Mountain freedom

This article deals with the term from mining law. For the district of Bad Wildungen of the same name, see Berg Freiheit (Bad Wildungen) .

Mountain freedom is a term of mountain law . It describes the right granted to everyone, independent of real estate, to search for and extract certain mineral resources, whereby the entire process is regulated by law and is under state supervision.

Development and historical meanings

The concept of mountain freedom came about as a result of the decoupling of natural resources from real estate, which went hand in hand with the development of the mountain shelf in the High Middle Ages. Since then, the term mountain freedom has been used in various meanings, the most important of which are:

1. Mountain freedom in the narrow, actual sense with direct reference to the mineral resources, which in principle can be extracted by anyone, even if certain legal regulations or restrictions are observed. In addition, the sovereign or state, as the owner of the mountain shelf, could declare the extraction of mineral resources to be free or, as is the case in Germany today, as ownerless.
2. Mountain freedom or mountain freedom as a term for certain, possibly time-limited rights that were issued by the sovereign or state to promote mining, such as. B. the Württemberg mountain freedoms of 1530, 1558, 1574 and 1597. Often they were supplemented by permanent mountain regulations that contained extensive legal and administrative regulations.
3. Mountain freedom as a collective term for the free right to the extraction of natural resources and the additional rights of the mining industry and its relatives, developed from customary law or granted by the sovereigns, such as freedom of trade, own jurisdiction, duty and tax exemptions, etc.
4. Finally, the term freedom can also refer to the personal freedom of miners, which sets them apart from much of the predominantly rural population.

With the Bergregal, which came under the control of the sovereigns as early as the late Middle Ages, the sovereigns also had the power to develop mining law and freedom of the mountains, so that both experienced very different forms in the numerous German territories. Although there were widespread agreements, there were no stipulations that were valid nationwide. A stronger standardization only took place in the second half of the 19th century through the spread of the General Mining Act for the Prussian States and in 1982 through the Federal Mining Act . At the same time, in the 19th century, most mountain freedoms such as their own jurisdiction were abolished or lapsed, as essential elements such as personal freedom or freedom of trade were now granted to all citizens. Thus only the first meaning was retained.

Basics

In the past, in areas where mining was carried out on a large scale, mining was considered a common property of the people that anyone could search for and mine. The prerequisite for this was that the person was allocated an underground space (pit field) in which they could operate mining. The allocation was made by the landlord who exercised the bailiwick over the place. Later, the emperors and sovereigns also applied the concept of regality to mining. In his Golden Bull, Emperor Charles IV regulated that the kings of Bohemia and all clerical and secular electors possessed all gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and iron ores as well as salt with all rights and freedoms. Since the extraction of these mineral resources was in the interests of the sovereigns, they left the risk and effort of extracting the mineral resources through mining activities to other people willing to mine. By declaring mining to be free, the sovereign, as the highest mountain lord, allowed everyone - under certain conditions regulated by special mining laws and ordinances - the right to extract minerals from the mountainous area. Thus, through the mountain freedom it individuals was possible a comparison with other individuals and also to the state on their land ownership Mountain property to purchase. However, like all other rights in a state, this was and is only possible under the influence of state authority.

In the feudal period, mountain freedom referred to a collection of rights and the release of duties that were granted to a settlement by its sovereign in order to promote mining. Among other things, the listed exemptions , its own jurisdiction as well as various special rights of an economic nature. In some mining towns residents also needed pay protection money and paid little taxes, such as the parish and the building loan, as well as in the mining fund a self-approved Bieraccise to Mining support. So mountain freedoms were in a way similar to city ​​rights . The respective sovereigns benefited from a share in the profit of the resulting activities in the form of certain taxes and duties. Due to the freedom of the mountains, only the clergy and artists as well as the most necessary craftsmen were allowed to live in the mining towns in addition to the miners. Thus, the price of food and the consumption of wood did not increase, strangers were allowed only with a written by the mines, settle in the city signed permission.

In some mining districts it was necessary that foreign miners also participate in mining. In the Harz mining district, the first mountain freedom from 1532 also guaranteed foreign miners rights.

