Georg closing time

Georg Feierabend (also Georg Feyerabend ; * around 1440 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ; † 1498 in Donauwörth ) was vicar and pastor in Donauwörth between 1475 and 1498 . From 1475 to 1483 he led one of the most protracted and best documented trials of the late Middle Ages thanks to the complete preservation of the court files, which were excellently indexed through transcription, translation and register .

origin

Georg Feierabend came from a middle-class Schwäbisch Gmünd family. His father is Ludwig Feierabend, who was Stettmeister (finance mayor) in Gmünd in 1452 and 1455. Georg is recorded as a student in Erfurt in 1458. In 1464 he was a witness in a Passau trial as a cleric from Augsburg . In 1488 he was matriculated as a pastor in Donauwörth in Ingolstadt.

The Steinhäuser Student Foundation

After work he was a scholarship holder of the Steinhäuser Student Foundation until he was 16.

This was founded in 1412 by the canon of Ansbach , Friedrich im Steinhaus. The founder had determined that a student of canon law and one of the "seven liberal arts" (science), who, however, also had to study canon law after completing his master's degree, should be sponsored annually at a university . The selection of the scholarship holders should be made by the city council of Gmünd.

The sponsored students were obliged to say three paternosters , three Ave Maria and a number of other prayers a day for life .

The council, which found the foundation's conditions to be insufficiently flexible, and which wanted a general study foundation for citizens' sons, had distributed the interest among several students of all subjects, which was also recognized by the relatives of the founder in 1467.

After work, the city council canceled the funding because of alleged ingratitude and lack of suitability for the course.

The stone houses process

course

Feierabend then turned to Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 and accused the mayor and the council of Schwäbisch Gmünd, contrary to the last will of the founder, to distribute the funds to more than two students and also to distribute part of the proceeds from the student foundation to use your own purposes.

The process went through two instances and lasted from March 30, 1476 to January 15, 1483. In the first instance, the Pope appointed Bishop Johannes von Augsburg as judge in this matter, who in turn passed the judicial office to his vicar general Johannes Gossolt. In their response, the defendants justified their actions by stating that they had already supported more than two students a year during the lifetime of the founder with his consent, but denied the use of foundation funds for their own purposes.

In the taking of evidence, letters from the founder and the written statements of the witnesses named by the plaintiff and the defendant were read out.

In the judgment pronounced on March 15, 1479, Gossolt declared the action to be unfounded in the first instance. The mayor and city council were acquitted and sentenced to pay the legal costs after work.

Feierabend appealed the judgment to the Pope. In the second instance he appointed the Augsburg canon Peter Büchler to judge. After both parties had repeated their applications or justifications, the named witnesses were questioned. In the judgment announced on January 15, 1483, the first instance judgment was confirmed and after work was sentenced to pay all legal costs.

Nevertheless, through their lawyer, the mayor and city council declared themselves ready not to demand any reimbursement of the legal costs they had incurred, and formally waived any other claims to be derived from the court files.

meaning

The extensive documentation of the two trials forms a source on the educational history of the 15th century that has not yet been exhausted. The two volumes of the court files in Latin are now in the Gmünd City Archives , a copy of the German translation of the minutes of the first instance in the Steinhäuser Foundation's document book. The Steinhäuser Foundation later developed into one of the richest foundations in Gmünd, but it became extinct after the Second World War.

Act as a pastor

Despite the withdrawal of the scholarship, after finishing his studies he was appointed "caretaker and owner of the St. Katharinen-Altar" in the parish church of the monastery of the Holy Cross Donauwörth without being a monk of the monastery and was there until his death 1498 active as permanent vicar or city pastor. His successor as pastor of Donauwörth was Gabriel Wolfartzhausen.

literature

• Cölestin Königsdorfer: History of the monastery for salvation. Kreutz in Donauwörth , 1819, p. 360, MDZ .
• Antonius von Steichele : Das Bisthum Augsburg Vol. 3, 1872, S. 789, MDZ .
• Maria Zelzer : History of the city of Donauwörth from the beginnings to 1618 , 1959, p. 330.
• Alfons Nitsch: Documents and files of the former imperial city Schwäbisch Gmünd 777 to 1500, Part II (1451 to 1500) , 1967, p. 199.
• Klaus Graf : Gmünd in the late Middle Ages . In: History of the City of Schwäbisch Gmünd . Stuttgart 1984, pp. 87-184, 564-590, here p. 180, ISBN 3-8062-0399-7 , doi : 10.6094 / UNIFR / 10310 .
• Alexander Brunotte and Raimund J. Weber: Files of the Reich Chamber of Commerce in the Main State Archives Stuttgart , 2005, p. 279.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Graf 1984, p. 180.
2. ^ Graf, p. 587 (Note No. 86).
3. ↑ That he was the son of Ludwig is evident from the testimony of Georg Taler in the Steinhäuser Trial in 1477 (1st instance. Translation in the Schwäbisch Gmünd City Archives, p. 178).
4. ↑ https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/hisbest/rsc/viewer/HisBest_derivate_00004327/ThG_217104967_Geschichtsquellen_Provinz_Sachsen_1881_08_01_0295%20.tif . After work finished studying theology at the University of Ingolstadt , says Zelzer, p. 330, but matriculation in 1488 is actually too late. There is no evidence that he is the former owner of a Eichstatt incunabulum: ownership entry on Commons .
5. ^ Hermann Hoberg: Passau trials in the oldest record books of the Rotanotars (1464-1482) preserved in the Vatican archives . In: Ecclesia Peregrinans. Josef Lenzenweger on his 70th birthday. Edited by Karl Amon et al. Vienna 1986, pp. 153–158, here p. 156.
6. ^ The register of the Ludwig Maximilians University Ingolstadt - Landshut - Munich . Edited by Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz vol. I, 1 (1937), col. 184: "Georgius Feyrabent plebanus in Werd 8 gr (oschen)".
7. ↑ ^{a b} Brunotte and Weber 2005, p. 279.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Nitsch 1967, p. 199.
9. ↑ Königsdorfer, p. 360.