Corputius plan

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The Corputius plan is a detailed projection of the Klevian city ​​of Duisburg in the 16th century.

Plan of Corputius without the explanatory text, which is below the cityscape

It was made by the Dutch cartographer Johannes Corputius and published in 1566 . The layout of the plan comes very close to today's original cadastre. Corputius prepared the plan to dedicate it to the sovereign and the city of Duisburg. The plan is the oldest in the city. The colored plan shows the city from a bird's eye view. Inside the wall area, the city is depicted in the correct scale, with Corputius using bearings with a quadrant when creating the plan . The plan includes the cityscape with a heading, coats of arms with signatures and a dedication plaque as well as an explanatory text below the actual plan.

The production of the plan falls in the reign of Wilhelm the Rich , Duke of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and the counties of Mark and Ravensberg .

Much of the political and economic heyday of the former imperial city of Duisburg had already been lost. Nonetheless, Corputius was extremely proud of his work, because the Latin heading of the plan read in the German translation: "Truly and very precise drawing of Duisburg, the ancient city, the former royal seat of the Franks and at the same time their very own picture created after life," that nothing is missing. ”As can be seen from the city accounts of 1566/1567, the copper engraving was preserved by the city and hung in the town hall.

The plan was lost. In the 18th century, four black-and-white impressions appeared at a bookseller in Dordrecht . The original reappeared in the holdings of the Wroclaw City Library in 1889 . The city of Duisburg had a copy made in 1897. The original plan that remained in Wroclaw was lost during World War II . The only black and white print still known is in the Duisburg Museum of Culture and City History .

History of the plan

After Corputius had enrolled at the University of Leuven in 1558 , he followed the call of the cartographer Gerhard Mercator to Duisburg in the spring of 1562 to devote himself to the study of mathematics . He lived in his master's house on Duisburger Oberstrasse, very close to Burgplatz .

The house of Gerhard Mercator in Duisburger Oberstrasse, where Corputius lived from 1562 to 1566

He had no problems finding his way around the city, because in Duisburg at that time a Lower Franconian dialect was spoken, which was similar to the Lower Franconian dialects in what was then the territory of today's Netherlands .

The study under Mercator was wide-ranging and included not only mathematics itself, but also copperplate engraving and the manufacture of instruments such as protractors with sighting devices and the like. Corputius attended various courses at the Academic Gymnasium in Duisburg. He also took Greek lessons from the principal of the grammar school, Johannes Molanus .

According to Corputius, the measurements made by Corputius were carried out between 1562 and 1563 from three different points using the quadrant he had created himself: Van den grooten tooren te Duysburg - from the tower of the Salvatorkirche , one of the towers of the Marienkirche and a tower of the city fortifications between Cow gate and stacking gate .

At the beginning of 1563 Corputius the Younger reported in a letter to his father of the same name, Johannes, that he already had a "description" ( "descriptio" ) of the city in his hands and intended to make an engraving of it in order to earn money.

A section of the historic city wall in front of today's old town at the inner harbor

In 1564 he received 10 thalers from the city , which was a little more than the monthly income of a craft at that time. The city's debt register for that year has the following entry: “M. Johann Corputt voir the toschryfonge of the affgemaelter and contrafieter Carten von Duisborch adored with X daler, ider ad 45 albus, is 18 gulden, 18 albus “ .

It was obviously the "description" Corputius told his father about. At that time, however, the final plan was not yet completely finished because the explanatory text under the cityscape was still missing. Months later, on February 12, 1565, a large ice drift occurred , which almost led the Rhine back to its old bed - back against the walls of the city. Corputius mentions this event in the explanatory text that was subsequently engraved with the indication ANNO M DXLV (1565). For unknown reasons, the plan was only published a year later, in 1566, because the year was followed by a Roman one ("I"). Only then was the plan framed and hung in the town hall. However, this does not seem to have been the final plan with the explanatory text.

It was the Duisburg professor Johann Hildebrand Withof who in February 1740 put an appreciation of the Corputius Plan in the Duisburg address and intelligence slips of his Duisburg chronicle and reported that the reformed Duisburg preacher Johann Wilhelm Nosse was at a bookseller in Dordrecht 4 seen black and white prints of the plan. However, the bookseller had the copper plates, of which the bookseller made four prints, "used for other things", reported Nosse.

