Amber shelf

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Amber fisherman and gallows on the amber coast (contemporary copper engraving)

As Amber shelf (of " shelf " in the sense of majesty law; Latin ius majestaticum ) the sovereign usually monopoly for economic use of is amber in particular on the Amber Coast called the Baltic Sea. Although the term generally includes the monopoly position in the extraction and trading of amber, it is often used in the narrower sense for the shelf of the Teutonic Order .

The amber shelf of the Teutonic Order

The knights of the Teutonic Order, who had returned from a crusade after a long journey through Eastern Europe, occupied areas on the Baltic coast in the middle of the 13th century. a. also the Samland, which until then had been ruled by the Prussians , who were already mining amber and trading with it. As a result of the high value that amber had at that time, the new rulers secured a shelf right that was similar to that of the previously ruling Pomerellian dukes in West Prussia and Pomerania and from these and the early Polish kings (most recently Ladislaus I until 1308) at the latest from the middle of the 13th century. Essentially, it consisted of the granting of permits to collect amber, combined with a monopoly on purchases by the order. The latter regulation was first mentioned in a document in 1312 and goes back to the 16th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Karl von Trier ; At that time it was the fishermen who were given the right to fish for amber, but were also obliged to carry out this activity and to deliver the amber to authorized collection points (various monasteries). In fact, similar regulations are likely to have existed at least locally since 1264, when the Bishop of Samland was entrusted with the right to collect.

Pomeranian in the 14th century as part of the Teutonic Order (German School Atlas from 1905)

In 1342 the right to collect was transferred to the Oliva Monastery . From here the collection of amber on the beaches was monitored. The population was obliged to collect the amber washed up on the beach or to fish or stab it from the shallow water with nets (i.e. to float up the amber from the boat with long lances and fish it). The collectors were rewarded with money and salt for the amber they delivered. The final assertion of the amber shelf in the areas ruled by the order was not achieved until the end of the 14th century. The Order temporarily leased the amber shelf on some sections of the coast.

The order's amber shelf prohibited, among other things, the unauthorized picking up of amber on the beach and the possession of unprocessed amber (decree of 1394). Violators were initially threatened with drastic fines, at the latest since the beginning of the 15th century with the death penalty. According to contemporary reports, the amber shelf was apparently successfully circumvented despite the severe threat of punishment. The order's prohibition on the settlement of amber turner in the area controlled by the order is probably related to this, as it dried up the sales channels for (illegally) retained amber. With the help of the Polish king, it was then possible in 1480 to obtain a right of establishment for amber craftsmen in Gdansk. In return, the order achieved in a contract signed in 1483 that the craftsmen residing in Gdansk were obliged to obtain their raw amber exclusively from the order.

In various places friars officiated as so-called amber lords. With their beach riders and valets, they supervised compliance with the shelf. At the seat of the amber lords, the amber bought from the amber farmers was also collected, sorted and transported from there to Königsberg. The master of amber, who resided in Lochstädt Castle, was in charge of the amber lords until the end of the 16th century .

Development of the amber shelf since the beginning of the 16th century

At the beginning of the 16th century, a considerable part of the entire Baltic amber supply was used by so-called paternoster makers, mainly based in Bruges and Lübeck, for the production of rosaries. However, with the Reformation of Martin Luther , the volume of rosary trade decreased significantly. Not least for this reason, the order gave up its trade monopoly to merchants in Danzig in the first half of the 16th century. In 1533 the former Grand Master of the order and now Duke Albrecht of Prussia concluded a lease "for ever" with the Danzig merchant Paul Koehn, known as Jaski, which was then dissolved in 1642 by the Great Elector . The shelf, now in the hands of the state, was used without major changes until 1811 and then, due to falling income, it was leased to merchants again. As early as 1837, the coastal communities of Samland entered into this right, which was once taken as a great relief by the population and helped many coastal residents to modest prosperity.

