Mountain shelf

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The mountain shelf , also mine shelf , is the right of disposal over the unexploited mineral resources . Historically, it was one of the regalia , which originally referred to the king's rulership rights (mountain sovereignty). In addition to the mountain shelf, the coin shelf was also an important sovereign privilege and was a consequence of the mountain shelf.

history

In the early Roman Empire , the landowner had the right to mine the mineral resources. The reason for this was that mineral resources were considered the fruits of the land at the time and they belonged to the landowner. The first regalia already existed in the first millennium. However, the mountain shelf belonging to property rights did not yet exist. Emperors and kings , the nobility ruling over a territory or the clergy asserted this right for themselves. They could only derive this right from the property and a mineral wealth there. This was possible for the king or the sovereigns without any problems, since they were usually the landowners themselves. But they were not always right and law , but often the political and economic framework for the enforcement of the mountain shelf prevail.

In 1158 , Emperor Barbarossa also had the Bergregal recorded in writing in the Rural Constitution . With the Rural Constitution, the right to extract mineral resources should be withdrawn from the landowner. However, the Ronkal Constitution only applied to Northern Italy and did not become legally binding. However, it was the trigger for the separation of property in land from property in mineral resources. Due to the powerlessness of the Roman kings / emperors to enforce their theoretical claims, the mining rights came into the possession of the sovereigns over time. This led to arbitrary shelf dimensions by the sovereigns. Because of the small states and the special position of the spiritual principalities in the Holy Roman Empire , the imperial mountain regime was hardly enforceable. It was therefore often awarded to the territorial lord. So before 1185 Frederick I bestowed this privilege on Otto the Rich , the Margrave of the Mark Meissen . Burgrave Friedrich IV of Nuremberg received the Bergregal in his territory as early as 1323, the Bishop of Chur in 1349. The King of Bohemia was also the owner of the Bergregal even before the Golden Bull .

In 1356 , the Golden Bull stipulated that it was not the emperor but the seven electors (Archbishops of Cologne , Mainz and Trier , King of Bohemia, Count Palatine of the Rhine , Duke of Saxony , Margrave of Brandenburg ) who held this privilege as sovereigns. Previously made lendings to smaller lords remained unaffected; As a rule, however, the electors tried to get back the mountain shelf of the territorial rulers.

With the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 , the mountain rulers were also lost to the smaller territorial princes. In order to enforce the mining regimes , the rulers issued mining ordinances , which regulated mining , the sovereign tithes and the establishment of the mining authorities as well as the privileges of miners in detail.

In the 19th century, the mountain shelf in the German states was gradually overridden by the mining laws . In Prussia, mining was ended by the General Mining Act for the Prussian States (ABG) of June 24, 1865. The minerals that were withdrawn from the property owner's right of disposal were clearly regulated in the mining law. This process began with the Napoleonic conquests, when French law was temporarily enacted in large parts of Germany, and was essentially completed with the enactment of the General Mining Act for the Kingdom of Saxony on June 16, 1868.

Legal consequences and options

Due to the mining shelving, there was a legal separation of real estate and mining permits. The landowner was only entitled to exploration and extraction rights for a few unimportant minerals. Due to the mountain shelf, the sovereign had three options according to which he exercised the right:

  1. He reserved the extraction of the minerals himself (self-harvest)
  2. He granted the right of extraction to third parties (transfer of the yield)
  3. He granted everyone the right to extract the minerals (sale of the mountain shelf to third parties)

The first option, i.e. to operate mining on the account of the state, was possible even in those countries in which mining was regulated by a declaration of approval. However, the sovereign had to have expressly waived the exploitation of the mineral resources. There was no state monopoly in mining in any German state. Even in Europe no ruler has declared mining a monopoly. The form of granting mining rights goes back to the time of feudalism . However, mining privileges were not only granted to certain individuals, but also to entire estates or cities. In particular, cities in which mining was carried out for a long time received special privileges and privileges as mining cities . One of these privileges was mountain freedom with the associated privileges of miners and citizens. These privileges were meant to help promote mining and urban growth. However, the awards were not part of the essential exercise of the Bergregal, but were based in the German states on the old German mining constitutions. In these old mining constitutions, the mining regime was exercised through declared mining. It was also quite common for all three options to be used simultaneously in the same country.

Differentiation and demarcation

Which minerals fell under the mountain shelf was regulated differently in individual mining countries, there were two classifications: the upper or higher and the lower mountain shelf . The higher mountain shelf, which included mining for precious metals ( gold and silver ) as well as salt and precious stones , remained almost without exception with the sovereign. However, precious stones and salt did not belong to the upper mountain shelf in all countries. The lower mountain range included the mining of lower metals such as iron , tin , copper , cobalt , lead and bismuth , but also the minerals arsenic , sulfur , saltpeter and spit-luster . In many cases, this shelf was loaned to third parties or already granted to the landlord in the mountain regulations.

The mining of hard coal , brown coal and peat was not subject to the mountain shelf, but was subject to the power of disposal of the landlord, since these mineral resources were among the fossils . However, the sovereigns very quickly discovered that taxing the coal industry also brought money into the coffers. Thus, the mountain shelf in some German states was soon expanded to include coal. The mining of peat remained excluded from the mountain shelf. Ordinary pebbles, clay , marl and limestone did not fall under the mountain shelf . The property owner was entitled to these minerals. In the Prussian states, semiprecious and precious stones did not fall under the mountain shelf either if they were lying loose in a field or were brought up through economic work such as plowing.

