Ganerbeburg

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A Ganerbenburg is usually a larger castle that was inhabited simultaneously by multiple families or family branches and managed.

Ganerbe castles and inheritance

One of the earliest verifiable examples of an inheritance: the reconstructed Hohkönigsburg in Alsace
One of the largest castle ruins in Franconia: Altenstein Castle near Maroldsweisach
The "multi-family castle" Eltz on the Moselle
The floor plan of the Franconian Salzburg over Bad Neustadt

Ganerbe castles were often created through inheritance divisions ( Ganerbschaft ). Each branch of the family usually built its own residential building within a shared curtain wall . Sometimes these residences were developed into real independent castles within the community castle. Ganerbe castles were also created through the sale of parts of the castle due to financial difficulties or the pledging of parts of the castle.

The term ganerbe appears in the Middle High German verse novel Parzival ( Wolfram von Eschenbach ) around 1200. According to word evidence, the legal form of the “Ganerbschaft” seems to go back to at least the second half of the 9th century. Gan means in Old High German "common (sam)", also "commoner". In fact, historically verifiable inheritance does not appear until the 13th century in Alsace ( Hohkönigsburg , 1255), with Nassau Castle on the Lahn and before 1268 with Eltz Castle .

The castles of great feudal lords were often planned from the beginning to be inherited castles . Each “ Burgmann ” was responsible for the administration and defense of a section of the castle. On the one hand, this had practical reasons, on the other hand, the nobility wanted to limit the power of their “servants”. A good example of this is the Franconian Salzburg near Bad Neustadt an der Saale , a feudal castle of the Würzburg bishops .

Other “grown castles” were sometimes subjected to the feudal sovereignty of more powerful feudal lords by force . The Würzburg chronicler Lorenz Fries names three such examples in his episcopal chronicle . In 1458, for example, the Ganerbe refused the bishop access to their Steckelberg Castle near Schlüchtern and tried to modernize the castle's fortifications. Bishop Johann III. von Grumbach was finally able to prevail after a military conflict. In the feud between the Lords of Schauenburg and Bernhard von Baden over the Schauenburg , the latter again lost to court after a siege.

The mighty imperial city of Nuremberg had to tolerate from 1478 despite an imperial mandate that Pfalzgraf Otto II. Mosbach the above Schnaittach located Burg Rothenberg sold to a community of 44 Frankish knights. The knighthood apparently wanted to build a strong bulwark against the rich bourgeois competition, which was fundamentally mistrusted. Significantly, the high nobility was also denied co-ownership, among the gan heirs only members of the most important Franconian lower nobility families were tolerated.

Legal basis

A legal prerequisite for the creation of an inheritance was the lending to the "entire hand". All fief takers were therefore equally in possession of the fief as hantgemal . Everyone was entitled to the same trade in inheritance, they kept a common household and, if necessary, appointed common officials and judges.

The social privileges and class privileges of the nobility were particularly associated with the hantgemal . An inheritance guaranteed all family members this special status and prevented their social decline.

As the number of co-heirs increased, however, property shares and rights were determined and assigned. To the outside world, however, the community continued to appear as one, so the division was more of an idealistic nature. The share of each heir was called Marzahl . The proportions could vary in size here. As Mutschierung (formerly Mutscharung called) were referred to a division of rights as an internal agreement. Each co-owner was able to run their own business, but the general association was retained.

The total lending was practiced in some territories until the 15th century, after which a feudal man acted as joint merchant.

Other inheritances were only established through truce agreements, for example after the purchase or the forcible conquest of a property. Such contracts could also be terminated again. The inheritance was also ended when a contractor succeeded in taking possession of the entire property.

If they agreed internally on a real division of the entire property , the inheritance mostly extinguished. This "dead division" ( Watschar , Watschierung ) made it possible for every former partner to have unrestricted disposal over his share of the property. In return, he lost the rights to the remaining common property. However, the defense readiness of the entire facility still had to be guaranteed.