The mountain-free

A district or a field which, according to the mountain shelf, still belonged to the sovereign, was referred to as a mountain-free or open field . These open-air fields were, with certain reservations and in accordance with the respective mining laws, also lent to private individuals in the corresponding legal field size as a pit field . The prerequisite for this was that mining had been cleared or that open construction had already occurred. The mining property - usually the natural resource - is designated as free of mining because it is only declared free in favor of mining use and thus only for the mining industry and its mining company. A field that had either not yet been muted or a field that had fallen back into mountain- free after clearing was considered to be free of hills. Fields that had fallen back into the mountain-free area, like fields in the open air, could be given to a new mother in compliance with the respective mountain laws . In a lent mining field, however, no mountain freedom took place; a new mother was no longer allowed to dig there.

Although the term "free from mining" was clearly regulated in the mining laws, in the middle of the 19th century there were different views of the individual mining offices as to the point in time from which a field was to be regarded as "no longer free from mining". In an explanation of the Min. Erl. Of March 13, 1854, the Royal Prussian Mining Authority stipulated that fields that were claimed by speculation were no longer considered to be free of mines from the time of the assumed speculation. This led to problems in particular when several assumptions were made for one field. These problems were exacerbated if the site of the discovery had not yet been inspected if the assumption was made. After visiting the site, the older assumption was often preferred and the younger one rejected. In the case of length fields it happened that the position of the treasure trove or the assumed dimensions could not be determined. In such cases, all assumptions had to be accepted and considered to be legally binding until after a closer examination it was found whether the younger assumption had to give way to the older one. During this investigation, it was also determined how far the respective assumption had to give way in the field.

Privileges

The privileges granted by the sovereigns as mountain freedoms should primarily serve to promote mining and thus indirectly to increase the income that the sovereign drew from the mountain tithe and other taxes. Part of the privileges served to ensure the supply of the miners and the mining industry with consumer goods by regulating the procurement of pit wood from sovereign forests, allocating land to the miners for settlement, granting rights of way, etc. Also the exemption from customs duties, road tolls or the freedom to trade promoted the supply of mining, which was often in remote regions. After all, the mountain freedoms often contained temporary exemptions or reductions in mining taxes in order to encourage the rapid start of mining. The individual regulations could apply to the respective settlements and mining towns as a whole or to the miners or trades. The privileges could differ between the individual districts and be subject to changes over time. B. exemption from customs duties and safe conduct, but also the halving of certain taxes, such as the potion tax and the land tax.

In terms of privileges for people involved in mining, a distinction was made between privileges for miners and privileges for tradesmen . Both simple miners and miners were considered miners. The miners' privileges included not only having their own mountain jurisdiction for themselves and their children, but also exemption from military service. They were also of the Konstributions- and Quatembersteuer has traces and were allowed to wear their own uniform that distinguished them from other booths. Like the other inhabitants of the mining towns, they took part in the so-called district moderation. The miners had the right of first refusal when selling houses and land. In some mining areas they also had part of the hunting and fishing justice at certain times of the year. In the mining town of Sankt Andreasberg , the miners were even allowed to brew their own beer and serve foreign beer.

For the trades, the privileges consisted in the fact that they could freely choose the shift supervisors and clerks at the mining office . The trades could only be sued for debts on their mining shares ( Kuxe ) under special circumstances or partially not at all. Their mining shares could not be stripped from them because of a crime. They were also exempt from customs, escort and import fees for all mining materials. The trades on Kuxe that were in retardation also had the right to offer and preferential treatment. In some mining districts, newly constructed mountain buildings were exempted from quarterly allowance, tithing and twentieth payments for the first six years.

restrictions

In the older mountain laws, freedom of the mountains was initially unrestricted for everyone. However, several restrictions have been imposed by regulations over the years. In the Kingdom of Bohemia in particular, certain people and groups of people, corporations and classes were partially or even completely restricted in their freedom of the mountains. Members of a monastery or monastery, Jews as well as Turkish subjects and their wives were excluded from the general mountain freedom - in relation to all Berglehn objects. This was justified in the ordinances as follows:

• Since the members of monasteries and monasteries have taken a vow of poverty, they are not allowed to acquire private property. By acquiring private property, everything that the members acquire and bring into the monastery would not go to the individual but to the spiritual body.
• According to the existing regulations, such as B. the circular ordinance of June 10, 1770, forbidden to enter the mines. By later express orders (Sub. Ordinance of June 2, 1815), they were forbidden to purchase a Berglehn or parts of it.
• According to several court decrees, Turkish subjects were considered unsuitable for the possession of so-called realities in general and Bergentien in particular.