Withof had Nosse reproduce the texts for him, but they did not contain the extensive explanatory text below the plan, so that it can be assumed that Nosse must have seen the version from 1564 and not the final version, which consisted of two parts , one with the map of the city and another for the explanatory text.

In 1889, Dr. Alfons Heyer developed the plan for the order of the holdings in the Wroclaw City Library . In 1897, the city of Duisburg had colored copies made of this in original size using photo-mechanical means .

In 1925, the Duisburg city ​​council decides to have reproduced copies made: “For the production of 1,000 colored plans, 4,000 marks are granted…. The original plan, which is the property of the city of Breslau, but is now here, should be viewed at the next meeting be interpreted ". The new edition was available at Christmas 1925. At the same time, a wooden model of the plan was made, which was lost in the Second World War.

In February 1945, Wroclaw was captured by Soviet troops , and the plan is said to have fallen victim to looting . The color copies made in 1925 have served as templates for a wide variety of color reproductions of the original plan since 1961, 1964 and 1974.

In 1966, a black and white print of the plan was offered in the Netherlands and acquired by the city for the fund of the Niederrheinisches Museum, today's Museum of Culture and City History. This plan has become an indispensable tool for historical research and Duisburg city ​​archeology due to its unlimited enlargement capacity and its attention to detail .

presentation

The title of the plan reads:

Veriss (ima) exactiss (ima) q (ue) topographia Duisburgi
Urbis antique (imae) veter (is) Franco (rum) regiae atq (ue)
Etiam ipsiss (imae) eiusdem ad vivum effigies,
Ita ut nihil desit.
(In German translation: True and very precise drawing of Duisburg, the ancient city, the former royal seat of the Franks. And at the same time their very own picture, created from life so that nothing is missing.)
The coat of arms on the Corputius map

The left coat of arms refers to the countries of Wilhelm the Rich: the red lion of Berg , in the middle the golden lilies of Kleve in red, on the right the golden lion in gold for money , below the red and white bar of the county of Mark, on the right the red rafters of the county of Ravensberg. However, instead of the golden Geldern lion, the Duchy of Jülich should have had a black lion in gold. On the right is the Duisburg coat of arms, which is still used today: the double-headed eagle for the imperial city of Duisburg until 1290 and the castle below.

At the bottom right of the plan is Johannes Corputius' eulogy for his work. In translation this reads:

Greetings to the willing reader.
What we, dear reader, have offered in this description, you must not take for one of the usual
Keep images of cities as they are widely and widely distributed.
I believe I can claim and boldly claim that to this day
in the whole world no pictorial representation of a place has come out that has this
with such truthfulness and so exact (without speaking of the elegance of the engraving),
yes, I should like to say, observed in detail with such meticulous precision
and copied like ours here.
I hope to come across this knowledge easily in all those who have a sure judgment,
and on this point no one will blame me.
For those who want to make such an attempt will find with certainty
that actually not even the smallest hut has been passed over here, yes, you can find it with that
entire representation, as it was most clearly presented to the eye, the most balanced proportions.
This applies to water, rivers and hills, trees and fields, all streets and alleys, all houses with theirs
Roofs, doors and windows, towers, walls and churches, gates and ditches,
Springs and wells, dams and fences, the various names and everything else, from
one can only imagine what belongs here.
It may be a test of my increasing, albeit small, ability in an entertaining way
Be a matter so that you and I can see whether I will one day be in more serious matters in life
will be able to achieve something. Farewell and stay balanced with me!
March 24, 1566
Possible self-portrait of Corputius on his plan

Mercury, clad in blue and red, with a staff in his left, hovers above the frame-decorated rectangular dedication plaque at the bottom left of the plan . He dedicates the plan to the Duke with the words:

Illustiss (imo) potentissimoque principi Guilielmo duci Civiae, Juliae et Montis, comiti, Marchiae,
Ravensburgi etc., domino in Ravenstein etc. clementiss d (omino) suo, item ampliss (imo), antiquiss (imo) q (ue)
senatui populoq (ue) Teutoburgensis d (ono) d (edit) J (ohannes) de Corput Braedan (us). Anno MDLXVI.
(In German translation: the illustrious and powerful Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Cleves,
Jülich and Berg, Counts von der Mark and Ravensberg etc., his most gracious lord, how
Johannes von Corput also gave the noble and venerable council and the citizens of Duisburg
from Breda made this plan a present. In 1566.)

