Brandenburg tithe dispute
The Brandenburg tithe dispute was a dispute between the margraves and bishops of Brandenburg from 1210 to 1238. It was about the question of who was entitled to the church tithe in the old and new areas of the Mark Brandenburg . The margrave had recaptured Brandenburg in 1157 without the participation of the bishop. Since then, the secular have viewed the clergy as mere beneficiaries of the restored diocese of Brandenburg . You would not have provided your own service. Therefore, the Brandenburg rulers claimed more or less unspoken prerogative (the privilege). This included substantial parts of the church tithing as payment for the Christianization they had done . The papal church was initially benevolent towards this point of view. With the replacement in the chair of the Pope (and that of the Brandenburg bishops), this view changed. The dispute ended with a papal settlement . The unification in 1237 in Brandenburg an der Havel was followed by the formal certification in 1238 in Merseburg .
The total number of hooves in the “new lands” of the Margraviate of Brandenburg highlight the dimensions of income involved in the Brandenburg tithe dispute . The number of hooves in the historic landscapes of Teltow , Barnim , Havelland , Zauche and Uckermark together amounted to around 25,000, of which around 90% were owned by farmers and therefore subject to tax.
Background and history
The Slavic castle wall of Brandenburg , the prince seat of the tribal area of the Heveller (heartland of the later Mark Brandenburg), was conquered by the Germans for the first time in the winter of 928/29 by King Heinrich I. Until the final German occupation of this contested capital by Margrave Albrecht the Bear in 1157, it changed hands a total of thirteen times. For this reason, different German demands were linked to the castle wall including the cathedral , the suburbs and the surrounding area.
Because of the original conquest by the king , the German royal power repeatedly appointed burgraves to exercise royal rights in the phases of renewed ownership . Emperor Otto I established a diocese in Brandenburg in 948 and granted it extensive rights. Finally, almost two centuries later, Margrave Albrecht the Bear concluded a treaty with the Slav prince Pribislaw-Heinrich in 1124 about his succession for the Heveller tribal area. After the death of the childless Pribislaw-Heinrich in 1150, Albrecht occupied Brandenburg, from which his people were briefly driven out by Jaxa von Köpenick, who claimed inheritance claims . In 1157 Albrecht, with the support of Archbishop Wichmann von Magdeburg , recaptured his new ancestral seat, which led to the re-entry of the burgrave and bishop, who, however, had not participated in the fight.
Albrecht therefore tried from the beginning to push back the claims of the bishop and burgrave, but his son Otto I had to recognize them as Albrecht's successor in 1170 , but made his claim to leadership clear. The pushing back of the burgraves as agents of the distant Hohenstaufen kings succeeded relatively quickly; they are mentioned for the last time in 1236 when the Staufer empire in Italy tore apart. Since the first bishop's church was undoubtedly located within the central ramparts, the margraves inevitably left the cathedral island to the bishops and founded the new town , in addition to the merchant settlement of Parduin , from which the old town emerged , in which they could rule unrestrictedly in their own right.
Even if the margraves had to respect the traditional claims of royal power, the Saxon princes, who had acquired Slavic land outside the old empire east of the Elbe , enjoyed certain privileges in terms of feudal rights, because they ruled their acquired territories not through royal fief, but through Shield and sword according to martial law (in clipeo suo et iure belli) . Therefore, for example, they only had to provide military service to a limited extent .
This self-image of the Saxon princes, to rule in their lands by their own sword , also led to a special procedure against the clergy east of the Elbe. Heinrich the Lion had set up state dioceses on the other side of the Elbe in Oldenburg / Lübeck , Mecklenburg / Schwerin including Ratzeburg , in which he was allowed to appoint the bishops himself, which made them dependent on him (and not on the Pope or the responsible archbishop ) and also arranged the division of the church tithe differently than usual to his advantage. Even Heinrich von Gardelegen († 1192), the mitbelehnte brother Margrave Otto II. († 1205) had, at the latest in 1188 its own diocese in the Altmark with cathedral in Stendal was scheduled, but died before realizing and Margrave Otto II., To the Heinrich's lands fell, did not pursue the plan any further.
