Frankfurt guild uprising
The Frankfurt guild uprising on Easter Monday , April 17, 1525 broke out as a revolt of the guilds against the political, religious and social conditions in the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main in the Holy Roman Empire . The uprising is one of several city rebellions along the Middle Rhine and can be seen as part of the general peasant uprising . The rebels forced the City Council on Wednesday, April 22, 1525 to accept the likely of Gerhard Westerburg authored 46 articles, a summary of reformatory positions as well as civil and socio-political demands. They are assigned a meaning similar to the Twelve Articles of Upper Swabia . From May 1525 onwards, the council used diplomatic skills to put the rebels on the defensive domestically and to avoid sanctions against the city by the princes victorious in the Peasants' War. With the abolition of the 46 articles and the restoration of political conditions, the uprising ended in defeat on July 2, 1525, but ultimately led to the irrevocable introduction of the Reformation and an improvement in social conditions in Frankfurt.
Conditions in Frankfurt am Main at the beginning of modern times
Around 1500 Frankfurt am Main was one of the medium-sized German cities. According to the civil register of 1387, around 10,000 people still lived in the city, but in 1440 their number had dropped to below 9,000. 1499 it reached about 7,600, including 2,583 for Bede taxpayer, a record low. Only then did it begin to grow again. About two thirds of the inhabitants lived in the densely populated old town , mostly professional craftsmen, traders and municipal servants, in the middle class Sachsenhausen about 15%. Only about 20% of the residents lived in the loosened up new town , mainly non-guild craftsmen and agricultural workers. The craft professions became more and more differentiated during the late Middle Ages, so that, according to books, there were 338 professions in the city, including 45 blacksmithing professions alone . Only 23 of these professions appear in the guild list from 1525, including only 10 “advisable” guilds: wool weavers , butchers , blacksmiths, bakers and shoemakers were represented on the council with two each, furrier , gardener , looner , fisherman and shopkeeper each with one councilor . The 15 craftsmen formed the “third bank” in the council. The 28 council seats of the "First Bank", also aldermen bank called and the "Second Bank" were the patricians of Ganerbschaften Old Limpurg and to Frauenstein reserved.
The Jewish community of Frankfurt, which had to settle in Frankfurt's Judengasse since 1462 , was still very small around 1500. It consisted of about 15 households, which, including the servants, consisted of less than 100 people. The Jews were not part of the city's citizenship, but belonged to the emperor as chamber servants .
The 240 to 300 clergy in Frankfurt, including about 33 canons and 64 vicars in the three collegiate monasteries St. Bartholomäus , St. Leonhard and Liebfrauen , were also not counted among the inhabitants . Around 80 to 100 friars lived in the three male monasteries of the preacher monks , Carmelites and barefooted . The Weißfrauenkloster and the Katharinenkloster mainly served to care for unmarried citizens' daughters. About 40 to 50 nuns lived here. Around 20 to 35 brothers lived in the three branches of knightly orders, the Deutschordenskommende , the Johanniterhof and the Antoniterhof . There were also a number of foreign monasteries and monasteries , including the Arnsburger Hof , the Hainer Hof and the Trierischer Hof , in which about 20 clergy lived.
The clergy did not contribute to the city's assets because of their tax privileges. About half of the taxpayers had no assets beyond the tax-free allowance at the time - a third of the apartment, a horse, a cow, household items, clothes, two silver cups per family and an annual supply of bread grain, wine, firewood, fodder and straw. 43% of the citizens belonged to the "bogus", whose wealth was less than 20 guilders . Only 13 percent had assets of more than 400 guilders, including 1.7 percent more than 10,000 guilders.
The relationship between the urban authorities and the clergy was prone to conflict. Under canon law, the city belonged to the Archdiocese of Mainz , represented by the provost of the Bartholomäusstift as archdeacon . Despite the strong population growth since the beginning of the 13th century, the monastery had managed to maintain its parish monopoly. The whole town was one parish ; the city pastor, who was appointed for life, was a pleban in the monastery chapter . Only after long, difficult negotiations, in 1452, through the mediation of Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues, did the council raise the two churches of St. Peter in the Neustadt and Dreikönig in Sachsenhausen to branch churches . The parish of Frankfurt also included the villages of Bornheim , Bockenheim and Oberrad . Five chaplains officiated in the branch churches, appointed by the monastery and allowed to donate all sacraments except for baptism . From 1459 the city pastor had to be a university-trained theologian who had to support the chaplains from his own income.