The attentive observer will notice that in the corners of the ornate edges of the overall plan there are portraits of people. It is still unclear who these people are. A wide variety of assignments have been attempted without any convincing results. In the lower left corner there is most likely a portrait of Gerhard Mercator. The likeness of the person in the upper right corner is often given as that of Johannes Corputius.

A coin is shown below the dedication plaque. It is a coin from Henry IV : a Duisburg denarius , on the obverse a head with a bow-shaped crown and crook . The reverse shows the name DI-VS-BV-RG. These coins were minted between 1065 and 1084 and found their way to the Baltic States . Numerous coin treasures containing Duisburg coins were found in Gotland .

A compass rose is drawn between the dedication plaque and the eulogy on Corputius's plan . The plan of Corputius, however, is not northerly, but the line of sight is from the northwest. In order to make directional comparisons with the floor plan of modern Duisburg, the plan must be rotated 125 degrees clockwise . Corputius offers an orientation option on the edges of the map: "Wech nae Poeroat" ( Ruhrort ), "Wech nae Essen ", "Wech nae Collen" ( Cologne ), "Wech nae Moers ".

The subtext

In the four-column sub-text below the actual plan, Corputius gives a detailed explanation of the history of the city of Duisburg and the names of the public buildings. The text is written in Latin and was translated into German in 1897 by the Duisburg historian Heinrich Averdunk . So the subtext begins with the words:

Duisburg or Teutoburg, a city of ancient Germania, once on the banks of the Rhine, is located
between the rivers Ruhr and Anger in the area of ​​Thoringer and Lower Saxony, today
in the border area of ​​Kleve and Berg. The Tuiskons or Teutons have this place
first given the name; he seems to have been their bulwark against the Romans,
who ruled in Gaul. Therefore, the neighboring forest, which is in
Longitude and latitude stretched widely through Germania, got its name.
It is the forest in which, according to the account of Tacitus in the 1st book of his annals, the legions.
of Varus found their downfall. In the annals of the Franks there is also Diusparcum or
Duispargum mentioned as a festival of the Thoringer.

Corputius refers to the legend prevailing in the Duisburg area at that time, according to which the Varus Battle took place in the Duisburg Forest. Various sites in East Westphalia, Northern Germany and the Netherlands are believed to be the site of the battle today. The history of the city occupies the 1st column and the first 6 lines of the 2nd column. The remainder of the 2nd column and the first line of the 3rd column take up the explanations of the public buildings. Corputius marks the city's public buildings with letters.

  • A: Salvatorkirche (Salvatoirs kercke). Church of the Savior, main parish church. The tower was started in 1479 and completed in 1507.
  • B: Croght (crypt): Chapel formerly the main church
  • C: St. Marien: the second parish church, formerly outside the walls. It was a monastery of the Johanniter , from which it is still served now.
  • D: (missing in the explanation): Johanniterkommende
  • E: With the brothers: Minorite Church and Monastery of the Minorites
  • F: Brothers of the Cross: Monastery and church called St. Peterstal
  • G: Catherine's Monastery
  • H: Beguine monastery : old monastery of the virgins, founded in 1327
  • I: St. Elisabethenberg: nunnery
  • K (missing in the plan and in the explanation)
  • L: Gasthaus am Knüppelmarkt, a hospital with a chapel
  • M: Town Hall on Knüppelmarkt: the council's meeting place, former (wine) school
  • N: Kollegienhaus: now a school, previously a slaughterhouse and court house
  • O: Customs house (not shown in the plan)
  • P: Reichshof (remnants of old imperial glory, but already heavily decayed)
  • Q: Stacking gate (city gate)
  • R: Kuhpforte (gate Kuhtor )
  • S: St. Marienpforte (city gate Marientor )
  • T: Schwanenpforte (city gate swan gate )
  • U: (Missing because in the times of Corputius U and V were identical in use)
  • V: Koblenzer Turm (It was built by the Koblenz citizens as a testimony to a mutual alliance. The Koblenzers had to defend it in times of war. The Duisburgers built and maintained the Ochsenturm in Koblenz .)
  • W (missing)
  • X: Hugenturm (first referred to as Turris Hermannis Hugonis in 1365, after a military leader.)
  • Y: Prisoner Tower (remains of the old castle)
  • Z: Powder Tower (This is where the powder for the city's guns is stored.)