Foundation plan of a diocesan-free collegiate church in 1210
Shortly before 1210, Margrave Albrecht II tried not with the plan of a diocese, but with a diocesan-free collegiate church in the "new lands" east of the Havel. Through his procurator , he let Pope Innocent III. Explain the following: A not small part of the land belonging to his marrow had been wrested from the hands of the heathen by his and his ancestors' efforts , but would still be barren and undeveloped. He himself now wants to develop and develop it ( ad cultum ) and, among other things, set up a collegiate church with twelve canons and their provost , which should be completely exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction and only subordinate to the Pope. But for this he needed two thirds of the accruing church tithe in order to be able to build this church with his own resources and to be able to recruit knights , without whom that country could not be safe from an attack by the advancing Slavs . The third part of the tithe should, however, be paid to that collegiate church, and nonetheless the Pope should receive a certain amount of silver marks for the affected hooves to compensate for the portion of the tithe lost to him as a result .
Examination of the plan and conflict
Pope Innocent III, who, according to his testimony , wanted to protect the Brandenburg Church , then commissioned the Abbot von Sittichenbach and the Dean of Halberstadt to examine the facts presented, which were advantageous for him: direct access to the pen and its income, which is higher were as its indirect shares in tithe. According to the Brandenburg bishops, Margrave Albrecht II visited the country alone with the Halberstadt dean without the knowledge of Bishop Baldwin and without the participation of the abbot von Sittichenbach; therefore the process is legally invalid. The margraves have repeatedly cheated the church out of tithing and have been excommunicated several times for this reason . The information given by the margrave about the alleged liberation of the country from the hands of the pagans is also wrong. Rather, believers lived there, against whom the margrave did not act because of their unbelief, but because they did not want to submit to his rule. The information about the building of the collegiate church is also incorrect. The margraves also did not make the promised payments to the Pope, which were also fraudulently miscalculated both in terms of the total size of the hoof surfaces and the value of their yields. So you would have cheated the Roman Church and extremely damaged the Brandenburg Church.
Pope Gregory IX In 1234, following these complaints by Bishop Gernand , three judges from Merseburg were appointed: Bishop Ekkehard , Provost Rudolf and Cathedral Scholaster Ernst. You should look into the matter and the noble men Johann I and Otto III. , Margraves of Brandenburg, admonish and in a wise and effective way to get them to refrain from appropriating these tithe and allow the Bishop and the Church, despite a letter obtained from the Apostolic See that they have not yet made use of von Brandenburg, to which it is known to be entitled by law, they can freely move in without any difficulty. If necessary, they should threaten excommunication and interdict with church sentences, but not enforce them without the express instruction of the Pope. Witnesses who wanted to evade testimony should also be forced to testify truthfully with church sentences.
The papally initiated settlement
Half a year later, the Pope emphasized the urgency and instructed the judges to bring about a friendly settlement if possible. This was on October 28, 1237 in the Cathedral hospital completed by Brandenburg, with the following essential elements:
- The margrave brothers Johann and Otto recognize that the right and ownership of the tithes of their margravial estates located in the diocese of Brandenburg , both in their old and in the new areas, belong to the right and property of the Brandenburg Church.
- The income of all tithes remains with the margraves and their descendants , provided they confirm the acknowledgment, until the line dies out . However, this does not apply to the tithe that the diocese has so far undisputedly collected. (This applies above all to the archaeological area from the Elbe-Havel-Winkel [southeast of Havelberg ] via Leitzkau to the Land of Jüterbog , because the archbishops of Magdeburg only ruled over this area as secular rulers in the form of the archdiocese; in terms of church law they belonged but to the diocese of Brandenburg.)
- As a sign of recognition of the principle of the episcopal decree, the Margraves will give the Bishop of Brandenburg 3 pfennigs per hoof in the new areas every year .
- In addition, the margraves will transfer 100 undeveloped Hufen to the bishop at a suitable location in the new area with all usufructs and rights that he can cultivate as he likes (generally equated with Blumberg [Barnim] ).
- In addition, the bishop receives the Petri Chapel next to the Brandenburg Cathedral with all rights. (Up until then it was practically the princely house chapel .) The limits of cathedral immunity and the rights and duties of the church people there are precisely described in order to rule out previous disputes. One of the duties is that if the city of Brandenburg has to be fortified , the church and its people have to fortify and secure the section allocated to them. The margrave promises to protect the church property in Brandenburg an der Havel against all attackers.
- The margraves, on the other hand, received the archdeacons' right of presentation in the new areas.
- The margrave has to give 4 church hooves and 1 parish hoof to each church in the new area; for this also 1 bushel of rye flour and 1 pfennig.
