Alzenau free court

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The territory of the free court Wilmundsheim vor der Hart (darker colored) in the 16th century with the associated villages. North is down.

The Alzenau Freigericht was a territorial, dependent entity in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation . In the 14th century it became dependent on the surrounding aristocratic families, from 1500 it was a condominium between Kurmainz and the County of Hanau , before it was divided between Kurmainz and Hessen-Kassel in 1740 .

Surname

The name of the area varied depending on the time and perspective. Freigericht Wilmundsheim vor dem Berge or Freigericht Wilmundsheim vor der Hart were the older names. That then switched to Freigericht Alzenau . In the context of advancing territorialization in the early modern period , the sovereigns increasingly viewed the area as an office , even if the residents were happy to maintain their special status of free court : The name of Amt Free Court Alzenau came up.

geography

The Alzenau free court was located in the area between Aschaffenburg in Mainz and Hanau . The territory comprised the present-day communities of Freigericht in Hesse , in Bavaria the city of Alzenau , the community of Kahl am Main , the districts of Mömbris and Hemsbach of the community of Mömbris and the district of Großwelzheim of the community of Karlstein am Main .

The free court consisted of four regional courts to which the villages were assigned:

  • The part of the office in Steinheim , which formerly belonged to the free court , belonged to Kurmainz since 1424. The places Kahl and Mömbris also fell to Kurmainz in 1609 or before that.

history

middle Ages

The Freigericht has its origin in the central courts Wilmundsheim (later Alzenau ), Hörstein , Mömbris and Somborn , which formed the Wilmundsheim vor der Hart cooperative . The places became free courts in the 12th century. The free court was initially imperial .

The free marketers met every year in Wilmundsheim to elect the district judge and the forester and to make other decisions affecting the community. Each village provided lay judges who participated in court. Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa exempted the march comrades from taxes and compulsory labor. The Märker had to defend these autonomy rights against the efforts of local families, such as those of Randenburg and the Counts of Rieneck , as well as against the archbishops of Mainz .

As with many other immediately subordinate territories, the emperor also lent the area of ​​the free court to nobles who were directly subordinate to the empire as fiefs - be it for earned services, for money or for political reasons . A third of the free court was given to the lords of Hanau , von Ranneberg and von Eppstein before 1309 . After Hanau had bought the Ranneberg share in 1358 and the Elector of Mainz bought the Eppstein, the Freigericht became a condominium for these two sovereigns.

Early modern age

In 1500 the elector-archbishop of Mainz and the counts of Hanau-Münzenberg jointly received the free court as an imperial fief . This created a condominium whose joint management functioned for more than 200 years after the Reformation, despite the different denominations . The area was administered by a jointly appointed bailiff , with the right of proposal changing between Mainz and Hanau. The dual power prevented the spread of Protestantism; the free court remained Catholic and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction remained with the archbishops of Mainz.

From the turn of the 15th to the 16th century there were clashes between the rulers and the subjects. The latter did not want to give up their traditional rights of self-determination. This was in contrast to the policy of the territorial lords, who endeavored to expand and consolidate their territories in early state forms. The subjects opposed the orders of the rulership. Thereupon the Elector of Mainz, Berthold von Henneberg , and Count Reinhard IV. Von Hanau-Münzenberg occupied the country militarily in 1502. The resistance of the subjects remained unbroken and in 1529 the traditional rights were confirmed.

Succession from 1736

Count Johann Reinhard III died as the last Hanau count . on March 28, 1736 in Philippsruhe Castle near Hanau . His death bed was surrounded by diplomatic representatives and notaries of the heirs, who had all already made their preparations for this case. Kurmainz and Hessen-Kassel each occupied parts of the free court on the evening of March 28, 1736 militarily. Hessen had the more efficient military and occupied the greater part.

Due to a contract of inheritance from 1643, the heir to the County of Hanau-Münzenberg was formally King Friedrich of Sweden from the House of Hesse-Kassel , who, however, left his rights to the inheritance to his brother and representative, who later became Landgrave Wilhelm VIII , who lived in Kassel . To the legacy of Count Johann Reinhard III. a violent legal dispute developed between the Landgraves of Hessen-Kassel and the Elector of Mainz. Since it was a fiefdom and fiefdoms could generally only be bequeathed to male descendants, the Archbishop of Mainz claimed that the inheritance contract of 1643 was not valid for fiefdoms, so he was now the sole owner of the fiefdom "Freigericht". Before the Reich Chamber of Commerce he received the right. That was of no use to him, however, since Wilhelm VIII did not give up, Mainz was not militarily strong enough to allow war to come down to it, and no other powers could be found to enforce the judgment against the landgrave.

So the dispute ended with a settlement, the “party recession ” of 1740, which was not finally implemented until 1748. There was a real division: Hessen-Kassel received the villages of the Somborn court , without the parish of Albstadt , i.e. Altenmittlau , Bernbach , Horbach , Neuses and Somborn , as a fiefdom from Kurmainz. That corresponded to about 1/4 of the free court. But it had to guarantee the undisturbed exercise of the Roman Catholic faith for the subjects living there. The rest of the area fell to Kurmainz. Hessen also received a compensation payment.