Even after the withdrawal of the order, the use of amber was a monopoly of the respective rights holders, mostly merchants or sovereigns, although the sovereign's right to the amber thrown on the beach was granted by the Königsberg tribunal councilor Daniel von Wegnern, who felled the amber court, as early as 1660 Judgments had to be examined, was questioned. Due to persistent sales problems since the Reformation, the tenants changed frequently. Elector Friedrich III. (later as Friedrich I. King of Prussia) leased the amber shelf to the amber twist guilds at the end of the 17th century. a. from Danzig, Lübeck and Koenigsberg, which, however, had returned all of their holdings by 1705. From then on, the amber was auctioned off. Due to the rediscovery of amber as a fashion and luxury item, the price rose sharply again in the first quarter of the 18th century. During the reign of Frederick I, King of Prussia, a decree was passed from 1718, according to which the payment of amber with salt was to be stopped and replaced by fixed monetary payments.

In 1617, under Elector Johann Sigismund, a special amber penal law was passed, which also threatened physical and death sentences for violators. In the 18th century the so-called "beach oath" was introduced, which had to be taken by all adult men in the coastal area and by other persons who were authorized to walk on the beach. The people taking the oath pledged not to steal amber and to denounce anyone who illegally owned amber. According to an ordinance from 1801, the informer was even entitled to half the value of the confiscated amber. The following excerpts from the 5th and 8th sections of a 16-section decree from this period illustrate that strict rules still existed in the 18th century:

“ ... No Börnstein creator or beach farmer may take the scooped, read or dug Börnstein home with him, even less keep it overnight, but must deliver it immediately to the beach attendant in charge of him; otherwise he suspects an intentional defraudation and is punished according to the law ...
... Since it is also known from experience that the beach and fishermen farmers hide the Börnstein outside the villages in the bushes or bury it in the ground, and if they go after Go to Königsberg, seek it out again and take it back; so the beach attendants have to follow suspicious people up to a mile after them, stop them on the way, search their clothes, cars and luggage carefully, and if they enter such suspicious people, seize the Börnstein, but arrest the defrauders and deliver them to the Börnstein court for investigation and punishment ... "

- Instructions for beach riders and valet servants dated August 30, 1783

During this time, non-residents were forbidden to enter the beaches. There is no documentary evidence of when the prohibition was first issued, but it was in any case already largely enshrined in the above-mentioned Amber Penal Act from 1617. In East Prussia this ban was not lifted until 1885. The leasing of the amber shelf to merchants in 1811 was accompanied by the lifting of the compulsory collection for the coastal residents, and from 1837 the residents themselves could lease the right to mine amber. A few decades would pass before amber could be collected again by everyone on all beaches - legally and on their own account. In 1924, the Prussian State Ministry passed a law regulating all forms of amber extraction and threatening offenses with fines and imprisonment. The accidental finds by beachgoers (e.g. bathers), which became possible after the lifting of the ban on entering the beach, then had to be delivered to collection points. The rights and obligations of the finder are based on the provisions of §§ 965 ff. Of the Civil Code of January 1, 1900, which are essentially still valid today. Only after the fall of the Prussian state after 1945 were all access, Collection and possession restrictions have become practically meaningless.

Amber law in other places

From the sparse available sources it can be inferred that the collection of amber was regulated in the same way as in Poland or Prussia under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Russian Tsarist empire on the coastal stretches that now belong to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The possession and use of amber was also regulated in Denmark. For a long time there was an obligation to deliver to the crown, which has been the sole owner of all beach property since ancient times. From 1626 the royal house, then under Christian IV , leased this right to private individuals. As in Prussia, the population in Denmark was temporarily forbidden from entering the beach. Such a provision results, for example, from a contract extended in 1706 for beach leasing in the Ribe district . In 1712, twelve children in Sønderho on the North Sea island of Fanø were tried for unauthorized possession of amber and sentenced to deliver their finds. Later in the 18th century, the beach tenant on Fanø issued an ordinance according to which only the beach bailiff and authorized amber collectors were allowed to enter the island's beach, although at that time the island had become the property of its residents through purchase.

In 1786 a new legal system was enacted, which also had an impact on existing leases. From now on, beach officers watched over flotsam and amber finds. The amber was collected by specially hired helpers who received a third of the auction proceeds of the amber delivered, whereby the amount of the delivered finds fell significantly after the introduction of this regulation. In 1843 there was a court ruling that the king did not have the right to hand over the amber finds and the finders were allowed to keep their finds. In 1871 this legal opinion was reaffirmed in a ruling by the Supreme Court. Since then, anyone in Denmark has been able to collect amber without any restrictions. That did not change in the parts of the country that fell to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866, although at that time the amber shelf was still in effect in East Prussia - also part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Decisive for this different treatment of the Prussian parts of the country was an expert opinion commissioned to the Kiel mineralogist Professor Karsten in 1869, in which he came to the conclusion that there were no significant amber deposits in Schleswig-Holstein.

