Freigericht Kaichen

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The stone table - court of the free court in Kaichen
Landscheider with her tools at the border clearing, in the background the village Kaichen - Illustration from the Naumburger Salbuch (around 1514)

The Freigericht Kaichen was a territory in the German Empire .

Geographical location

The open court Kaichen is located in the Wetterau near Friedberg in today's Hesse.

composition

As a free court , it formed its own rule ("County Kaichen"). A copy book from the early 15th century, which is kept in the Institute for Urban History in Frankfurt, contains the first coherent list of the associated locations:

A later addition also states:

Burggrafschaft Friedberg with the free court Kaichen 1789.

However, this is not confirmed by further tradition. Assenheim was probably in a closer relationship with the Freigericht without actually belonging to it. The castle Assenheim was since the Münzenberger inheritance shared between Hanau (later Hessen-Kassel ) and Falkenstein (later Isenburg / Kronberg and Solms-Rödelheim ). The Cyriacus monastery Naumburg is mentioned in a wisdom from 1439 as belonging, but was under Hanauian patronage, which repeatedly gave rise to disputes between Hanau and the free court or the burgraviate, which culminated in the Naumburg feud 1564–1569. The free court was thus divided into two parts separated by a narrow strip with the villages of Ilbenstadt and Erbstadt (to the Ilbenstadt monastery and to the Naumburg winery in Hanau ). The focal points of the two areas were Karben on the one hand and Altenstadt on the other.

Political status

middle Ages

The free court's place of jurisdiction was in the village of Kaichen. There the jurisdiction was exercised in the name of the king. This took place in the open air at the stone table , a cultural monument that is still preserved today . The court was a blood court and therefore had the authority to deal with crimes that were punishable by the death penalty . It was also a court of appeal .

Modern times

In the early modern period , the Freigericht did not succeed - in contrast to a number of rulers who surrounded it - to successfully pass the territorialization process and to develop its own sovereignty . In this new system, one's own jurisdiction was no longer sufficient to maintain independence from the surrounding powers. These strove to dissolve the imperial immediacy and to bring the area under their rule. These included the Burggrafschaft Friedberg , an aristocratic association organized as a cooperative , which was close to the Wetterau Imperial Counts College , the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt and the Lords and Counts of Hanau .

Feudal ownership of the Friedberger Burgmannen in the open court is already clear in the first written judgment from 1293. With two exceptions, only Friedberg Burgmann families appear there as witnesses. Perhaps this their feud had already Staufer time as a service goods for the Empire Friedberg from Reich possession or reverted to the empire owned by the Counts of Nürings in the region ( county Malstatt preserved). As early as 1376, the burgraviate itself had acquired its first rights in the free court, whose sovereignty it was finally granted in 1475. In 1806 most of the territory of the Kaichen Free Court came to the Grand Duchy of Hesse .

Outdoor Court Kaichen was a special particular law , the Friedberger police order . In 1679 it was renewed and printed. This is the first time that it can be put into writing. She mainly dealt with administrative , police and regulatory law . In this respect, the Solms land law remained the main source of law for the broad area of civil law . The Common Law was, moreover, if all these regulations did not contain provisions for a fact. This legal situation remained in force in the 19th century after the free court had passed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse . It was not until the Civil Code of January 1, 1900, which was uniformly valid throughout the German Reich , that this old particular law was suspended.

literature

  • Friederun Hardt-Friederichs: The royal free court Kaichen in the Wetterau in its national and legal historical importance. (= Wetterau history sheets. 25). Bindernagel, Friedberg 1976, ISBN 3-87076-013-3 .
  • Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 7th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1 .
  • Friedrich Karl Mader: Reliable news from the Imperial and Holy Reich Castle Friedberg and the associated county and free court of Kaichen, collected from reliable archival documents and authenticated history books, also explained now and then. 1st part, Lauterbach 1766 (digitized version) ; 2nd part, Lauterbach 1767 (digitized version) ; 3rd part, Lauterbach 1774 (digitized version)
  • Arthur Benno Schmidt : The historical foundations of civil law in the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Curt von Münchow, Giessen 1893
  • Reimer Stobbe: The history of Friedberg: From the foundation to the Reformation. In: Michael Keller (Ed.): Friedberg in Hessen. The history of the city. Volume I: From the beginnings to the Reformation. Bindernagel, Friedberg 1997, p. 196.
  • Dieter Wolf : On the history of the Kaichen Free Court. In: Magistrat der Stadt Karben (ed.): Karben. History and present. Karben 1973, ISBN 3-88004-000-1 , pp. 60-65.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schmidt, p. 26, note 85; Free court Kaichen Kopb. 1.
  2. ^ Institute for City History Frankfurt, Freigericht Kaichen Kopb. 1.
  3. ↑ Thomas Schilp: The Reichsburg Friedberg in the Middle Ages. Studies of their constitution, administration and politics. (= Wetterau history sheets. 31). Bindernagel, Friedberg 1982, ISBN 3-87076-035-4 , p. 156f. (also dissertation at the University of Marburg)
  4. ^ Friederun Hardt-Friederichs: The royal court in Kaichen in the Wetterau in its regional and legal historical significance. Bindernagel, Friedberg 1976, pp. 25-38.
  5. ^ Reimer Stobbe: The history of Friedberg: From the foundation to the Reformation time. In: Michael Keller (Ed.): Friedberg in Hessen. The history of the city. Volume I: From the beginnings to the Reformation. Bindernagel, Friedberg 1997, p. 196.
  6. ^ Schmidt, p. 107, as well as the enclosed map.