Hammer letter
A hammer letter was the written agreement on the award of an iron hammer from a fiefdom giver (mostly the sovereign) to a hammer lord as the operator of such a work; The latter had to pay a prescribed interest annually in return for his fief . The sovereign hammer right used to be part of the royal regalia , which is now the subject of economic considerations and speculations.
Such a fiefdom had some peculiarities, which on the one hand guarantee the operability of a hammer mill and on the other hand were supposed to secure the claims of the lender. This usually included the commitment to use all buildings and agricultural land that were necessary for the operation of the plant and for the self-sufficiency of all employees. Even if the property owner should not be able to carry out the hammer operation or leave it to a third party, he still had to pay the annual pension. This therefore corresponds to perpetual money that is to be paid on a property.
The right to the water , to operate the water wheels , to punch mill and tail hammers , is also promised. For the operation of the plant, the necessary materials from sovereign property are made available, such as clay for the racing stove and fire , firewood, timber and construction wood and then the charcoal that is essential for the hammer ; all of this should be delivered by the foresters and controlled by the officials. Since the consumption of these raw materials was very high, the economic existence of the plant is secured.
In addition, the hammer lord and his workers are promised protection and protection . This guarantee of protection made sense because the plants were sometimes in very remote locations; a violation (robbery, arson) thus resulted in retribution by the sovereign. Lower jurisdiction over the blacksmiths was also transferred to the hammer lord. If a violation had to be dealt with in a court, this would have led to a great loss of time and loss of work, so this can be dealt with on site. If a worker in an inn had billing or gambling debts, only the robe above the belt could be removed from him, but he could not be prevented from going back to his work. This also meant a protection of the hammer owner against a pledge and detention of his workers.
The transfer of these rights mostly went to the hammer gentleman and his wife. There were liability reasons for this, because it was more favorable for the creditor to have two debtors for one claim. Since marriages were mostly concluded between partners of equal value, it could be assumed that the woman also came from a wealthy family who could take responsibility for the debts.
In addition, the sovereign recognizes the content of the letter for himself and his legal successors in a binding manner towards every other letter holder. A letter owner had to be able to prove the receipt of the letter from his predecessors; This ruled out that a letter could be damaged by force, loss or “without good will”, i.e. H. fell into the hands of someone else through an act of deception. The “right from the paper” follows from the “right about the paper”.
A hammer letter thus transfers to the hammer owner just as many rights as is necessary for the independent exercise of his business. At the same time, the operational risk is passed on to him. The letter issuer enjoys a relatively secure return, but the hammer owner has the prospect of a cyclical profit.
Example of a hammer letter issued to Heinrich Castner by Count Palatine Otto I von Pfalz-Mosbach :
We Ott Pfalzgraf, instead of Ludwig Pfalzgrafen our dear brother, Heinrich Castner, citizen of Amberg, and his housewives took the hammer and Hammerstatt to the new mill , above Amberg on the Vilse - with all affiliation - every year and interest 7 pounds 40 pfennigs ½ Walburgis, ½ Michael’s Day. They should also judge their hatchers and their servants, and punish, atone or put them in jail as and when they want, including what our great court applies to. It is also to be known, as the citizens of the city council of Amberg, who believed that the aforementioned hammer on the doctor's perg in the Berggeding in Amberg should give customs from the doctor and, however, Georig Castner, also citizen of Amberg, the above hammer and has now sold it to the aforementioned Heinrichen Castner, believes that it was duty-free, that the aforementioned Hammer should be duty-free forever on the Erzberg in the Burggeding in Ambeerg and not give any duty from the doctor. Amberg ipse the beati Thoma ap. 1430.
literature
- Regulator, Rudolf: The hammer letter from Gumpenhof from 1399. Die Oberpfalz , 1962, Volume 50, pp. 40–44 and pp. 61–63.