Monasteries and monasteries that were subject to the Amortization Act , civil servants who dealt with sovereign and feudal affairs at mining courts and mines, and their wives and children living in the household, as well as court and other mountain councilors, were partially excluded from the acquisition of certain mining objects. This was also regulated by various ordinances and decrees. Private union officials and self-wage earners who were employed by the unions as Steiger were not affected by this restriction.

In Austria, mountain freedom did not apply to the mining of salt . This was not possible due to the Austrian mining law, as there was a salt monopoly for the Austrian state due to special laws (Customs and State Monopoly Ordinance of July 11, 1835). The exception was sea ​​salt , the extraction of which was partly carried out by private companies, which, however, had to deliver all the salt extracted to the state at a fixed price.

Rights of the sovereign

At the beginning of the mountain freedom, the landlord (mountain lord) was entitled to the proceeds of the third shift, shift in the sense of mountain parts, each colliery, but he also had to bear the respective costs. These modalities were later changed so that the mountain lord was entitled to the tithe , which was taken by the sovereign tithe . Another right was the right of first refusal on the obtained silver, sometimes also on other metals. The mountain lord was entitled to the mountain tithe of all mines. In the case of a poor economic situation in the mines, the tithe could wholly or partially waive the tithe for a certain period of time. Further income that the miner was entitled to and had to pay by the mine owners were the quarter money, the estimate rate and the loading and weighing money. However, the mountain lord was only entitled to this income if he had issued corresponding ordinances on this income.

Mining towns

The so-called Free Mining Cities emerged from the granting of mountain freedom . The town of Schneeberg was “gifted” by its sovereign with the freedom of the mountains. Various former mining towns and villages contain the word "free" or "freedom" in their names because of the mountain freedom they have achieved: For example, the city of Freiberg in Saxony, the Freihung market in Bavaria / Upper Palatinate , or the village of Freiheit in the Harz region , which is today a District of Osterode am Harz is. The miners' settlement Berg Freiheit in the Kellerwald was founded under this name in 1561 and is now a district of Bad Wildungen . The village of Silbach in the Sauerland has also had the title of "Mountain Freedom" since 1559.

Current regulations

In the modern sense of mining law, freedom of the mountain means the freedom of every person willing to mine to seek out free mineral resources , regardless of whether the land belongs to them. A permit is required for this. Mountain-free mineral raw materials become the property of the person entitled to do so upon appropriation (i.e. the development of the deposit and its mining). This requires a permit or mine ownership .

This is regulated, for example, in the German Federal Mining Act or the Austrian Mineral Raw Materials Act  ( Section 3 MinroG).

The freedom of the mountains is limited to certain natural resources, which can vary from country to country.

In Germany there are mined natural resources: actinium and the actinides , aluminum , antimony , arsenic , beryllium , lead , boron , cesium , chromium , iron , francium , gallium , germanium , gold , hafnium , indium , iridium , cadmium , cobalt , copper , lanthanum and the lanthanoids , lithium , manganese , molybdenum , nickel , niobium , osmium , palladium , phosphorus , platinum , polonium , mercury , radium , rhenium , rhodium , rubidium , ruthenium , scandium , sulfur , selenium , silver , strontium , tantalum , tellurium , Thallium , titanium , vanadium , bismuth , tungsten , yttrium , zinc , tin , zirconium - native and as ores except in turf iron , alum and vitriol ores -; Hydrocarbons and the gases produced during their production ; Hard coal and lignite together with the gases that occur in connection with their extraction ; Graphite ; Rock , potash , magnesia and boron salts together with the salts that occur with these salts in the same deposit; Brine ; Fluorspar and barite . Geothermal energy and the other energies that arise in connection with its production (geothermal energy) are also free of mountains .