Remarkably, the amber shelf on the North Sea beach had already been repealed by ordinances from 1789/1790 for the parts of today's Schleswig-Holstein that belonged to the Danish state as a whole , which in many ways represented a special administrative unit within this state as a whole.

Today, amber found in Denmark is only required to be delivered if it is an outstanding cultural asset (Danefæ, e.g. amber that was worked in prehistoric times) or a special geological object (Danekræ, e.g. extraordinarily large Piece of amber or amber with rare inclusions). If the Danish state makes a claim on such pieces, the finder will be compensated.

literature

  • Heinrich Ludwig Elditt : The amber shelf in Prussia . In: New Prussian Provincial Papers . Fourth episode. Volume 5, Koenigsberg 1868, pp. 577-611 and pp. 673-698 ; Volume 6, Koenigsberg 1869, pp. 422-462 , pp. 577-610 and pp. 673-698 ; Volume 8, Koenigsberg 1971, pp. 385-426.
  • Gisela Reineking von Bock: Bernstein - The gold of the Baltic Sea . 185 p., Numerous Fig., Callwey Verlag, Munich 1981. ISBN 3-76670557-1
  • Brigitte and Günter Krumbiegel: Bernstein - fossil resins from all over the world . Fossils, special volume 7, Goldschneck-Verlag, Weinstadt 1994. ISBN 3-926129-16-6
  • Rainer Slotta: Amber mining in Samland (East Prussia) until 1945 . In Bernstein - Tränen der Götter , pp. 169–214, German Mining Museum Bochum, 1996. ISBN 3-921533-57-0
  • George O. Poinar, Jr .: Life in Amber . 350 pp., 147 figs., 10 plates, Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.) 1992. ISBN 0-8047-2001-0

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A. Zbierski: Early Medieval amber craft in Gdańsk. In: Amber - views - opinions. Warsaw 2006. (First publication of the article 2003).
  2. ↑ a b W. Tesdorpf: Extraction, processing and trading of amber in Prussia from the time of the order to the present. Jena 1887.
  3. ^ J. Barfod: Bernstein and social history. In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Pp. 285-291; Bochum 1996. ISBN 3-921533-57-0 .
  4. ↑ a b c K. Andrée: The amber and its meaning in the natural sciences and humanities, arts and crafts, technology, industry and trade. Koenigsberg 1937.
  5. ↑ Charlotte Bartsch: Palm nods and his amber . In: Ernst Bahr (Ed.): East German rural communities and parishes . tape 10 . Truso-Verlag, Marburg 1974, p. 249 f .
  6. ^ K. Hinrichs: Bernstein, the Prussian gold in art and natural history chambers and museums of the 16th - 20th centuries. Dissertation, Humboldt University Berlin 2007
  7. ↑ HL Elditt: The Amber shelf in Prussia. In: Old Prussian monthly . tape 5 . Königsberg 1868, p. 577-611 .
  8. ↑ U. Erichson and W. Weitschat: Baltic amber. Ribnitz-Damgarten 2008
  9. ↑ Elerto_straipsnis. In: www.pgm.lt. Retrieved January 12, 2017 .
  10. ↑ a b Ravmuseum (Ed.): Bernstein , Varde (DK) 2000. ISBN 87-89834-37-2
  11. ^ Karlheinz Krause: Amber on the coasts and in the interior of Denmark. In: Aufschluss 54, Heidelberg 2003.
  12. ^ H. Buchholz: Bernstein - the gold of the north. Kiel 1961.
  13. ↑ Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Ordinance of 1789, pp. 225 and 1790, pp. 140, 479; quoted in: W. von Brünneck: The right to appropriation of the marine products ejected or washed up by the sea and the amber shelf. Koenigsberg 1874.
  14. ^ B. and G. Klug: Bernstein on Fanø. , Berlin 2015. ISBN 978-3-86386-887-1 .