Gerhard Chorus

Gerhard Chorus (also: Ritter Chorus ; * around 1285 in Aachen ; † April 20, 1367 ibid) was multiple mayor of the imperial city of Aachen as well as initiator and sponsor of the construction of the Gothic choir of Aachen's Marienkirche (today's cathedral), the new building of Aachen city hall and other large objects.

Live and act

Gerhard Chorus, son of Heinrich Chorus, lived at a time that was known as the heyday for the imperial city of Aachen . Chorus did a great job of renovating and building the city of Aachen and is considered its most important personality in the 14th century. In the period between 1324 and 1346, he was elected mayor several times, with some sources speaking of five ( NDB ) and others of seven ( ADB ) terms of office. He is documented as mayor for the terms of office 1324/25, 1327/28, 1338/39, 1342/43 and 1346/47. Furthermore, from 1332 to 1337 Chorus held the offices of Vogt and Meier as well as the management of the Erbrat of Aachen. In addition, he was from 1357 to 1367 as well as his father Heinrich, his possible brother Johann († around 1367) and his nephew Heinrich member of the aldermen at the royal chair. The house of Gerhard Chorus must have been located opposite the Anna Church in Aachen, roughly on the property at Annastraße 30.

During his long term in office, he first reformed the hospital regulations of the city hospital in 1327. In 1337 he campaigned for the release of captured Lombards who had been active in Aachen as merchants and money changers for trade and commerce since 1291 , and in 1338 he was primarily responsible for the hospitality and care of Margarethe von Holland (1311-1356), the second Wife of Emperor Ludwig IV of Bavaria (1281–1347) during her stay in Aachen. Emperor Ludwig and his family had been loyal to Chorus and the city council since the earliest times, as he had always sided with Ludwig in his bitter struggle against his counter-emperor, the Habsburg Frederick the Beautiful (1289-1330). Also later in Ludwig's disputes with Popes John XXII. († 1334) and Benedict XII. († 1342), he held out on appropriate diets loyalty.

In 1338 he finally founded the Kurgerichtsordnung, which lasted until the end of the 18th century and served to maintain civil order. This court was based - in contrast to other municipal courts, which could not fall back on written statutes - according to statutes, which the city of Aachen had issued itself.

Another merit was his mediation in the conflict of interests between long-established patrician and landowner families on the one hand and the guilds of craftsmen on the other. As a result, there was no open riot in Aachen as in other comparable cities. He was also in 1351 as an equal partner with the Cologne Archbishop Wilhelm von Gennep († 1362), the Duke Johann III. von Brabant (1300–1355) and the city of Cologne joined the Maas-Rhein peace alliance , which was responsible, among other things, for securing traders and pilgrims and later for trade tariffs. He also acted several times as head of delegation on the occasion of the Reichstag, royal elections and coronation celebrations .

Promoter of representative buildings

His main merit was the initiative and promotion of large representative buildings, with recent sources ( Hugo Loersch , 1866) referring to him as the "builder". The construction of the new outer wall , which had begun before his time and was subsidized by King Richard of Cornwall (1209-1272) on the occasion of his coronation in 1257, was continued and expanded. This was necessary because the urban space within the wall built in the 12th century by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa (1122–1190) along today's moat ring was no longer sufficient for the expanding population. The construction time of the new wall ring, which ran roughly along today's avenue ring and initially had 11 city gates and 22 towers, was over 100 years.

Gerhard Chorus, together with the Aachener Stiftskapitel, is also considered to be the sponsor or even the builder of the Gothic choir nave at Aachen Cathedral, which he had added to the Aachen Marienkirche , today's cathedral , from 1355 onwards . Furthermore, during his tenure as mayor and possibly again as builder, he was significantly involved in the decision to build the new Aachen town hall , which was also built in Gothic style from 1330 on the foundation walls of the ruined imperial palace. The first officially known use of the ballroom of this new town hall took place in 1349 with a large feast in the presence of King Charles IV (1316-1378). This building had become necessary because the old, later Grashaus -called town hall, which had been promoted in 1257 also by Richard of Cornwall, as now too small for the many solemn occasions and no longer representative proved enough.

Honors

For his services to the city of Aachen Gerhard Chorus all probability was born on August 18, 1331 in Frankfurt am Main for Knights defeated, he from 1332 in the sources from then on as Ritter Chorus is called. The importance of the chorus for his city is shown in the appreciation by a crypt in the western vestibule of Aachen Cathedral, which was granted to him after his death: a privilege that until then had only been granted to Charlemagne, Otto III. as well as high-ranking clergy. On the inscription of the grave slab, which was replaced by a copper plate in 1843 and a bronze plate in 1910, Chorus was honored in Latin for "his chivalrous courage, his generous disposition, his gentleness towards the clergy, his love for the city and the excellence of his administration" .

In addition, in honor of Chorus, today's Katschhof was called Chorusplatz for many years before it got its old traditional name again and instead a side street to Katschhof was declared Ritter-Chorus-Straße . For his services to the city of Aachen, Gerhard Chorus was also honored with a statue on the back of the Aachen city hall , which was made by Karl Krauss around 1895 and attached to the corner of the stairwell as part of the renovation of the city hall. In 2011, this statue was completely renovated together with the figure of the equally respected Aachen mayor Johann von Pont , made by the same sculptor .

literature

• Birmanns, Martin: Ritter Gerhard Chorus, Mayor of Aachen. A contribution to the history of the city of Aachen in the 14th century , Jacobi, Aachen 1913.
• Luise Freiin von Coels: The lay judges of the Royal See of Aachen from the earliest times until the final repeal of the imperial city constitution in 1798 , Chapter 114 - Documentary contributions to the history of their life and work , pp. 102-110, in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins , Issue 50, Aachen 1928 ( digitized ).
• Hugo Loersch : Aachen Chronicle in the Annals of the Association for the History of the Lower Rhine and the Archdiocese of Cologne , Volume 17, Aachen 1866.
• Eberhard Quadflieg: The house 'Zur Hagen' in Annastraße , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein , year 1954/55, p. 286.
• Friedrich Haagen :  Chorus, Gerhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 137 f.
• Walter Kaemmerer:  Chorus, Gerhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 214 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Chorus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography in the family chronicle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thorsten Karbach: The wind sweeps the knight chorus from the base , in: Aachener Zeitung from July 22, 2011.