Bardevik Codex

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Folio 1r from the Bardewik Codex: I. Van der Medegift

The Bardewikscher Codex is an early summary of the Luebian law , which was created in 1294 at the instigation of the Luebeck Chancellor Albert von Bardewik .

description

The magnificent script of Lübeck's city law, artfully decorated with book illuminations and initials , comprises 99 sheets on parchment in large quarters or small folio format . The brown leather-covered binding made of strong wood, which was previously hooked with two straps, was in a torn state in the 19th century.

The sheets are lined with fine lines of ink and divided into two columns. The writing is clearly black capitalized and there are only a few abbreviations . Up to Article 225 the Codex seems to have been written by the same hand, after which a change in handwriting is unmistakable. The blackness of the writing gradually becomes lighter towards the end. The punctuation consists only in an often arbitrarily placed punctum . From article 242 onwards the gold plating of the initials is missing, and from now on there are 4 articles long red and blue initials. The last 11 articles only start with simple red Latin letters.

In front of the fourth sheet, on which city law begins with a particularly large, gilded initial, Johann Friedrich Hach found a gap in the spine of the book, so that it seemed to him that sheets (an introduction?) Had been lost. Each page is inscribed on the upper edge with a Gothic letter, presumably to create the register, each of which continues on three leaves. So it is up to the letter S . Only the letter T has four leaves. On the third of these sheets, in the second column, is Article 242; also the T on the first page of the following page seems to have been written by another hand, and there is no letter above the other six pages on which statutes are still written.

After 61 sheets of paper described with the town charter itself, there are six empty sheets, and the new register begins on the inner side of the following sheet, with which six other sheets have been filled. This is followed by three more blank pages, and the old register begins on the second page of the next page , which is then continued on three pages. Of the next five blank sheets of paper, the back of the second is used to rewrite Articles 242, 243 and 244. The last four sheets are filled with the Latin text of the decree de iure humulariorum , the appointment of Henry the Lion to the council, the council oath , the bread tax and the colophon . The entry for the bread tax is continued on the white parchment with which the outer cover is covered on the inside.

Both the front and the back are handwritten notes that Hach dated to the 14th century. He edited the Codex as part of his edition Das Alte Lübische Recht in 1839 as Codex II .

history

The Bardewiksch Codex of Lübeck's town charter was, according to the colophon categorized in the second column on the last page, written at the instigation of Albrecht von Bardewik in 1294 for public use ( to dher stades behuf ) in Middle Low German.

In the past, the Bardewiksch Codex was kept in the betting room , the council's legal department, so to speak, in the Lübeck town hall . Then it came to the registry and from there to the archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck . There is also said to have been an old copy at the Novgoroddriver College, which could no longer be found in the 19th century. A very precise copy can be found in the second part of the manuscript version of the description of Lübeck by Jacob von Melle .

The codex is part of a series of updated codes of Lübeck city rights. Its predecessor was the Codex of 1240, which was written on 96 sheets of parchment and is also referred to as Codex I.

The Bardewik Codex , written on 99 sheets of parchment, is accordingly also referred to as Codex II.

The following Codex III appeared in 1348 and is known under the name of the Lübeck Mayor Tidemann von Güstrow as Thideman-Güstroweschen Codex . It was written on 110 sheets of parchment. According to Hach, the content of the three codes - except for details - is identical in all essential points.

The Bardewiksch Codex was kept in the Lübeck archive until 1942. After the air raid on Lübeck in 1942, the manuscript as well as the Tidemann Güstrowscher Codex and other Lübeck archives were stored in the rock salt mine Bernburg near Bernburg an der Saale for security . In 1945 the stock was brought to Russia as booty and distributed. The whereabouts of the Bardewiksch Codex was previously unknown in Lübeck and has now turned out to be an individual fate. The Tidemann Güstrowscher Codex has so far been considered lost.

In August 2014, the Bardevik Codex was rediscovered in the cultural and historical museum of the small Russian town of Jurjewez by Natalija Ganina, a German scholar at Moscow University, and Inna Mokretsova, an art historian at the Moscow State Institute for Restoration. The pages of the writing are in good condition, only the former leather binding with wooden cover and the two leather straps are no longer there.

The return of the writing from the Russian possession prevents the law passed by the Duma in 1996 and entered into force on April 15, 1998 ( On the cultural goods / looted art law brought to the USSR as a result of the Second World War and located on the territory of the Russian Federation ). The Russian side sent the Lübeck city archive digital photos of the colored writing, which the city archive had previously only received in black and white.

literature

Editions and descriptions

  • Johann Friedrich Hach (Ed.): The old Luebian law. v. Rohden & Bruhn, Lübeck 1839, p. 56 ff. (Digitized version ) , Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , p. 56–66 (introduction), 246–376 (reprint)
  • Ahasver von Brandt : Spirit and politics in the history of Lübeck. Eight chapters on the fundamentals of historic greatness. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1954.
  • Ferdinand Frensdorff : The Luebian law according to its oldest forms. Leipzig 1872. (digitized version) , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania digital library. (Deals with the origin of Luebian law, according to which the earliest texts of Luebian law go back to the year 1227, pp. 14 and 42)
  • Gustav Korlén : North German city rights. Volume II: The Middle Low German city law of Lübeck according to its oldest forms (Lunder German Research Research 23), Lund / Copenhagen 1951.

Secondary literature

Web links

Commons : Bardewik codex  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hach (Lit), p. 57.
  2. ↑ a b c Hach (Lit), p. 59.
  3. ↑ Hach (Lit), pp. 58f.
  4. ↑ Hach (Lit), pp. 56f.
  5. ↑ Signature Hs. 734
  6. ↑ Hach (Lit), pp. 4, 48.
  7. ↑ Hach (Lit), p. 180.
  8. ↑ Hach (Lit), p. 68.
  9. ↑ Hach (Lit), pp. 61, 70.
  10. ↑ Tidemann Güstrowscher Codex , Handschriftencensus, Hs. 735, Marburg Repertorium, accessed on April 25, 2016.
  11. ↑ Jurjewetz, "Museums of the City of Jurjewetz", JuKM-2010; Ganina / Mokretsova (lit.)
  12. ^ German translation , Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste , accessed on April 23, 2016.
  13. ↑ A splendid Lübeck manuscript from 1294 found in Russia. ( Memento from April 21, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Current releases from the Lübeck press service. April 19, 2016.
  14. ↑ Katrin Diederichs: Lost manuscript tracked down. In: Lübecker Nachrichten . April 20, 2016.