From the second line of the third column, Corputius gives the story of the Verloren-Kost-Bridge , which had a special meaning for the citizens of the city at that time.

Important Rhine shifts from late antiquity to modern times

Dietrich von Moers was Archbishop of Cologne from 1414 to 1463 . Dietrich tried to establish a large, contiguous territory on the Lower Rhine and in Westphalia, and for his family even to establish a rulership almost as far as the North Sea. His powerful opponent in this conflict was the Duke of Cleves.

On the night of St. Gregorius Day in 1444, Dietrich's army stormed the walls of the city of Duisburg at the Verloren-Kost Bridge ("Useless Bridge"), so named because it was of no use to the Archbishop:

“But startled by the cry of birds, the [guards] who were at the stone mill saw them as they were
Burning a bunch of straw, the flashes of weapons. By screaming and striking the bell, they immediately call them
Citizens together, by whose rushing the enemy was forced to retreat. Since then, the Duisburg
this day is festive every year. "

Corputius also deals with the Duisburg Forest, its abundance of game, the rivers Rhine and Ruhr, their abundance of fish. He also mentions the old course of the Rhine with the peculiar loop-like loop near Asberg , the earlier Roman asciburgium:

"Because the fact that it (the Rhine) flowed from there to Duisburg and touched the city is too obvious,
than it could be doubted. But that doesn't just show that. It is not likely that the
Founder of this city, which they could build unhindered at the confluence (of the two rivers), so incomprehensible
should have been that they would have disregarded this great advantage. "

He finds this confirmed by a flood in 1565, when the old branch of the Rhine filled with water.

Duisburg in 1565/1566

Within the walls of the city of Duisburg the area was 33 hectares. That corresponds to a square with a side length of about 575 m. The number of inhabitants within the city walls can only be estimated today. About 500 houses can be counted on the Corputius map. If you calculate around 5 people as the average number of residents in a house, the number of inhabitants was probably around 2,500.

Outside the city walls, the so-called council villages have belonged to the city since ancient times: Duissern , Wanheim and Angerhausen with a total of around 400 to 500 inhabitants. According to today's conditions, the total number of inhabitants in Duisburg corresponds to a city of around 50,000 inhabitants. In the partial duchy of Kleve, Duisburg was the fourth largest city after Kleve , Wesel and Xanten .

The population of Duisburg at that time roughly corresponded to the population of the cities of Bonn , Düsseldorf , Emmerich , Neuss and Essen at that time . Larger cities in the Rhineland at that time were Cologne with around 40,000, Aachen with 15,000, Kleve, Xanten and Wesel with around 5,000 inhabitants.

In 1565 you found yourself in the midst of the church renewal movement, which began with Martin Luther and his 95 theses, which he posted in 1517 on the portal of the castle church in Wittenberg .

The Duke of Kleve was considered a tolerant ruler and in Duisburg itself the Reformation took place without violence. The city was spared sieges , pillage and billeting .

In 1559 a grammar school was set up in Duisburg , which went back to the old medieval Duisburg Latin school . In the beginning it was considered to keep the Catholic faith in the school, but the mayors of 1555 held a vote in February of that year, after which the Lutheran catechism should be introduced. In 1559 the facility became an academic high school with a philosophical upper level. The Duke wanted to create the conditions for the establishment of a sovereign university, which was not established until 1655.

The city experienced a not to be underestimated influx of Flemish Dutch people who settled in Duisburg for the sake of their faith. In addition to learned religious refugees who worked as teachers in the Duisburg grammar school and established the city's reputation as a city of scholars ("Duisburgum doctus"), numerous craftsmen immigrated from Bruges , Antwerp and other places. The strongest group were cloth makers.