In return, the council had to accept that the clergy would be exempted from all indirect taxes. Since the "Pfaffenrachtung", a settlement concluded with the Archbishop in 1407, the clergy have been charged a lump sum of 100 guilders annually for each of the three priests for the direct tax, the Bede . In view of the large ecclesiastical property holdings, this was only a small amount compared to the taxes on the citizenry. By the end of the 14th century, a third of all buildings belonged to the church. The remaining buildings were often heavily owed, the main creditor of which was the church. Most of the debts could not be repaid (so-called perpetual interest ) and made many properties unsaleable. This led to ever larger vacancies (" devastation ") and impoverishment or over-indebtedness of those affected. In 1463 there were already over 400 abandoned houses, which therefore no longer provided any tax revenue. The branches of the order also remained largely untaxed. Although the Pfaffenrachtung forbade the clergy to carry out their own trade, manual work and the accommodation of trade fair guests, this ban was often violated.
The clergy were not subject to secular jurisdiction, but in the course of time the council succeeded in enforcing its powers under police law against the monasteries, monasteries and ecclesiastical courts. This concerned, for example, the inclusion of church institutions in the Frankfurt city fortifications , the regulations for fire protection and the "law" to discharge sewage into the "Antauchen", the city sewer system. With the six church clerks and five monastery clusters , a kind of trustee administration of church property that had emerged from foundations , the council also had an effective instrument for influencing the administration and legal transactions of these institutions. For example, the council financed the construction of the parish tower of St. Bartholomew. When this had reached the height necessary for the city watch and the storm and fire bells , he had the construction stopped unfinished in 1514.
The foreign policy and economic situation in Frankfurt deteriorated significantly in the second half of the 15th century. The city bordered Kurmainzian territory to the west, south and east. As elector and imperial arch-chancellor , the archbishop was able to put the city under political and military pressure and exert influence on the emperor. After the city of Mainz lost its freedom as a result of the Mainz collegiate feud in 1462, Frankfurt no longer had any ally in the region. The archbishop confiscated the entire property of the city of Mainz, as a result of which Frankfurt citizens lost about 80,000 guilders, and tried Emperor Friedrich III. to move one of the Frankfurt trade fairs to Mainz. The council succeeded in warding off this intrigue, since the economic success of Frankfurt depended more and more on the trade fair trade, protected by imperial privileges, and the election of a king .
The economic and political crisis at the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age caused, in addition to increased piety, a fear of sin , death and eternal damnation , fueled by the church , against which one tried to protect oneself through various good works , soul masses , penance and indulgence . In the great processions on Ascension Day , Corpus Christi and Magdalena day , the entire citizenry took part with the council at the head. Shortly after 1500, the foundations and legacies of wealthy citizens in favor of churches and monasteries, such as those of Jakob Heller or Claus Stalburg , reached a high point.
At the same time, resentment increased in large sections of the population. The reform of the property tax ( Bede ) of 1495 and the increase in indirect taxes on wine, salt and flour favored the owners of large fortunes and burdened the poorer citizens. In the summer of 1513, an increase in the beer money triggered a revolt of journeymen against the council. It was soon directed against the Jews, who were accused of usury , and the clergy. Many clerics were feuding with one another and did not live by the rules they preached from the pulpit. Quite a few disregarded celibacy and lived openly with concubines . Once a clergyman stabbed another while fighting over a maid . Some clerics and monasteries in Frankfurt used their tax privileges in unfair competition with bourgeois craftsmen and traders, although this violated the "Pfaffenrachtung".
The pastor Peter Meyer , who was appointed in July 1510, made a significant contribution to heating up the mood in the community with his sermons. Immediately after taking office, he began a dispute with the chapter of the monastery, which demanded a portion of the income from oblations and stolen fees to which the pastor was legally entitled . This "Frankfurter Stiftsfehde" dragged on for several years and instances and ended in October 1517 with a legal victory for the city pastor. During this time Meyer incited in his sermons against the monastery and incited the congregation, so that several canons of the night were attacked by gunmen on the way to Mette and their houses were damaged. The council had to admonish the guilds to keep peace and see that the clergy could live "safely and unofficially". Although the council supported him in the collegiate feud, Meyer delivered some harsh anti-Jewish sermons in 1510 in the dispute over the confiscation of Jewish books by Johannes Pfefferkorn and accused the council of being “friendly to Jews” because the latter had protested against Pfefferkorn's actions. Meyer was therefore publicly ridiculed in the dark man's letters by the humanist group around Johannes Reuchlin and Ulrich von Hutten . He also polemicized from the pulpit against religious priests such as the Dominican prior Johannes Diedenbergen , which the Franciscan Thomas Murner , who was living in Frankfurt at the time, caricatured in the satire guild guild with the words of early New High German :
"Eyn Pfaff,
who gives other priests, And in the preaching turns to them Dem leyen
complains yr ubel dadt,
Uff the kantzel, where there was
neither glimpff nor fug"
On the eve of the Reformation, there was therefore a heated mood in Frankfurt, which had arisen from religious zeal and unresolved economic, social and political conflicts.
