Iron Chamber Pirna

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Market square in Pirna with the church of St. Mary, the Canaletto house and on the right house no. 10, 1472–1686 seat of the iron chamber
House at Markt 10 in Pirna, today a town house

The iron chamber Pirna was a Electoral Saxon institution whose job it was to sell under their jurisdiction (district), the so-called. Pirnaer iron station, iron products obtained or allot. It was founded in 1472 and existed until 1686. It was based in the house on Markt 10, today's town hall, in the old town .

For the corresponding districts, iron chambers existed as authorities for iron sales, for example in the former Austrian iron centers of Steyr and Scheibbs .

history

Iron ore was probably mined in the Eastern Ore Mountains as early as the 13th century ; For the town of Berggießhübel , the iron ore mining is documented with an account for the mine from 1450. Berggießhübel, as the center of iron ore mining in the Pirna Revier, was the seat of a mining office with a corresponding Berggießhübler Bergordnung from 1546, which applied to the entire Pirna Revier. At that time, besides the Elector of Saxony, the mountain lords were those of Bünau on Liebstadt and those of Bernstein in Ottendorf . The products made from the iron ore extracted here were called Pirnic iron .

On the one hand, the so-called Pirnische Eisen was in great demand due to the magnetic iron stone deposits, the highest quality iron ore. The historian Petrus Albinus writes in his Meißnische Land- u. Berg-Chronica 1589:

“The third and most excellent iron is made into Lawenstein and Berggieshübel and Glasshütten / are all three not far from Dreßden and Pirna den Stedten. That is why some of the iron / made there / call it Pirnisch / and praise it is more supple than the Lusatian / so it is otherwise also widely seduced. "

On the other hand, there was a shortage of iron in the Electorate of Saxony, which was mainly needed for the manufacture of armaments and for the extraction of silver, tin and copper in the relevant mines. In the preamble of the Berggießhübler Bergordnung of 1546 it was stated that

"On our silver and other mines, also in the south of our country and principality, there is a noticeable lack of eysen traces"

will.

Therefore, as early as 1472, the sovereign established a monopoly over the iron trade and in the course of this established the Pirna Iron Chamber to ensure the supply of iron to the mines and armories. Accordingly, all iron products that were produced in the Pirna mining area (around 300 tons per year in the 16th century) had to be delivered to the iron chamber at a fixed price, which it then sold to the Dresden armory and to the mines, towns and guilds. For example, the saline in Poserna was built almost exclusively with Pirnic iron in 1572.

Since the monopoly did not serve to make a profit, but primarily to secure the iron supply, but the iron business turned out to be costly, in 1583 the Pirna Council was to take over the duties of the iron chamber. Twenty cities in Saxony were already obliged to purchase their iron exclusively from the Pirnaische Eisenkammer. Now Elector August confirmed his stipulation that all iron bought in the Electorate should be obtained from the Pirna Iron Chamber, which was difficult to implement.

The historian Uwe Schirmer summarizes: "The purpose of the public economy in the small Pirna iron district was thus primarily based on the needs of the mines and salt pans as well as on the political-military and early mercantilist intentions of the sovereign."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Albinus, Petrus: Meißnische Land- u. Berg-Chronica 1589, XVI. Title, p. 134 .
  2. ↑ quoted in: Schirmer, Uwe: Public Economics in Kursachsen , p. 139.
  3. ↑ Schirmer, Uwe: Public Economics in Kursachsen , p. 141.

literature

  • Petrus Albinus : Meißnische Land- u. Berg-Chronica , 1589/1590 (title XVI, p. 134 ).
  • Uwe Schirmer : Public economics in Saxony (1553-1631). Motives - strategies - structures. in: Jürgen Schneider (Hrsg.): Public and private economics in changing economic systems. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-515-07868-9
  • Gunter H. Schmidt: From the Pirnischen Eisen. From the history of the old hammers and huts in the Pirna area , Pirna 1984, pp. 49–52.
  • Gunter H. Schmidt: The Eysingberg to the Gishobel as the basis of the Saxon iron trade monopoly of the electoral iron chamber in Pirna. in: Ferdinand Opll (ed.): City and iron . Linz 1992, pp. 359-376, ISBN 3-900387-51-6