The penal provisions for violations were very extensive. This was followed by 17 signatures of documents . Johann, cathedral dean of Halberstadt , led the eight clergymen . Among them was Simeon , pastor of Cölln . Then came nine knights and finally the date February 28, 1238. The seal of the three judges from Merseburg, the three seals of the bishop, cathedral provost and cathedral chapter of Brandenburg as well as the seals of the two margrave brothers came to the end.
The so-called new areas ( novae terrae ) were often referred to as new lands. Historians indicated their location and extent differently. Christina Meckelnborg located them in the eastern border region of the Mark . Helmut Assing assumed the northern Barnim and the area Löwenberg - Zehdenick - Templin . With Felix Escher it was called east of the Havel and Spree . According to Johannes Schultze , they comprised a large part of Barnims, the Löwenberg region and the neighboring region as far as Zehdenick. Eckhard Müller-Mertens spoke of something like Barnim and Teltow . The list of opinions goes on.
Consequences of the tithing dispute for the peasants and the margraves
As a result of the settlement in the Brandenburg tithe dispute, the hoof farmers in the Mark Brandenburg did not have to pay a church tithe as an annual fee during the Middle Ages , but this was converted into a fixed fee, the lease (pactum) . Only in Tempelhof the tenth almond had to be given to the harvest as a lease , so tithe and lease were equated here. While the annual tithe was dependent on income, the rent was a fixed, annual fee. The formula according to which the annual, yield-dependent tithe was converted into the fixed annual rent is not known. The rent was probably an average value, formed from the ten yields of many years, because the rent (per hoof) fluctuated very strongly from village to village depending on the productivity of the soil. The lease was of course primarily advantageous for the margraves as the original beneficiaries of the levy, as it meant a predictable, annual income, while the income from the tithe fluctuated greatly depending on the harvest. For the farmers this meant that they had to pay this fixed fee even if the harvest failed, which was sometimes higher than the yield-related tithe. The fixed tax was only advantageous in the case of a very good harvest, when the yield-dependent tithe had exceeded the fixed tax. In sum, the conversion of the yield-related annual tithe into the fixed annual rent was rather disadvantageous for the farmers, since a bad harvest usually went hand in hand with a rise in grain prices, while good harvests depressed prices.
Since the margraves had been granted the church tithe in the new federal states, they had to undertake in return to equip all villages with four church hooves from which all costs related to the church and the pastor could be paid, which was otherwise the task of the bishop as tithe holder would.
Source-related significance of the Brandenburg tithe dispute
From the three surviving documents as sources for the Brandenburg tithe dispute (two papal documents and the confirmation document), the following three findings are particularly important:
First mention of Berlin
The best-known significance of the settlement is that in the Merseburg confirmation document for the first time the existence of the twin city of Berlin / Cölln is recorded in writing by the witness Pastor Simeon from Cölln . Often overlooked: There is no document of the settlement from October 28, 1237, only the confirmation document from February 12, 1238. Nevertheless, the year 1237 is taken as the date of the first mention of Berlin (actually only the suburb of Cölln). This date is also often incorrectly referred to as the founding of the city , which happened particularly often on the occasion of the city anniversaries in 1937 (700 years) and 1987 (750 years). The beginnings of settlements in Cölln, however, date back to the 1170s; the granting of town charter , however, is presumed to be in the years 1230 to 1240.
City charter for Berlin
Since the same Simeon is mentioned as provost of Berlin in 1244 (actual first mention of Berlin in the narrower sense), the Nikolaikirche there was provost church and thus probably the ideal successor to the originally planned collegiate church, which also explains its unusual statehood within the Mark, only comparable the Archstiftischen Nikolaikirche in Burg and the Pomeranian Nikolaikirche in Prenzlau . Wolfgang H. Fritze has suggested that there is an internal connection between the tithing comparison and the granting of city rights for Berlin. The comparison secures one of the Margraves' most important, so far controversial sources of funding in the long term. As for the planned collegiate church, the tithe is the financing basis for the costly provost church. Berlin is enhanced by the seat of the Propstei ; Now at the latest, the urban settlement also needs a secure legal basis through officially documented urban rights. At the same time, the city expansion through the Marienviertel is tackled including the construction of a second bridge over the Spree to connect it. In view of the documentary evidence from 1238 (tithe as a secured financial basis) and 1244 (Berlin as provost), Fritze argues for a date around 1240.