Prehistory of the uprising
Since the fasting fair in 1520 , at which a Frankfurt bookseller sold over 1,400 copies of Martin Luther's writings, the Reformation gained increasing support in the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main. On the way to the Reichstag in Worms on April 14, 1521 and on the way back on April 27, Luther stayed twice at the Gasthof Zum Strauss in Buchgasse , where the rector of the Latin school , Wilhelm Nesen , and the patrician around Hamman von Holzhausen gave him an enthusiastic reception prepared. At the invitation of Holzhausen, Hartmann Ibach gave the first Lutheran sermons at Invocavit in 1522 in the Katharinenkirche . He denied the sense of celibacy and the veneration of saints , criticized the wealth and immorality of the urban clergy, and called for the abolition of tithe and perpetual interest in favor of urban welfare. As a result, there were attacks by Reformation-minded citizens against clergymen of the Bartholomäusstift , which was subordinate to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht von Brandenburg . Albrecht put the city council under political pressure to act against the reformatory currents in the citizenship and to enforce the Edict of Worms , although most of the council members already sympathized with the Reformation.
The hot-headed knights Hartmut von Kronberg and Ulrich von Hutten protested against the expulsion of Ibach, who even announced the feud to the city pastor and conjured up a priestly war. In June 1522, Emperor Charles V intervened and ultimately called on the council to militarily protect the urban clergy against the knights. The council was supposed to wage a war in which the citizens were on the side of the knights and against their patrician upper class and the urban clergy. Fortunately for the council, the knights were defeated in the war of knights against a coalition of princes in September 1522 before the city of Frankfurt could become involved in acts of war.
From June 1524 the council got into a renewed conflict with the Archbishop of Mainz over the Reformation preacher Dietrich Sartorius, who had been working at the Katharinenkloster since 1523 . His appointment was the Council as a violation of the Edict of Worms and thus as a rebellion against Emperor Charles V maintained. Pastor Meyer strictly rejected all demands of the citizens and repeatedly heated up the dispute with sharp words. For example, he denied the Sachsen houses the required free choice of their pastor and took massive action against the Bornheim citizens who temporarily refused the tithe to the monastery chapter to protest against their inadequate church supplies.
The council therefore tried to find a balance between the demands of the Reformation citizens and the resistance of the clergy. He had hardly any room for maneuver, because the emperor had already demanded compliance with the Edict of Worms in a penalty mandate in July 1524 and threatened the loss of all imperial privileges essential for the economic and political position of the city. The Archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht von Brandenburg admonished the council to obey the imperial mandate and to protect the interests of the clergy against the citizens. Sartorius therefore had to leave the city in November 1524. As a result, the wrath of the citizenry was directed not only against the clergy, but increasingly also against the council. On January 2, 1525, there was a scuffle between angry Saxon houses and priests of the Bartholomäusstift, and on March 15, 1525 the growing resentment of the citizens forced pastor Meyer to flee to Mainz.
course
On April 17, 1525, Easter Monday , the increasing tensions led to a religious, socially and politically motivated revolt by the guilds against the city government and the clergy. The leader of the uprising was the community of evangelical brothers , a group of reformatory-minded craftsmen who stood in opposition to the patrician authorities and the old-believing clergy of the city. The crowd gathered in Peterskirchhof in the Neustadt armed themselves and took control of the city. She penetrated the Dominican monastery and the Mainz Fronhof and seized the local wine supplies. The collegiate deans Friedrich Martorff and Johannes Cochläus fled the city. Armed citizens loyal to the council were able to prevent the plundering of the Frankfurt Judengasse , which was under imperial protection . Philipp Fürstenberger succeeded in persuading the insurgents to elect a committee of 61 men to negotiate with the council. In this committee of 61 , unlike in the council, non-guild craftsmen and sackclothes were also represented. On April 22, 1525, the 61 forced the adoption of the 46 articles by the council. The council was forced to give in because at the same time rebellious peasant armies invaded the Odenwald , the Rheingau and the Palatinate .
