uprising in its entirety.
  • The pedagogue and historian Adam Storck described the uprising as “nonsense” against which “well-meaning citizens” opposed, and warned of the “dangers of freedom”, to which the “high clergy also tended”. He goes on to judge: "Ambitious people who lack the means and the character to play a large role useful for the community hope to lift themselves through its destruction ..."
  • The liberal lawyer, president of the Bremen citizenship and Bremen Senator Ferdinand Donandt considered the constitutional fluctuations understandable in 1830, but criticized unbridled freedom in this context, which was fatally exploited by ambitious demagogues.
  • The liberal pastor and historian Johann Hermann Duntze saw the event in 1846 as a clash between the “aristocratic and the democratic”, but also condemned the uprising.
  • Wilhelm von Bippen , archivist and a conservative, important Bremen historian, saw the uprising in 1892 as a conflict between the guilds and the council and the upper class of the merchants, which was also about democracy. He also condemned the riot and violence.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Konrad Elmshäuser : The manuscripts of the Bremen city law codifications of 1303, 1428 and 1433 . In: 700 years of Bremen law , p. 62 f.
  2. ↑ Gerd Rinesberch and Herbord Schene: Bremer Chronik . In: Bremen. The chronicles of the cities of Lower Saxony (37th volume), Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences by Hermann Meinert (ed.), Bremen: Carl Schünemann Verlag 1968.
  3. ↑ Christian Nikolaus Roller: An attempt at a history of the imperial and imperial city of Bremen , p. 263 ff. Diderich Meier's writings, Bremen 1799/1800.
  4. ^ Philip Adam Storck: Views of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and its surroundings. Friedrich Wilmans, Frankfurt am Main 1822; Facsimile reprint pp. 48/49. Schünemann, Bremen 1977, ISBN 3-7961-1688-4 .
  5. ^ Johann Hermann Duntze: History of the City of Bremen, vol. 2, p. 191.Bremen 1846
  6. ^ Wilhelm von Bippen: History of the City of Bremen , vol. 1, p. 215 ff. Bremen 1892