Cathedral freedom
The cathedral ( s ) freedom or cathedral immunity ( English cathedral close ) was in the Middle Ages the immediate reason around the seat of the bishop , the cathedral with its cathedral chapter , presided over by the cathedral dean . This usually extended only a few hundred meters outside the building boundaries of the cathedral area and was usually surrounded by a wall ( Domburg ). It belonged to the secular domain of the bishop, also known as the bishopric , but not only included church property in land and buildings .
Your highness
The area of the cathedral freedom was not subject to the municipal jurisdiction, but had its own jurisdiction. This not only affected the clergy, but also the servants who worked in the economic sectors attached to the cathedral. This area served the canons as well as their servants as a living area. This area was therefore not subject to city tax. That was his freedom . So there were two independent political rulers within the city walls.
Over the centuries, this has repeatedly led to quarrels in many cities. This can be done e.g. B. in the Speyer Chronicle of the town clerk Christoph Lehmann from 1612. So it says something like:
“There has been irreconcilable adversity between the citizens and the Clerisey servants for many years. Because of this, King Rudolph specially decreed in the overridden contract how the same Rhat should be created. "
reformation
Where the Reformation took place, most of the monasteries were secularized, which usually meant that cathedral freedom ceased to exist there. But not only in Catholic cities did some of them last longer. With the secularization of the Lutheran Archdiocese of Bremen, which had been Lutheran for over 80 years, to the Duchy of Bremen in 1648, the cathedral district within the Bremen city fortifications fell under Swedish sovereignty . Since 1717 it belonged to Hanover and only came to the Free Imperial City of Bremen in 1803 . The secular possession of the diocese of Ratzeburg became with the abolition of the diocese in the Reformation to the principality of Ratzeburg , which was awarded to the dukes of Mecklenburg in 1648 and formed the western part of Mecklenburg-Strelitz since 1701 . The city of Ratzeburg (without the cathedral courtyard ), however, belonged to the Duchy of Lauenburg .
Examples
Examples of cathedral freedoms that are still relatively easily recognizable from a structural point of view are those in Halberstadt , Hildesheim , Magdeburg , Merseburg , Münster , Naumburg , Meißen and Trier .
literature
- Ernst Schubert , Jürgen Görlitz: The inscriptions of the Naumburg cathedral and the cathedral freedom . Berlin 1959.
- Ursula Hoppe: The Paderborn Cathedral Freedom: Investigations into topography, property history and functions . Munich 1975 (also Diss. Münster 1971).
- Cathedral freedom . In: Prussian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 2 , issue 7 (edited by Eberhard von Künßberg ). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de - publication date between 1933 and 1935).