Although the council remained in office, political power was entirely in the hands of the '61. On April 26, the committee searched the homes of various clergymen, demanded the expulsion of the concubines they found there and forced the clergy to accept the 46 articles. The religious demands accepted in this way included the election and removal of pastors by the community, participation of the clergy in all civic burdens such as taxes and guard and guard services, subordination of clergy to secular jurisdiction, abolition of monasteries, abolition of all non-documented rights and the Possibility of redeeming perpetual interest.
At the end of April there was a rumor that the Black Heap camp near Miltenberg wanted to move to Frankfurt in order to plunder the soldiers of the Teutonic Order and exterminate the Frankfurt Jews. Foreign princes, including the Archbishop of Trier Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads , asked the council to let their troops pass through the city. This put Frankfurt in a dangerous position: on the one hand, insurgent citizens were planning to join forces with the peasants, and on the other, the city was threatened with occupation by foreign troops. The Council wanted to avoid both. He called the guilds together on May 4th and all non-guild citizens on May 7th and warned urgently of the consequences of attacks on the Coming and the Jews, in particular through the damage to the masses and the expected intervention of the princes. He asked guilds and citizens to help ward off the danger and got all the guilds except the hatters to pledge their allegiance to the council.
After the defeat of the peasant army near Ingolstadt in Lower Franconia , the council finally regained the initiative at the end of May. Westerburg, an exposed participant in the uprising, had to leave the city at the end of May. The senior mayor Philipp Fürstenberger, who has been in office since May 1, and his predecessor Hamman von Holzhausen succeeded in mediating between the council and rebel guilds with the support of moderate citizens and craftsmen and at the same time supporting the position of the city towards the emperor and the Archbishop of Mainz. On June 13, 1525, the council called the two Reformation preachers Johann Bernhard and Dionysius Melander to the Bartholomäuskirche in order to satisfy the citizens. The choir of the Bartholomäuskirche was still reserved for the old-believing collegiate clergy, but the council prevented the newly appointed pastor Friedrich Nausea from taking office; Nausea only came to the city for a short time in February 1526.
The Palatinate Peasants' War also ended on June 23 and 24 . In the battle of Pfeddersheim, the troops of Elector Ludwig V triumphed against the rebellious peasants with the support of the Archbishops of Mainz and Trier. The citizens of Pfeddersheim had revolted against their authorities in May and wrested from them concessions similar to those of the Frankfurt guilds in 13 articles . As a result they joined the uprising and opened their gates to the peasantry. After the defeat, the city was therefore subject to severe penalties. Numerous Pfeddersheim citizens were executed and all privileges withdrawn from the city.
On June 27, the victorious princes ultimately demanded that the city of Frankfurt abolish the 46 articles, restore the old constitution, extradite all farmers who had fled to Frankfurt and punish the leaders of the guild uprising. They threatened Frankfurt with siege and heavy damage if it was not clearly opposed to the peasants and all other rebels. The council promised the princes on July 2nd that the 46 articles would be abolished, probably supported by a substantial cash payment. The council did not want to commit itself to the persecution and punishment of the rebels because it had sworn an oath "to God and the saints". The princes waived this demand, but threatened the city with immediate sanctions if the agreements were not adhered to. With the help of the prince's threat, the council brought the guilds to hand over the article letter they had been given and then delivered the original of the letter to the Count Palatine in Heidelberg . In contrast to other rebellious cities, Frankfurt escaped further reprisals. Decisive for the success of the council were diplomatic skills and high personal esteem, which individual members possessed both in the citizenry and with the princes. In addition to Holzhausen and Fürstenberger, this was particularly true for Arnold von Glauburg .
This essentially ended the guild rebellion, although the unrest in the city continued for a while. In order to promote pacification, the council largely refrained from prosecuting and punishing the insurgents.
consequences
With the end of the uprising, the political situation was completely restored and remained unchanged until the Fettmilch uprising in 1614. With its social and spiritual demands, however, the guild uprising was more successful: with the establishment of the general alms box , the council also improved the city's poor welfare and thus fulfilled one of the main concerns of the uprising. Economically and in terms of foreign policy, the guild uprising had no long-term negative consequences for Frankfurt, but the victory of the princes in the Peasants' War weakened the political importance of the imperial cities.
