Eternal peace
With the Eternal Land Peace of August 7, 1495 , under the German King and later Emperor Maximilian I in the Holy Roman Empire, the definitive and unlimited ban on medieval feudal rights was proclaimed at the Diet in Worms . One reason that led to general peace in the country was that it was a necessary prerequisite for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. In fact, feuds continued to be waged in the Reich until well into the 16th century, regardless of the formal prohibition.
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The Eternal Land Peace concluded the development of the Land Peace Movement, which, after the first attempts in the 12th century, found its first significant impact in the Mainz Land Peace of 1235. It was primarily aimed at the smaller nobles who had not kept up in the process of forming sovereign territories. Their “feudality” increasingly contradicted the intention of the imperial princes and imperial cities to pacify and consolidate their territories.
From then on, claims should no longer be asserted in combat, but through legal channels. The Imperial Law was passed on August 7, 1495 at the Diet in Worms . Theoretically, violence was replaced by legal recourse before the authorities of the empire and the territories, even if the implementation of this principle still took several generations. In the modern sense, the Eternal Land Peace formulated the state's or public authorities' monopoly on force .
The formulation of the perpetual peace fit into “parallel” developments in other European countries at the time, in which the public monopoly on force was also enforced, because conflicts were to be made legal. This was accompanied by the bundling of the rulers among the respective monarchs. In these countries, the state-building process was completed to the extent that clear external borders can be attested to these countries.
The feud under private law was forbidden and criminalized internally; externally, the nascent nation-states were waging war.
In addition to the monopoly of power by the public sector, the Eternal Peace is important in another respect. It was universal and valid everywhere and violations should be punished absolutely and everywhere. Punctual or temporary restrictions on the right to feud already existed in the Middle Ages, for example, during some crusades, disputes were suspended or forbidden for the time of the emperor's absence from the empire. But now the princely conflict settlement and decision in individual cases was replaced by the legal norm that is binding for everyone , the law for everyone.
A functioning judiciary in the empire was required to enforce the peace. In order to preserve the eternal peace, the Reichskammergericht in Frankfurt am Main was created as the highest legal instance , which was later relocated to Speyer and Wetzlar . From 1500 onwards, the newly created imperial districts were entrusted with the enforcement of perpetual peace in the individual regions . The protection of peace in the empire was no longer a monopoly of the king, since the chamber court and the imperial districts were occupied or formed by the imperial estates.
The so-called eternal land peace with the Golden Bull of 1356 is one of the first basic laws of the empire, because with its commandment to comply with the legal process it created the decisive basis for the development of the empire into a real legal community. The highest competent court, the Reich Chamber of Commerce, was detached from the king's court. The king had now given up his final responsibility for all matters relating to the peace. The judge was subject to the power of prosecution. The Reichstag was responsible for all changes to the chamber court or the court rules. This shows the strong influence of the imperial estates. The Eternal Peace Order differs from all previous civil peace orders in that the king only participates in the establishment and realization of public peace through the sovereign act of legislation. The implementation of the peace in court and execution within the territories is left unrestrictedly to the territorial powers, whose institutions are detached from the control of the king. The king only has sovereignty over peace, but no longer exercises any real power of peace.
The eternal land peace of 1495 was the basis of a land peace legislation that the empire renewed and supplemented several times until 1548. The conclusion was the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555, which described itself as a "permanent, persistent, unconditional, for and for everlasting peace".
Paragraphs
§ 1 Nobody, irrespective of their social position, may make war on someone else or inflict any other suffering.
§ 2 All existing feuds are canceled.
§ 3 Anyone who breaks this prohibition, regardless of their status, is subject to imperial ban.
§ 4 Everyone is obliged to identify or report someone suspected of having broken the peace.
§ 5 Anyone who violates § 4 loses all privileges himself.
Section 6 Judges and the Reichstag support those injured by feuds.
§ 7 Knight servants should not be tolerated anywhere as dangerous elements.
§ 8 Criminals against spiritual laws should be punished like criminals against secular law.
§ 9 This state peace should not be able to be overridden by later laws.
§ 10 Anyone who does not contribute to the welfare of peace loses all of their privileges and rights.
§ 11 Nobody may disregard this peace on the basis of any privilege, status or any other reason.
§ 12 This peace is not intended to abolish any other, already existing laws.
present
The protection of the peace is still a valuable asset of the legal system today. Breach of the peace is punishable under the Criminal Code ( § 125 dStGB or § 274 ÖStGB , Art. 260 chStGB). The state only recognizes the right to enforce its own rights by using force in very limited exceptional cases (e.g. self-defense ). The state's monopoly of violence has its roots in the peace movement that prevailed in the 15th century.
literature
- Historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German Reichstag files. Middle row: German Reichstag files under Maximilian I. Volume 5: Heinz Angermeier (arrangement): Reichstag von Worms 1495. 3 volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 3-525-35406-1 .
- Mattias G. Fischer: Reich reform and "Eternal land peace". About the development of feudal law in the 15th century up to the absolute prohibition of feuding in 1495. Scientia, Aalen 2007, ISBN 978-3-511-02854-1 ( Studies on German State and Legal History. NF 34), (At the same time: Göttingen, Univ ., Diss., 2002).
- Axel Gotthard : The Old Reich. 1495-1806. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-534-15118-6 ( compact history - modern times ).
- Hanns Hubert Hofmann (ed.): Sources on the constitutional organism of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation 1495–1815. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1976, ISBN 3-534-01959-8 ( selected sources on the German history of modern times 13).
- Elmar Wadle : The Eternal Peace of 1495 and the End of the Medieval Peace Movement. In: Claudia Helm, Jost Hausmann (Red.): 1495 - Kaiser, Reich, reforms. The Reichstag in Worms. (Exhibition of the State Main Archives Koblenz in connection with the city of Worms on the 500th anniversary of the Worms Reichstag from 1495). Landeshauptarchiv, Koblenz 1995, ISBN 3-931014-20-7 , pp. 71-80 ( publications by the Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Herbers, Helmut Neuhaus: The Holy Roman Empire: Scenes of a thousand-year history (843-1806). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2005, ISBN 978-3-4122-3405-8 , p. 187 f.