Aftermath

The now Hessian part of the free court was administered by the Hessen-Hanauische Amt Altenhaßlau . The free judges who now came under the rule of the Landgrave also fought against their new sovereign for recognition of their privileges and led trials before the Reichshofrat in Vienna (1775–1778) and the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Wetzlar (1795–1806).

The part of the free court remaining with Kurmainz fell in the Napoleonic era due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1802 initially to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt (from 1806 Grand Duchy ), which ceded the area to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816 . Even today, the border between Hesse and Bavaria is based at this point on the party recession of 1740.

literature

  • O. Appel: Political activity of Ulrich III . = Hanauer history sheets 5
  • Heinrich Brückner: The free court Willmundsheim before the Hart in its legal character and origin . In: Archive of the historical association for Lower Franconia and Aschaffenburg 68, Würzburg 1929
  • Heinrich Dannenbauer : Free counties and free courts . In: Lectures and research (edited by the Institute for Historical Research of the Lake Constance Area in Konstanz). ND Konstanz 1963. Vol. 2 = The problem of freedom in German and Swiss history (Mainau lectures 1953), pp. 57–76
  • Heinrich Dannenbauer: Basics of the medieval world . Stuttgart 1958, pp. 309-328
  • Karl Ernst Demandt : History of the State of Hesse, 2nd edition, 1972, p. 293
  • Reinhard Dietrich : Hanauer deduction writings . In: Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 31. Hanau 1993, pp. 149ff: No. 5, 8, 10, 16, 18, 22, 28, 29, 43, 48, 54, 57, 79, 85, 105, 111, 114, 121 , 129, 131
  • Heinz Duchhardt : Philipp Karl von Eltz . Elector of Mainz, Arch Chancellor of the Reich (1732–1743) = Sources and treatises on the history of the Middle Rhine Church 10. Mainz 1969
  • Regenerus Engelhard: Description of the earth of the Hessian Lands Casselischen Antheiles with notes from history and from documents explained . Part 2, Cassel 1778. ND 2004, p. 788ff.
  • Josef Fächer: Alzenau . Munich 1968
  • Josef Fächer: The territorial development in the area of ​​today's Alzenau district up to the end of the old empire . Wuerzburg 1964
  • Christian Grebner: Steinheim's relationship with the Wilmundsheim-Alzenau free court in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period . In: Steinheimer Jahrbuch 3 (1993), p. 9ff.
  • Christian Grebner: An unusual position ... In: Spessart 5/1996
  • Karl Groeber: District Office Alzenau
  • Georg-Wilhelm Hanna : Ministeriality, Power and Mediatization. The knight nobles von Hutten, their social position in church and state until the end of the Old Kingdom = Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 44. Hanau, 2007. ISBN 3-935395-08-6 , p. 132f.
  • Paul Hupach: The free judge Reichshofrat trial in Vienna (1775-1779). In: Between Vogelsberg and Spessart. Heimat-Jahrbuch des Kreis Gelnhausen 1962, pp. 72–74
  • Christian Leonhard Leucht: European State Canzley . Vol. 70-79, 81, 83
  • Helmut Puchert: The Hessian Spessart - Contributions to the history of forest and hunting = Notices from the Hessian Forest Administration 23 = Series of publications by the Hessian Forest Culture Museum Bieber 3
  • Heinrich Reimer: Hessian document book . Dept. 2. Document book on the history of the Lords of Hanau and the former Province of Hanau, Leipzig 1891ff. 4 vol.
  • Johann Wilhelm Christian Steiner: History and topography of the free court Wilmundsheim before the mountains or free court Alzenau . Aschaffenburg 1820
  • Richard Wille: The last counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg . In: Communications from the Hanau District Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies . 12, Hanau 1886, p. 66

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ "Wilmundsheim" is the medieval name of Alzenau .
  2. ↑ The Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg were finally reformed , their heirs in 1642, the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg , were Lutheran , the Archdiocese of Mainz remained Roman Catholic .
  3. ↑ This inheritance contract was concluded between the Hessian Landgravine Amalie Elisabeth von Hanau-Münzenberg (1602-1651), a born Countess of Hanau-Münzenberg, and the guardianship of the Hanau Count Friedrich Casimir von Hanau-Lichtenberg in order to provide military support for him Secure accession to government in the county of Hanau-Munzenberg.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Engelhard.
  2. ↑ Engelhard.
  3. ↑ Engelhard.
  4. ^ Uta Löwenstein: County Hanau . In: Knights, Counts and Princes - Secular Dominions in the Hessian Area approx. 900–1806 = Handbook of Hessian History 3 = Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 63. Marburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-942225-17-5 , p. 196 -230 (206)
  5. ↑ Wille, p. 66; Duchhardt, p. 93.
  6. ^ Uta Löwenstein: County Hanau . In: Knights, Counts and Princes - Secular Dominions in the Hessian Area approx. 900–1806 = Handbook of Hessian History 3 = Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 63. Marburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-942225-17-5 , p. 212
  7. ↑ Engelhard.