House to the Römer
The Haus zum Römer , also just Römer , is the eponymous middle house of the three-gable facade of the Frankfurt City Hall complex . It was first mentioned in 1322 and was bought by the city in 1405. Presumably built in the early 14th century, it is architecturally still a representative of the classic Gothic patrician building despite massive external and internal renovations in the more than 700 years after its construction .
History up to town acquisition
The first mention of the Roman can be found in a document dated September 30, 1322. According to this, the patrician Wigel Frosch gave his wife Gisela his houses to the Römer and the Golden Frog in the event that he would die before her without getting out of marriage with her Having left children behind. Literally it says in the Liebfrauen deed 391, dated the same year, that he bequeathed to his wife "sin geseze, da he inne wonet, daz da heats the Romer and the guilder Frois, and allis daz geseze and wonunge, daz belongs to ". Frog the son-by substantial proportion of the foundation was Liebfrauenkirche excellent Wigel of Wanebach .
In 1324 Wigel Frosch died on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela , and accordingly his wife came into possession of the two houses. The value of her fortune, which was probably enormous for the time, and that of her mother Katharina von Wanebach, can be estimated from the fact that both contributed significantly to the establishment of the Liebfrauen-Stift in 1325, using the same amount.
Only a little later, on February 4, 1326, Gisela Frosch died, with which both houses fell to her mother Katharina von Wanebach. While she was still alive, she sold the Haus zum Römer, which was architecturally separated from the Golden Frog. Katharina died on August 9, 1335.
Only in a document dated February 6, 1350 is the Roman mentioned again. Accordingly, its owner at the time, Hartmud zum Römer, compared himself with the owner of the Löwenstein house to the north , Konrad zu Löwenstein . It was about certain windows in the Römer, which pointed in the direction of the Löwenstein house. Hartmud and his wife died in 1363 and 1372, with the result that the house fell to their son Gottfried. He is mentioned in historical documents sometimes as Gottfried von Hanau , sometimes as Gottfried zum Römer .
On November 30, 1380 Gottfried and a grandson of Hartmud sold the two houses to the Römer and the Golden Swan for 2,570 guilders to Konrad Kölner and his wife Metze. In this certificate, the new name for the previous Golden Frog House appears for the first time and is subsequently retained. According to the certificate, both buildings were structurally reunited at this point in time.
In 1399, a court dispute is documented that revolved around a wall between the Römer and the Laderam house on the south side (owned by Hartrad , today Alt-Limpurg house ). The owners of the Römers at the time, Konz and Heinz zum Römer, claimed this for themselves. The jury awarded both house parties half of the property on the wall. Konz and Heinz zum Römer were the sons of Konrad Kölner, who died in 1390 and who have now named themselves after their property.
At the end of the 14th century, the Haus zum Römer was not yet a public building, but it was already the linchpin of important urban policy decisions. Since 1357 this has been the meeting place for the Zum Römer lounge society . In 1388 the seven war deputies of the Roman Society met here several times, and at least once a meal of the city council is documented in the building. On October 7, 1400, the city council negotiated with representatives of the community whether the newly elected King Ruprecht should be allowed into the city. The representatives of the community were all patricians, namely from the societies Zum Römer and Zum Salzhaus .
With the purchase of the Haus zum Römer together with the adjoining Golden Swan by the city on March 11, 1405, its history as a stand-alone building ends. Decisive for the favorable total purchase price of only 800 guilders, which was even lower than the price of 1380, was probably the high debt level of Konz zum Römer , the oldest and therefore decision-making brother.
The name of the house quickly came to refer to the entire town hall complex, which was gradually put together from eleven houses of various types, and has been preserved to the present day. It certainly does not, as has often been stated, come from a Roman family who once lived here. Following the medieval naming law, which did not yet have family names in the modern sense, families of different origins named themselves Roman after their property . It is more likely that the name comes from the Italian merchants who have always stayed here during the Frankfurt trade fair and who were called Romans in the Middle Ages . Possibly this was a mental connection of the self-confident patricians between the city of the emperor and the city of the pope , the medieval representatives of secular and spiritual power. The name of the neighboring house Laderam , which is a corruption of Lateran , the medieval residence of the Pope , also speaks for this interpretation .
See also
- For further history of the Römer after the city bought it, see: Römer (Frankfurt)
literature
- Hermann Traut: The Römer and the new town hall buildings in Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1922, Römerverlag
- Georg Hartmann, Fried Lübbecke (Ed.): Alt-Frankfurt. A legacy. Sauer and Auvermann publishing house, Glashütten 1971
- Hartwig Beseler, Niels Gutschow: War fates of German architecture - losses, damage, reconstruction. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988, ISBN 3-529-02685-9
- Architects & Engineers Association: Frankfurt am Main and its buildings , Frankfurt am Main 1886, self-published by the association
- Carl Wolff, Julius Hülsen, Rudolf Jung: The architectural monuments of Frankfurt am Main , Frankfurt am Main 1896 - 1914, self-published / Völcker, http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2008/10012/
Web links
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Römer / Altes Rathaus In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 37.7 " N , 8 ° 40 ′ 53.9" E