Emder Revolution
The Emden Revolution of March 18, 1595 marked the beginning of the status of Emden as a quasi- autonomous city republic.
In 1595, after several tax increases and laws that were quite inconsiderate towards the population, the citizens of Emden, in the course of the "Emden Revolution" under the leadership of Gerhard Bolardus, removed the town council appointed by Count Edzard II and took the count's castle . Edzard II was forced to move his residence to Aurich . With the Treaty of Delfzijl of July 15, 1595, the count had to undertake to renounce most of his rights in Emden.
prehistory
With the admission of Calvinist-Reformed religious refugees from the Spanish Netherlands , Emden developed into a major port of European importance in the middle of the 16th century, which was mainly due to the blockade of Dutch ports by the Spaniards . As a result, Emden was one of the main transshipment points for grain exports to Westphalia in the following years . At the same time, the numerous religious refugees who were accepted into East Frisia shaped the country, but especially Emden politically, economically and above all religiously.
After the armistice between Spain and the rebellious Netherlands at the end of the 16th century and the resulting migration of refugees and the end of the port blockades, an economic depression set in in Emden.
At the same time, tensions between the city of Emden and the East Frisian Count Edzard II intensified . The real reason was the count's arbitrary tax policy. As is so often the case in history, the tensions erupted in a veritable religious conflict. Edzard's mother Anna had abolished the Primogenitur in 1558 and stipulated that the government over the ruling territory should pass to her three sons Edzard, Christoph and Johann on an equal footing after her reign. In doing so, she presumably wanted to curb the emerging influence of the Wasa family in the county, which had been established through the marriage of her eldest son Edzard to Katharina, the eldest daughter of the Swedish King Gustav I. Wasa . But it took away Edzard's right to sole rule over the county, which de facto resulted in a division of East Frisia, because Johann, like his mother and the city of Emden, represented the Calvinist faith , Edzard II, on the other hand, the Lutheran faith .
Count Johann was very popular in the city, because in him the Reformed Church had a prominent advocate in the Count's House. This changed after his death in 1591. In the period that followed, the Reformed preacher in the Great Church in Emden, Menso Alting , developed into the greatest adversary of the count's strivings for power. Alting had a major influence on the implementation of Calvinism in Emden. To ward off the Counter Reformation , he strove for a Protestant union in the spirit of militant Calvinism. This in turn involved him in the clashes between the Netherlands and Spain as well as in the conflict between the East Frisian estates and the absolutist tendencies of the Lutheran Counts Edzard II and Enno III. from East Frisia. Alting cleverly took the count's tax increases as an opportunity to stir up the Emden population, so that Edzard II asked the Emperor Rudolf II for help. On January 21, 1594, he issued a decree against the East Frisian estates and against some citizens of the city of Emden. In it Rudolf urged them
- to recognize the count as their sovereign
- to pacify the city
- to hand over the town hall to the Grafenhaus
- to forego meetings
- abolish the forties college
The invocation of the emperor confirmed the citizens of Emden in their rejection of the count's house. The Count's loss of authority was obvious, and the Emden Revolution ensued.
course
On March 18, 1595, many people gathered in the Great Church . There, Menso Alting heated up the people with a sermon. Thereafter, Gerhard Bolardus, a member of the forties, gave a passionate speech in which he called for a coup. Subsequently, the crowd armed themselves and went to the town hall and occupied the walls and all important places in the city. Following the example of other cities, 21 citizen companies (later 23) were set up. Each company was headed by a captain, a lieutenant and an ensign. These 21 captains with the 4 quartermasters of the Emden districts formed the "civil war chamber". This was the hour of birth of the Emden vigilante group.
Troubled by the news from Emden, Edzard II sent his secretary to the city to sound out the situation. Encouraged by the count's apparent powerlessness, citizens of Emden deposed the count's mayor on March 24, 1595. The forties college elected by the citizens of Emden took power and elected four new mayors and eight councilors. Edzard II then sent his chancellor to The Hague to inquire about the Dutch position in this conflict. On April 2, they offered to mediate in the conflict, which was gradually escalating. So the Emder stormed the Count's castle on April 19 and dragged it on the city-facing side. Edzard II then forcibly moved the count's residence to Aurich . Emden ships were given the task of looking out for the Count's troop transporters and, if necessary, of capturing them . Edzard II's reaction showed his powerlessness: In return for supporting his position, he offered the States General the county of East Frisia as the eighth Dutch province. At the same time he had troops drawn up at the Knock , which were given the task of bombarding passing Emden ships.