The composition of the city population at that time can only be estimated. The first census , which was only carried out in 1714, gives clues . At that time, 32 clergymen, 56 carters, 41 cloth weavers, 24 linen weavers, 23 wool spinners, 44 bakers, 8 butchers, 8 beer brewers and 15 beer taverns, 37 wool weavers and wool spinners, 27 tailors, 24 linen weavers and 4 cloth dealers, 56 building yard owners lived in the city. Carters and carters, 20 shopkeepers, 21 carpenters, butchers and bricklayers, 6 slateers, 4 glassmakers, 15 blacksmiths and knife makers, 27 tailors, 11 shoemakers, 4 boatmen, 8 shepherds, 7 laundresses. There were 5 teachers, 4 judges, 7 lawyers, 3 doctors, 3 pharmacists, 4 barbers, 173 maids, 94 servants and 92 day laborers. 23 people were rentiers, 110 people were without business. There were about 1,000 children in the city at that time.

The Brabant dialect area

The most prominent point in the city was undoubtedly the Salvatorkirche, marked with the letter A on Corputius' plan. The forerunner of the church can be traced back to the 9th century. This previous church fell victim to the city ​​fire in 1283 .

The city of Duisburg had already lost its imperial immediacy in 1290 , but was able to retain its internal independence. A mayor had existed since 1421 and the city had full jurisdiction, including over the council villages.

In the 16th century, the Duisburgers paid with the Albus until the Reichstaler was gradually introduced. In 1566 the Reichstag accepted the coin dit emperor Ferdinand I and made the silver thaler ( rough weight 29.23 grams, 889/1000 parts silver) the general currency coin in the empire. According to the coin decree for the conversion of foreign currencies of the Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm of September 1, 1620, the following values were set for the Duchies of Jülich-Berg : 1 Reichstaler = 78 Albus; 1 Albus = 12 Heller . But one has to consider that a large part of the trade in goods up to the end of the 16th century was primarily a trade in goods for goods. Money and the precious metal required for it were characterized by a shortage.

Most of the town's small streets were unpaved, only the major streets and the castle square were paved with river pebbles , rubble stones or rounded house stones . They led from the central Burgplatz to the outside of the city gates. It was not uncommon for dirty water and faeces to be disposed of on the street. The latrine shafts , garbage and toilet pits had to be emptied from time to time. Garbage, rubbish and sanitation were a private matter.

In Duisburg one spoke a Brabant ( Lower Franconian ) dialect. The written language was Rhine-Maasland . However, the literacy rate was still very low. There was no general compulsory schooling. Although the written language of the upper classes and law firms had elements of regional dialects on the Lower Rhine, it is not to be equated with these. This Rhine Maasland had largely replaced Latin as the written language. It lost its importance from the 16th century. Standard German gradually spread northwards via Cologne. In today's Netherlands, however, a separate written language emerged.

When Wilhelm V , known as Wilhelm the Rich, visited the city in 1571 , a ceremony took place in Duisburg in which the citizens of the city demanded confirmation of their imperial privileges from the sovereign despite the imperial pledging. The confirmation certificate was announced in front of the mayors, lay judges, council, sixteen (representatives of the citizenry) and many citizens on Burgplatz. Then the homage followed:

Wy burgermeister, Schepen, rait common burgere and ingeseten instead of duißborch lavas and sweren, dat wy the transparent hoichgeboren
fursten and heren, heren Wilhelm hertouge to Cleve, Gulich and Berge graven to the Marcke and Ravensberch, here to Ravenstein getruw and fetch
should syn in solcker mate, when wy came from the ryke to syner princely graces voirfaren syn, give the hill ryke syns rights.

Then everyone raised their hands and repeated after Clevish Chancellor Heinrich Olisleger: So my God, helpe and syne hilligen Evangelia.

(Pronunciation: y = äj, s (at the beginning of the word) = ß, oi = long o, ui = öj, uw = üu, u = ü, g = ch as in easy, ch = ch as in "ach")

Appreciations of the plan and of Johannes Corputius

In the old town of Duisburg, on the south side of the Duisburg inner harbor , Johannes-Corputius-Platz was named after the cartographer. There is also a three-dimensional model of the old city of Duisburg based on Corputius' plan.