Situation of the Slavs in the Mark around 1200
Finally, the process allows conclusions to be drawn about the situation of the Slavs in the march. Albrecht II does not see the Mark 1210 as safe from an attack by the Slavs. The bishop contradicts: the Slavs are believers; only they resisted the unreasonable demands of the sovereign. Since there is archaeological evidence of the communal settlement of Germans and Slavs before 1200 (the best-known example is the museum village of Düppel ), Germania Slavica research assumes that Albrecht has made a protective claim to protect his income from the one he is not actually entitled to To justify church tithe. After 1200 there was no longer a realistic risk of pagan Slavic attacks.
literature
- Johannes Schultze : The Mark Brandenburg. First volume. Origin and development under the Ascanian margraves (until 1319) . In: The Mark Brandenburg . 4th edition. 5 volumes. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-428-13480-9 , 13. The old and the new lands and the tithe dispute, p. 118–127 (first edition: 1961).
- Christiane Schuchard: No certificate of incorporation. Symeon plebanus de Colonia as a witness - The first documentary mention of Cölln on the Spree in 1237/38 . In: Hans J. Reichhardt (Hrsg.): Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart (= yearbook of the Landesarchiv Berlin . Year 1987). Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88680-283-3 , p. 7–36 (Latin, with German translation).
- Dietrich Kurz : The Middle Ages. Beginnings and construction of the Christian church in the Mark Brandenburg (until 1535) . In: Gerd Heinrich (Hrsg.): A thousand years church in Berlin-Brandenburg . Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-88981-045-4 , pp. 15-146 .
- Wolfgang H. Fritze : founding city Berlin. The beginnings of Berlin-Cölln as a research problem. Edited, edited and supplemented by an addendum by Winfried Schich, Berlin 2000.
- Joachim Müller: Brandenburg on the Havel. The settlement topography 1100–1400. In: How the Mark came about. 850 years of Mark Brandenburg, ed. v. Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation, Wünsdorf 2009, pp. 79–100.
- Winfried Schich : The importance of Brandenburg on the Havel for the medieval Mark Brandenburg. In: How the Mark came about. 850 years of Mark Brandenburg, ed. v. Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation, Wünsdorf 2009, pp. 431–452.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Johannes Schultze: The land book of the Mark Brandenburg of 1375. Brandenburg land books volume 2. Commission publisher by Gsellius, Berlin 1940
- ↑ Helmold von Bosau : Slawenchronik I, 87 with reference to Heinrich the Lion and his exemten state dioceses.
- ^ Dietrich Kurz : The dioceses of the Holy Roman Empire. From its beginnings to secularization . Ed .: Erwin Gatz with the participation of Clemens Brodkorb and Helmut Flachenecker . Herder publishing house, Freiburg im Breisgau 2003, ISBN 3-451-28075-2 , Diocese of Brandenburg. 2. Reconstruction in the 12th and 13th centuries, p. 102-106 , Blumberg: p. 105 .
- ↑ Christina Meckelnborg : Tractatus de urbe Brandenburg. The oldest evidence of Brandenburg history. Text analysis and edition . 1st edition. Lukas Verlag for Art and Intellectual History, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86732-215-7 , The Weimar version of the Tractatus de urbe Brandenburg and its dating, p. 62–68 , here p. 63 .
- ^ Helmut Assing : Brandenburg history . Ed .: Ingo Materna , Wolfgang Ribbe . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-002508-5 , The sovereignty of the Ascanians, Wittelsbachers and Luxembourgers (mid-12th to early 15th century). The church organization in the Mark Brandenburg and the emergence of monastic institutions in the 12th and 13th centuries. Century, p. 116–120 , here p. 118 .
- ↑ Felix Escher : The Havelland in the Middle Ages. Investigations into the structural history of an East Elbe landscape in Slavic and German times . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06236-1 , The rural social structure of the Havelland with special consideration of the Slavic population. Village structure and individual social groups according to the land book of Emperor Charles IV from 1375, p. 314–336 , here p. 324 .
- ↑ Johannes Schultze: The Mark Brandenburg. First volume . 4th edition. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-428-13480-9 , 13. The old and the new lands and the tithe dispute, p. 118-127 , here pp. 121-122 .
- ↑ Eckhard Müller-Mertens : Hufenbauern and rule relationships in Brandenburg villages according to the land book of Charles IV of 1375 . In: Walter Friedrich (ed.): Scientific journal of the Humboldt University Berlin . Social and Linguistic Series . Year 1; Issue 1. Berlin 1951, The main tasks of the hoof farmers; Interest, rent and payment. The lease, S. 48–50 , here p. 50 .
- ↑ Fritze (see lit.) pp. 27, 33f.
- ↑ Berlin as provided with town charter city is first mentioned in 1251 (Fritze, s. Lit., p.16)