The Emder in turn asked the States General for help. They complied with the request and sent 1,000 reinforcements to the city. Under the impression of this troop reinforcement, the count finally entered into negotiations with the Emdern. On July 15, 1595, Graf, East Frisian Estates, mediated by the Estates General and the city of Emden in Delfzijl, signed a contract. However, this was only able to restore peace for a short time. In order to alleviate the tensions between the Count's House, the East Frisian estates and the city, another contract was signed with the Emden Concordate on November 7, 1599 .
The tensions nevertheless escalated and from 1600 culminated in an open civil war between the city of Emden on the one hand and Enno III. and its countial parts of the country on the other side. Again the States General supported the Emder. They sent Werner von dem Holze as general and commander of the garrisons to Emden. On October 4th, 1602, there was finally a major battle at the Logumer Schanze built by Enno, which lasted until October 14th. From this the Emder emerged victorious, and the count went underground until February 1603. During his absence, the city of Emden exercised sovereignty over East Frisia and collected taxes.
In February 1603 Enno III appeared. then in The Hague , whereupon the city of Emden in turn sent representatives to the States General to negotiate the Hague settlement . The contract confirmed the incorporation of the suburbs into Emden. Furthermore, the city received tax sovereignty within its borders. Military sovereignty also passed to the magistrate, which made Emden de facto a free imperial city . In the Hague settlement, the contracting parties also decreed that Emden should receive a permanent garrison of 600 to 700 men, financed by the East Frisian estates . The influence of the States General on Emden was also laid down, because the commander of the municipal garrison was not allowed to have been in the service of a count or Emden, which meant that he had to be a Dutchman.
These were unequal negotiations, at the end of which the count was forced to sign a dictated treaty under threat of war (by the States General). Only reluctantly did Enno III sign. the contract then on April 8, 1603, after he had previously hesitated. The words of the intermediary of the States General, "You shall consent to what we want or have war," had their effect.
Effects
Through the revolution, Emden freed itself from the rule of the Cirksena and, as the “satellite” of the Netherlands, de facto achieved the position of a free imperial city. From then on, representatives of the city proudly signed all contracts and public publications based on the Roman model with "SPQE" (Emdischer Senate and Citizenship). The title Respublica Emdana and the abbreviation SPQE were officially used by the city of Emden.
With the reformed south-west of East Frisia, the city became closer and closer to the Calvinist Church of the Netherlands. As a result, Dutch became the standard language of the upper middle class in Emden in the course of the 17th century . Nevertheless, the decline of Emden began with the Emden Revolution. In the Greetsiel Treaty it was stipulated that only the Reformed religion could be taught in Emden. The city's tolerance for questions of faith was over. A long-lasting decline also set in economically. It was not until around 1800, an envelope was achieved in the harbor with about 600 ships of the the 70s of the 16th century can be compared.
literature
- Hajo van Lengen (Ed.): The "Emden Revolution" of 1595. Colloquium of the Ostfriesland Foundation on March 17, 1995 in Emden. East Frisian Landscape, Aurich 1995, ISBN 3-925365-92-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 1500 to 1600 - City of Emden. Retrieved November 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Marron C. Fort: The tradition of Dutch in East Friesland . In: Insights. Research magazine of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg . Issue 26 . October 1997.
- ↑ a b c Gudrun Dekker: 400 years of the “Hague Comparison” . In: Emder Zeitung of April 7, 2004. Available online at Augias.net . Retrieved November 16, 2017.
- ↑ Koenigsberger, HG (Helmut Georg), Müller-Luckner, Elisabeth., Stiftung Historisches Kolleg (Munich, Germany): Republics and Republicanism in Europe in the Early Modern Age . R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-486-54341-5 , p. 135 .