Bertram Wulflam

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wulflamhaus on the Old Market, Stralsund

Bertram Wulflam (born at the beginning of the 14th century in Stralsund ; † 1393 in Lübeck ) was Mayor of Stralsund from 1364 to 1391 .

Life

Bertram Wulflam came from the merchant family of the same name. His father, Hennecke Wulflam, was a cloth merchant. After his death in 1324, the inheritance was divided between the brothers Nicolaus, Hermann, Bertram and Wulfhard, with Bertram Wulflam and his younger brother Wulflam taking over their father's house, called Wulflamhaus , on the Alter Markt and continuing their father's business there.

In 1362 Bertram Wulflam was elected to the Stralsund council. He quickly made great fortune due to good management. He also uses this to provide the house on the market with an imposing gable, similar to that of the Stralsund town hall opposite . He also set up a large dining room with windows facing the old market.

His diplomatic skills quickly made him a successful representative of Stralsund at the Hanseatic Days and in negotiations with Denmark , a powerful enemy of the Hanseatic League . From 1361 to 1370 he took part in 33 Hanseatic days as a representative of Stralsund.

In 1364 he was appointed mayor because of his diplomatic skills and his way of strengthening Stralsund's reputation within the Hanseatic League . He made Stralsund the center of the Hanseatic efforts against Denmark and was next to the Lübeck mayor Pleskow in the 14th century the most important representative of the Hanseatic League. Under his leadership, armistice negotiations with Denmark took place at the Hanseatic Days from 1364 to 1365 in Rostock, Stralsund and Lübeck; he was the spokesman for the Hanseatic League in the peace treaty of Nyköbing on November 22, 1365. After the foreseeable breach of the agreements by the Danish King Waldemar, Wulflam made great efforts to establish a stronger alliance against the Danish king. At the Hanseatic Days in Lübeck and Rostock he succeeded in uniting the cities more closely and winning the Teutonic Order as an ally. The founding of the Cologne Confederation in November 1367 was also due to him. The Hanseatic League won the fight against Waldemar and made Stralsund the site of the peace negotiations that led to the Peace of Stralsund on May 24, 1370, as a result of which the Hanseatic League reached its most powerful phase. Domestically, he undertook in 1370 by granting privileges for the office of the dressmaker, which from then on was involved in power as a civic representative, clever efforts against revolts against the council, as they had taken place in other Hanseatic cities.

Stralsund's reputation and wealth had also grown thanks to Wulflam's conduct of negotiations. Around 1380 Stralsund was the most powerful and richest city of the Hanseatic League after Lübeck. Bertram Wulflam assured the Danish Queen Margarethe and her son Olaf of his support and was able to set the Hanseatic League on this course again.

Due to social unrest directed against the city council, as well as the unsuccessful but financially expensive work of his son Wulf Wulflam against pirates in the years 1385 to 1386, Wulflam's domestic political power was weakened. With Karsten Sarnow, elected mayor in 1391, and his new council constitution, the mood against Wulflam's high-handed manner increased. When the city council asked him to give an account of the city's financial resources by July 1391, Bertram Wulflam secretly left the city with his family and the head of the mint, Albert Gildehusen , and stayed in Lübeck. From there he filed a complaint against the City Council of Stralsund at the Hanseatic Days in Hamburg and Rostock . The Hanseatic cities upheld these complaints; the city of Stralsund was threatened with the ban, unless it should use the Wulflams in their old status. In early 1393, the city council therefore called Bertram Wulflam and his family and Gildehusen back to Stralsund. The aged mayor did not live to see the return; he died in winter in Lübeck.

His son Wulf Wulflam brought his father to Stralsund in a coffin and placed this coffin on the traditional mayor's chair. Wulflam was then buried in Stralsund.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Grüger: The town hall of the Hanseatic city of Stralsund in Heimathefte for Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania 2/95, page 11, Schwerin 1995
personal data
SURNAME Wulflam, Bertram
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mayor of Stralsund (1364-1391)
DATE OF BIRTH before 1324
PLACE OF BIRTH Stralsund
DATE OF DEATH 1393
Place of death Lübeck