With the appointment of the two predicants, the basis for the development of a Protestant church in Frankfurt am Main was laid. In 1530 the city openly declared itself to Protestantism at the Reichstag in Augsburg and in 1533 abolished the Catholic mass completely. The introduction of the Reformation in Frankfurt had thus become irreversible. After some hesitation, Frankfurt joined the Schmalkaldic League in 1536 and joined the Augsburg Confession . In the Schmalkaldic War , however, Frankfurt had to submit to the imperial in December 1546 and, after the Augsburg Interim, return the three collegiate churches St. Bartholomäus, St. Leonhard and Liebfrauen as well as the Dominican monastery and the Carmelite monastery to the Catholic Church. The council and the citizenry remained Lutheran and loyal to the emperor until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. In July 1552, during the prince uprising, Protestant troops led by Moritz von Sachs besieged the Protestant city for three weeks, which was successfully defended by troops of the Catholic emperor led by Colonel Konrad von Hanstein . As a result, Frankfurt preserved its Lutheran creed and at the same time its privileges as a trade fair venue and as the electoral and coronation site of the Roman emperors . From 1562 onwards, almost all emperors in Frankfurt were not only elected, as was customary before, but also ceremonially crowned.
In the years 1531–1546 several convents of the Protestant princes were held in Frankfurt, as was the case in March 1558 here at a Reichstag, the Frankfurt Recess named after the city .
literature
- Peter Blickle : The Revolution of 1525. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-4864-4264-3 ; P. 12
- Sigrid Jahns: Frankfurt am Main in the age of the Reformation , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (Hrsg.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 , p. 151-204 .
- Michael Matthäus: Hamman von Holzhausen (1467–1535) - A Frankfurt patrician in the age of the Reformation . Frankfurt am Main 2002, Waldemar Kramer publishing house. ISBN 3-7829-0528-8 , pp. 281-358
- Jürgen Telschow: History of the Protestant Church in Frankfurt am Main. Volume I - From the Reformation to the end of Frankfurt independence in 1866 . Series of publications of the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main, No. 40. Cocon-Verlag, Hanau 2017, ISBN 978-3-922179-53-5
Web links
- Sabine Hock : Reformation in the imperial city. How Frankfurt am Main became Protestant A chronicle from 1517 to 1555. pp. 1–12, Frankfurt am Main 2001 [1]
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter Blickle: The Revolution of 1525. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-4864-4264-3 ; P. 12
- ^ Rudolf Jung : Frankfurter Chroniken and annalistic records of the Reformation time. Along with a depiction of the siege of Frankfurt in 1552 . Frankfurt am Main 1889, p. 184–191 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Richard van Dülmen : Reformation as Revolution , Munich 1977. P. 47.
- ^ Karl books : The population of Frankfurt am Main in the XIV. And XV. Century, social-statistical studies , Tübingen 1886, p. 161 ( Digitalisat - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Konrad Bund: Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages 1311-1519 , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine articles. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 . , P. 66.
- ↑ Friedrich Bothe , The Development of Direct Taxation in the Imperial City of Frankfurt up to the Revolution 1612-1614 (Political and Social Science Research, Vol. 26/2, Leipzig 1906, p. 144)
- ^ Karl books : The population of Frankfurt am Main in the XIV. And XV. Century, social-statistical studies , Tübingen 1886, p. 201f ( digitized - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Konrad Bund: Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages 1311-1519 , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine articles. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 . , Pp. 103-106.
- ↑ Konrad Bund: Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages 1311-1519 , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine articles. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 . , P. 138.
- ↑ Friedrich Bothe , Das Testament des Frankfurter Großkaufmanns Jakob Heller from 1519. A contribution to the characteristics of bourgeois wealth and culture at the end of the Middle Ages , in: Archive for Frankfurt's History and Art (AFGK) 28, 1907, p. 339– 401
- ↑ Konrad Bund: Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages 1311-1519 , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine articles. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 . , P. 141.
- ↑ Helmut Cellarius, The Imperial City of Frankfurt and the Gravamina of the German Nation , Leipzig 1938, pp. 96-102
- ↑ Michael Matthäus: Hamman von Holzhausen (1467-1535) - A Frankfurt patrician in the age of the Reformation . Frankfurt am Main 2002, Waldemar Kramer publishing house. ISBN 3-7829-0528-8 , pp. 144-145
- ^ Sigrid Jahns: Frankfurt am Main in the age of the Reformation , in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 , p. 135 f .
- ^ Helmut Cellarius, The Imperial City of Frankfurt and the Gravamina of the German Nation , Leipzig 1938, p. 96
- ↑ Threat of punishment in writing, especially as a judicial order in a mandate process.
- ↑ Andreä: Wetteravia. Magazine for German history a. Rechts-Antiquities, Volume 1, 1828, p. 128
- ^ Rudolf Jung : Frankfurter Chroniken and annalistic records of the Reformation time. Along with a depiction of the siege of Frankfurt in 1552 . Frankfurt am Main 1889, p. 503-655 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).