In Austria, for example, ores (metal deposits), gypsum, heavy and fluorspar, coal and oil shale, magnesite, limestone, clays (insofar as these are in the form of loose rock) and some other soils and rocks are free of mountains , but rock salt, hydrocarbons (i.e. in particular oil deposits), Uranium and thorium-containing mineral raw materials are federally owned (property of the Republic of Austria), and all other (not explicitly stated in the law) basic deposits belong to the landowner.

literature

• Wilhelm Westhoff, Wilhelm Schlüther, Raimund Willecke: The German mining legislation : from the beginning to the present . Verlag Glückauf, Essen 1977, ISBN 3-7739-0210-7 , p. 313 .
• Wirtschaftsvereinigung Bergbau eV (ed.): The mining manual . 5th, revised edition. Verlag Glückauf, Essen 1994, ISBN 3-7739-0567-X , p. 319 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Cansier, Dieter Matenaar: Taxation of raw material pensions . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06211-6 , pp. 23-30.
2. ↑ Carl Johann Bernhard Karsten: About the origin of the mountain shelf in Germany. Printing and publishing by G. Reimer, Berlin 1944.
3. ↑ GR Bauer: About the right of ownership of the underground mineral treasures and the reforms which the legislation has to bring about with regard to them. Published by JW Engelhardt, Freiberg 1849.
4. ↑ Carl Hartmann: Concise dictionary of the mountain, hut and Saltwork science of mineralogy and geognosy. Second, completely revised edition. First volume, Bernhard Friedrich Voigt bookstore, Weimar 1859.
5. ^ Franz Xaver Schneider: Textbook of mining law for the entire countries of the Austrian monarchy. Printed by K. Gerzabek, Prague 1848.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Heinrich Veith: German mountain dictionary with evidence. Published by Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, Breslau 1871.
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Mining dictionary. Johann Christoph Stößel, Chemnitz 1778.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Swen Rinmann: General mining dictionary . Zweyter Theil, Fr. Chr. W. Vogel, Leipzig 1808.
9. ^ Hermann Brassert: Mountain orders of the Prussian lands. FC Eisen's Königliche Hof-Buch- und Kunsthandlung, Cologne 1858.
10. ^ CG Fr. Bredelow: The resin. Publishing house of CW Ramdohr's Hof- Kunsthandlung, Braunschweig 1846.
11. ↑ Explanatory dictionary of the technical terms and foreign words that occur in mining in metallurgy and in salt works and technical articulations that occur in salt works. Falkenberg'schen Buchhandlung publishing house, Burgsteinfurt 1869.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Johann Ferdinand Schmidt: Attempt a systematically ordered representation of the mining law in the Kingdom of Bohemia. First volume, print and paper by Gottlieb Haase Söhne, Prague 1833.
13. ^ H. Gräff: Handbuch des Prussischen Bergrechts. Supplement booklet, from Georg Philipp Aderholz, Breslau 1856.
14. ^ Gustav von Gränenstein: The general Austrian mining law of May 23, 1854 and the ordinances on mining taxes. Published by Friedrich Manz, Vienna 1855.
15. ↑ ^{a b} C. FA Mittermaier: Principles of common German private law including trade, exchange and maritime law. First section, sixth completely revised and much enlarged edition, published by G. Joseph Manz, Regensburg 1842.
16. ↑ Adolph Beyer: Otia Metallica or Bergmännische Neben = hours in it various treatises of mining matters. From which stories, mountain = rights, nature = teaching, other sciences as well as a number of old mining = watch customers are included. Schneeberg 1748.
17. ↑ August Breithaupt: The mountain town Freiberg in the kingdom of Saxony. Printed by Graz and Gerlach, Freiberg 1825, pp. 1–10.
18. ↑ http://www.markt-freihung.de/page_3_2.php
19. ^ Sauerlandkurier: 450 years of mountain freedom in Silbach. (accessed on June 16, 2016).
20. ↑ Federal Mining Act. August 13, 1980 ( online , last accessed October 22, 2012).
21. ↑ Federal Law on Mineral Raw Materials, on the amendment of the Employee Protection Act and the Labor Inspection Act 1993 (Mineralrohstoffgesetz - MinroG) . StF: BGBl. I No. 38/1999 (as amended, ris.bka )
22. ↑ §§ 3–5 Mineralrohstoffgesetz as amended.