Problems

With the Bergregal there were also problems in the affected countries. In the countries in which certain mineral resources were not subject to mining law and have now been re-regulated with the Bergregal, there was fierce resistance from the mining operators concerned . At first they did not want to accept the rules of courage or the granting of mine ownership . The new taxes, such as the mining tithes and other mining levies such as the Quatembergeld , led to unrest among the miners . The collection of the coal tithe often led to disputes in the beginning. For the coal tenth, 10 percent of the coal production was initially cut off and heaped on a separate heap. This coal had to be sold first, the proceeds then went to the sovereign. Often times the coal was stolen overnight. In addition, there was the supervision of the operation by the mining authority . In the mountain district of Brandenburg, for example, there were riots that made the intervention of the military necessary.

Further problems arose from the deposits themselves. If a deposit was spread over two territories, there were inconsistencies in the area of ​​the national borders. The miners often got into disputes. Since there was a different jurisdiction on each side of the state border, the problem arose as to which mountain court was responsible and should handle the case. This meant that the relationship between the sovereigns was also disrupted. Ultimately, these disputes also put a strain on mining in the affected region. This situation only changed if the competencies of one mountain court were higher than the competencies of the other mountain court.

Economy

The Bergregal was an essential source of income for the owner. The resulting claim to a fixed percentage (usually 10%) of the mined raw material (at the beginning of the mining usually salt or ore ) of each mine (called Bergzehnt or Fron ) was the basis for the wealth of the sovereigns and financed their expensive courts. If necessary, the owner of the Bergregal also had a right of first refusal . This was tantamount to a monopoly . In this way, many regions laid economic foundations for their further development and the sovereigns and territorial princes showed great interest in promoting the mines in their areas, be it through advances, grants or co-construction, because a depressed mining also led to an empty state coffers.

Current regulations

After the end of the mountain shelf, appropriate mining laws were created in the respective mining countries that regulated the extraction of mineral resources. In Germany, the discovery and extraction of mineral resources is regulated in the Federal Mining Act. In Austria the Mineralrohstoffgesetz regulates the prospecting and mining of mineral raw materials. In Switzerland, where the mountain shelf is still used today, but which is understood to be an economic sovereignty of the state, the prospecting and mining of minerals is regulated by cantonal law.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wirtschaftsvereinigung Bergbau eV: The mining manual. 5th edition. Glückauf Verlag, Essen 1994, ISBN 3-7739-0567-X .
  2. ↑ Hermann Schulz: The system and principles of income in the emerging state of the modern age. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-05144-0 .
  3. ↑ a b c Hans Krähenbühl: mountain judges, mountain orders and miners. In: The miner. 85. ( online ( memento of November 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), PDF; 3.0 MB, accessed on August 22, 2011).
  4. ↑ a b Volker Dennert: Deposits and mining in the Black Forest. A guide with a special focus on the mines open to the public . State Office for Geology, Raw Materials and Mining Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg im Breisgau 2004, ISBN 3-00-014636-9 , Salt extraction and mining law, pp. 176–181 ( Salt extraction and mining law [PDF; 170 kB; accessed on April 26, 2017 ]).
  5. ^ Peter Badura: Das Verwaltungsmonopoly Berlin 1963, p. 20.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Joachim Huske: The hard coal mining in the Ruhr area from its beginnings to the year 2000. 2nd edition. Regio-Verlag Peter Voß, Werne 2001, ISBN 3-929158-12-4 .
  7. ↑ Herbert Heinritz: Bergbau in Oberfranken , Historisches Lexikon Bayerns from May 11, 2009, accessed on July 16, 2019.
  8. ↑ Mining Law. TH Clausthal-Zellerfeld. ( online ( Memento from December 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), PDF; 317 kB).
  9. ↑ a b c Helmut Schelter: The historical development of the state mining authority North Rhine-Westphalia .
  10. ↑ Mining Law. In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 2, Leipzig 1905, pp. 679-684. ( zeno.org , accessed August 22, 2011).
  11. ↑ a b Carl Hartmann (Ed.): 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.
  12. ↑ CJB Karsten: About the origin of the mountain shelf in Germany. Printed and published by G. Reimer, Berlin 1844.
  13. ^ A b c Hermann Brassert: Mountain orders of the Prussian lands. FC Eisen's Königliche Hof-Buch- und Kunsthandlung, Cologne 1858.
  14. ^ A b Heinrich Veith: German mountain dictionary with evidence . Published by Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, Breslau 1871.
  15. ↑ a b c Johann Samuel Schröter: Mineral and mining dictionary on frames, words and things from mineralogy and mining science. First volume, by Barrentrapp and Wenner, Frankfurt am Main 1789.
  16. ^ A b Dieter Cansier, Dieter Matenaar: Taxation of raw material pensions . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06211-6 , pp. 13-30.
  17. ↑ Hans Ladstätter: On the history of mining in Defereggen. In: Osttiroler Bote. Homeland papers. 1972 ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , accessed December 11, 2015).
  18. ↑ Julius Weiske : The mining and the mountain shelf. Printed and published by G. Reimer, Eisleben 1845.
  19. ↑ Federal Mining Act. ( online , accessed on August 23, 2011; PDF; 308 kB).
  20. ↑ Austrian Mineral Raw Materials Act - MinroG . ( online , accessed June 14, 2016).

Remarks

  1. ↑ For details see Mining Law # Mining Law in Switzerland .