Works

cards

  • J. De Corput Brædanus: Verissima exactissimaque topographia Duisburgi urbis antiquissimae veteris Francorum regiae atque etiam ipsissimae eiusdem ad vivum effigies, ita ut nihil desit , 1566; Original in the Duisburg Cultural and City History Museum
  • Modern editions of the Corputius plan:
    • "Duisburg in the year 1566" (Veriss. Ex actiss. Q. Topographia Duisburgi urbis antiquiss. Veter. Francor. Regiae atq. Etiam ipsiss. Eiusdem ad vivu effigiesi ita ut nihil desit), city map, publishing house for economy and culture Renckhoff Duisburg 1964
    • Stadtpl. D. Johannes Corputius from 1566, format 87 × 87.5 cm: Veriss. exactiss. q. topographia Duisburgi urbis antiquiss., map supplement, in: Krause, Günter [Hrsg.]: Stadtarchäologie in Duisburg: 1980 - 1990 , Duisburger Forschungen 38, Duisburg: Braun, 1992, ISBN 3-87096-049-3

literature

  • The Duisburg city map of Johannes Corputius from 1566 , multimedia CD-Rom, ed. from the Gerhard-Mercator-Gesellschaft eV, Duisburg 2002
  • Duisburg in 1566: the city map of Johannes Corputius (= Duisburger Forschungen 40), edit. by Joseph Milz / Günter von Roden, Duisburg 1993. ISBN 3870960515
  • Heike Hawicks: The Duisburg city map of Johannes Corputius from 1566, from the early modern "advertising brochure" to the modern multimedia CD-ROM , in: Duisburger Forschungen 51, Duisburg: Mercator-Verl., 2004, pp. 225-234, ISBN 3-87463 -377-2
  • Frosien-Leinz, Heike: The Corputius Plan: Communal Self -Confidence and Advertising Material, in: Frosien-Leinz, Heike [Red.]: From Flanders to the Lower Rhine: Economy and culture overcome borders ; Volume accompanying the exhibition, published by City of Duisburg - The Lord Mayor, Museum of Culture and City History Duisburg, 2000, pp. 87-100, ISBN 3-89279-560-6
  • Joseph Milz: The Duisburg city map of Johannes Corputius and its surveying bases. In: Cartographica Helvetica Heft 11 (1995) pp. 2-10, ISSN  1015-8480 , full text , reprinted in: Kraume, Hans Georg [Hrsg.]: Duisburger Forschungen Volume 45. Duisburg: Mercator-Verl., 2000. pp. 1-23. ISBN 3-87463-295-4
  • Joseph Milz: The measurement of the Duisburg city map from 1566 by Johannes Corputius , in: Hantsche, Irmgard (Ed.): The "mathematicus": on the development and significance of a new professional group in the time of Gerhard Mercator [Papers of the 4th Mercator Symposium, October 30 - 31, 1995], Duisburger Mercator Studies 4, Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1996, pp. [227] -250, ISBN 3-8196-0474-X
  • Joseph Milz: New sources and research on Johannes Corputius , in Duisburger Forschungen , Volume 31, ed. from the Duisburg City Archives in connection with d. Mercator Ges. [For d. Written responsible: Joseph Milz], Duisburg: Braun, 1982, pp. 117–125, ISBN 3-87096-042-6

Web links

  • The city of Duisburg around 1566 , Google Earth project of the Corputius Plan, Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics, Bochum University
  • Duisburg 1566 3D , Burgplatz in Duisburg in the 16th century as an animation based on the Corputius plan, Jens Unger

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joseph Milz / Günter von Roden: Duisburg in 1566 , Duisburger Forschungen, Volume 40.
  2. Joseph Milz: The Duisburg city map of Johannes Corputius and his measurement bases. In: Cartographica Helvetica Heft 11 (1995) pp. 2-10, ISSN  1015-8480 , full text
  3. ^ Joseph Milz: History of the City of Duisburg , Mercator-Verlag Duisburg, 2013.
  4. ^ A b Hermann Waterkamp: The population of Duisburg , Walter Bacmeisters National Verlag Essen, 1941.
  5. Jump up ↑ The Academic Schools in the Rhineland 1500 to 1814 , inaugural dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Faculty III (History, Political Science, Classical Archeology, Art History, Egyptology, Papyrology) at the University of Trier, Andrea Fleck, 2003.
  6. ^ Joseph Milz: The history of the city of Duisburg , Mercator-Verlag, Duisburg, 2013, page 130.