Hand-held
The Handfeste was generally a document issued to secure a right , which was intended to be handed over to the person entitled.
In Old High German glosses the word is synonymous with any type of document . The reference to a legal gesture emphasizes the personal involvement of the exhibitor , similar to the one in Latin documents at the same time ( manu propria 'we affirm with our own hand'). Later the term was used in particular for documents with constitutional significance (e.g. city rights). The word has become a loan word in Czech ( hamfešt ).
Meaning in the Teutonic Order
The German Order of Knights in Prussia used the term for settlement documents. The locators received a festival for each new settlement to be founded. In it were the rights of the locators regulated for the establishment of towns and villages, mostly the award of having " Freienhufen " associated Schulz Office and certain revenue (for example, a third of the revenue from the lower. Jurisdiction - jurisdiction without the reserved exclusively to the Order of blood - and Halsgerichtsamkeit), as well as the court sizes, "freedoms" and " righteous " (especially mill, fishing and brewing rights and other privileges ) of the settlers to be recruited from the old German areas and those of the new settlers to the order as landlords as money and Duties and services to be paid in kind tax.
The originals of these documents are mostly lost today, but the officials of the Teutonic Order put copies in official books , the so-called handfeste registers and handfeast collections , which form a central source group for the settlement history of Prussia .
In addition, the right specified in this document was also referred to as the tangible.
Importance in other regions
In Bavaria and Transylvania, the term hand-fests was common for marriage agreements.
In Bremen and Saxony the hand festival was a document about a rent purchase. In Bremen law there was a special mortgage called Handfeste until the Civil Code came into force in 1900 , in which the publicity of the law was not brought about by public books, but required public proclamation with the effect of exclusion. The hand fests were made out there as bearer paper .
Names of documents
Historical documents are also known as handfolds, e.g. B.
- the Georgenberger Handfeste , with which the future of Styria was influenced in 1186
- the so-called Kulmer Handfeste , the first document of the Teutonic Order in Prussia: granting of city rights for the cities of Kulm and Thorn
- the Golden Handfeste ( Golden Handfeste) , dated 1218 but probably forged , which made Bern a Free Imperial City .
- the Ottonische Handfeste of 1311, in which Duke Otto III. von Niederbayern granted privileges and rights to the Lower Bavarian estates. It is the legal basis for the Bavarian court brands .
- the Freiburg Handfeste the town charter of Freiburg im Üechtland , which Count Hartmann IV. and his nephew Hartmann V. von Kyburg had issued on June 28, 1249.
Remarks
- ^ The Freiburg Handfests of 1249, edition and contributions to the colloquium of the same name in 1999, ed. v. Huber Foerster and Jean-Daniel Dessonnaz, Berlin a. a. 2003 (Scrinium Friburgense 16).
literature
- Martin Armgart: Tangible . In: Concise dictionary of legal history . 2nd Edition. Berlin 2010, Sp. 735–736 ( paid site ).
- Martin Armgart: The hand festivals of the Prussian Oberland up to 1410 and their exhibitors. Diplomatic and prosopographical investigations into the history of the chancellery of the Teutonic Order in Prussia (= publications from the archives of Prussian cultural property . Supplements 2). Cologne u. a. 1994 (Zugl .: Diss. Bochum 1990).
- Peter Johanek: Tangible . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . tape 4 , col. 1901-1902 .
- Klaus Neitmann : To the hand festival collections of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. An examination of the order's tome 95 . In: AfD . tape 36 , 1990, pp. 187-220 .
- J. Stephan: The hand festivals of the Elbinger Commandery Book . In: Yearbook for the history of East and Central Germany . tape 54 , 2008, p. 97-160 .