The often not very smooth coexistence of the residents was regulated in the so-called truce. The Ganerbe often shared the castles' central facilities, such as the keep or the castle chapel . The community usually appointed one of the castle men to be the builder and set up a community fund from which the necessary expenses for the maintenance of the entire property were financed. Similar to a modern community of owners , people gathered annually to discuss upcoming problems.

The original purpose of inheritance, the undivided preservation of property , could no longer be upheld in practice. Ganerbe castles sometimes had up to 50, in individual cases over 80 different shareholders, which of course did not all fit into the castle. In the event of a feud , the attacker had to be careful that he was only besieging the part of his enemy's castle and not violating the rights of the neutral co-owners.

Many inheritances were transferred to Fideikommisse in the post-Middle Ages. A member of the family association or the contractual community was the owner of the undivided and inalienable total property, but his power of disposal was severely restricted.

distribution

The five castle seats of the upper town of Chauvigny
The Tours de Merle in the Limousin

Ganerbe castles can be found mainly in Central Europe . Most of the Ganerbe castles were built in the territorially most fragmented areas of Franconia, Hesse , the Rhine Valley and Swabia . Ganerbschaft was also widespread in Baden, Württemberg and Alsace. In the areas in which the total loan or “entire hand” was unusual, such as Silesia , Mecklenburg , Holstein , no inheritance can be proven.

In France and England, on the other hand, the large castle complexes were usually in the hands of powerful individual feudal lords. This is primarily due to the different development of the feudal system in these countries. A few examples of large “multi-family castles” have been preserved, especially in southern France and the Massif Central . First and foremost are the Tours de Merle ( Saint-Geniez-ô-Merle , Corrèze department ). Also in the Limousin is the smaller castle Château de Saint-Hilaire et des Plas of Curemonte . But also in northern and central France some very large castle complexes emerged through the division of property, such as the huge castle Chauvigny ( Département Vienne ).

The best-known example of a Central European Ganerbeburg is Eltz Castle on the Moselle. Other examples are the Castle Lichtenstein , the castle Altenstein and the Sternberg Palace in Lower Franconia, the castle hill fort in the Thuringian Forest, the Burg Windeck in Bühl in Baden, the Castle Salzburg in Bad Neustadt an der Saale, the Castle Liebenstein on the Rhine, the Castle Leonrod in Dietenhofen and Lindheim Castle in Wetterau .

literature

  • Karl Friedrich Alsdorf: Investigations into the legal structure and division of German inheritance castles (= legal historical series. Volume 9.) Dissertation at the University of Cologne 1979. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1980, ISBN 3-8204-6408-5 .
  • Christoph Bachmann: Ganerbe castles. In: German Castle Association by Horst Wolfgang Böhme (Hrsg.): Castles in Central Europe. A manual. Volume 2: History and Castle Landscapes. Theiss, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8062-1355-0 , pp. 39-41.
  • Henning Becker: Family-sociological studies of Hessian Gan inheritance families from the 14th to 17th centuries using the example of the taverns in Schweinsberg and that of Hatzfeld. Dissertation. Free University of Berlin, Berlin 1983.
  • Helmut Flachenecker : Salzburg - a Ganerbe's castle as the central location. In: Heinrich Wagner , Joachim Zeune (ed.): Das Salzburgbuch. City of Bad Neustadt, Bad Neustadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-939959-04-5 , pp. 257-266.
  • Jens Friedhoff, Michael Losse : Ganerbeburg. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme , Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , pp. 135-136, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
  • Joachim Zeune: "... for a lot of ganerbe quite a few castles ..." Ganerbe castles in Lower Franconia. In: More beautiful home. Heritage and Mission. Volume 89, 2000, ISSN  0177-4492 , pp. 83-90.

Web links

Wiktionary: Ganerbeburg  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. mutscharen . In: Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 9 , issue 7/8 (edited by Heino Speer and others). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-7400-0982-9 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ). or consolidation . In: Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 9 , issue 7/8 (edited by Heino Speer and others). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-7400-0982-9 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ).