Court of Crainfeld
The court of Crainfeld was an administrative unit and a judicial district in the Middle Ages and early modern times in the county of Nidda , later the Landgraviate of Hesse and finally the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Grand Duchy of Hesse . The court, which was dissolved in 1821, comprised the villages of Crainfeld (as the seat of the court), Grebenhain , Bermuthshain and Ilbeshausen as well as the (later) desert areas of Arnspurg, Hirschrod, Kuhlhain and Schershain. Today the area of the court belongs to the municipality of Grebenhain .
history
The first reference to the Crainfeld court can be found in the marriage contract concluded on February 3, 1311 between Count Johann I von Ziegenhain and Lukardis von Nidda . The feudal lord was the Fulda monastery . On November 30, 1332, Abbot Henry VI pledged . Stadt und Burg Herbstein and the courts of Crainfeld and Burkhards for 800 pounds Heller to Johann von Fischborn. Further pledges of the court or of shares in it by the Fulda abbots are documented from the following decades, a consequence of the high indebtedness of the imperial abbey in the late Middle Ages .
In 1387 Abbot Friedrich I pledged half of the courts of Crainfeld and Burkhard as well as Burg and Stadt Herbstein to Albrecht and Heinrich von Merlau . His successor Johann I gave the same property as a pledge to Heinrich von Merlau in 1407. In 1441 Abbot Hermann II pledged these, together with two thirds at the Berstadt customs, to Hermann II Riedesel zu Eisenbach for ten years . In 1491 a pledge to the brothers Walter, Philipp, Daniel and Ludwig von Fischborn by Abbot Johann II .
In 1498 Abbot Johann II sold the third of Herbstein, which he had repeatedly pledged, and the courts of Crainfeld and Burkhards to Landgrave Wilhelm III. of Hessen . The overlordship of the Fulda Abbey over the court of Crainfeld, as well as over the entire county of Nidda, remained formally in place, but the actual rule had long since been exercised by the Landgraves of Hesse at the beginning of the 16th century: As early as 1437, Johann II. , the last count of Ziegenhain and Nidda, assigned his possessions (and thus also the court of Crainfeld) to Landgrave Ludwig I as a fief, and with his death on February 14, 1450, both counties and thus also the court of Crainfeld had finally fallen to Hesse.
The oldest surviving Weistum having a limiting description of the court dates back to 1556. In the division of Hesse after the death of Landgrave Philip I in 1567 came the court Crainfeld of Hesse-Marburg , 1604 then to Hesse-Darmstadt, where you'll Office Nidda belonged . From 1787, the neighboring courts Crainfeld and Burkhard were jointly by a bailiff , court bailiff and clerk managed, the based in the hunting lodge Zwiefalten at Acorn Saxony had.
Due to the administrative reforms in the Grand Duchy of Hesse on July 14, 1821, which also led to the separation of administration and jurisdiction, the Crainfeld court was finally repealed. The communities of Crainfeld, Grebenhain and Bermuthshain were incorporated into the district of Schotten , Ilbeshausen in the district of Herbstein . The ordinary jurisdiction for the first three municipalities was from then on exercised by the district court of Schotten , for Ilbeshausen by the district court of Altenschlirf .
dish
The court meetings traditionally always took place on the third day of Pentecost on the court square in Crainfeld under two linden trees. The court was therefore also called the Pentecost court . The court square was located at what was then the northern end of the village and is still marked today by a crossroads and two younger linden trees. The Crainfeld street name An der Cent (→ Zentgericht ) also reminds of him . A little deeper place had the name Schöpffenkaut . Here seats were cut into the lawn where the jury could retire to deliberate.
In 1746, the licentiate of rights Johann Konrad Hallwachs from Gießen had Johann Peter Rübsamen, who was then Crainfeld high school, describe the course of a court meeting in detail. He took this up under the title of court enclosure and knowledge of Crainfeld in his work De Centana Illimitata . It is also reproduced in the Repertorium Reale Practicum Iuris Privati Imperii Romano-Germanici published by Johann August Hellfeld in Jena in 1753 .
The first mention of court persons by name can be found in a certificate issued by the Church of Crainfeld on July 3, 1396. A Heincze czingrebe (→ Zentgraf ) is called here. The Crainfeld Oberschultheissen have been well known since the 16th century. Their residential and office building was a hereditary fiefdom of the Edelhof in the center of the village opposite the Crainfeld parish church .
literature
- Friedrich Müller: Crainfeld. A contribution to its history. A home book 885-1985 , Giessen 1987
- Carsten Eigner: The village community was right itself. Germanic "Thing" continued in a modified form until modern times. The Crainfeld court , in: Heimat im Bild . No. 13, 2013. Supplement to: Gießener Anzeiger , Kreis-Anzeiger , Lauterbacher Anzeiger .
- Carsten Eigner: The end of the Crainfeld court came in 1821. Crainfeld court officials were first mentioned as witnesses in a church document in 1396 , in: Heimat im Bild . No. 14, 2013. Supplement to: Gießener Anzeiger, Kreis-Anzeiger, Lauterbacher Anzeiger.