Henning Cramer from Clausbruch

Henning Cramer von Clausbruch (born April 15, 1584 in Goslar ; † January 12, 1646 ibid) was a merchant , diplomat and mayor of the free imperial city of Goslar from 1626 to 1646 .

Life

Origin and advancement

Henning Cramer was born on April 15, 1584 in Goslar as the son of the merchant Ruprecht Cramer and the daughter of a Goslar council relative, Marie Meyer. His father Ruprecht belonged to the Cramer merchant family , originally from Hattingen , which had achieved considerable prosperity in three family lines in the course of the 16th century. Ruprecht's uncle Heinrich Cramer, Cramer von Clausbruch from 1571, first settled in the Netherlands and then in Electoral Saxony and, through speculation and entrepreneurship, made it one of the richest merchants and landowners in Saxony. Heinrich's brother Dietrich, also ennobled in 1571, had founded a trading company in Cologne and the Netherlands, which expanded into northern Germany in the following generations. Ruprecht's father was a master shoemaker in Cologne. Ruprecht and his brother Hans, however, went into the trade following the example of their uncles.

Ruprecht had become a citizen of the imperial city in 1571 and, through involvement in the vitriol business, had made it into the noble Goslar circles. Due to his increasing wealth, he opened the doors to the Goslar council circles for his family.

Henning Cramer was prepared to take over his father's business through commercial training. He received a solid education in Goslar at the Ratsschule and in Cologne, where he had to stay with his uncle Hans on a trip with his father from 1591–93 because of a febrile illness. For further training he was sent to the Saxon relatives in Leipzig in 1599, to attend the arithmetic school there and then to do an apprenticeship with a Seidenkramer. After his return to Goslar in 1607, Henning Cramer initially worked as a factor for the Goslar merchants Neerhof and von Overbeck, before entering his father's business in 1617. With his brothers Hans and Heinrich, he tried to expand an extensive mining trade, which fell asleep because of the Thirty Years' War .

In order to secure the family's influence and voice in the city, Henning got involved in council politics, while his brothers were not politically active. The wedding with the mayor's daughter Katharina Schlüter on October 12, 1610 paved his way to the top of the city. After Henning had been elected guardian of the Worth Guild in 1620, he entered the council on November 24, 1620 for the Worth. From 1622 he was then board administrator. In the unrest that arose during this period in the wake of the deterioration of the coins, he played an ambivalent role here. On the one hand he and his brother Hans benefited from the deterioration in coins due to the trade in good silver; on the other hand, Henning Cramer, as the mint owner, had to punish the guilty "Kipper and Wipper" after the February riots and implement a coin reform. Evidently, however, the concept worked and Cramer emerged stronger from the unrest.

Mayor in the Thirty Years War

In the following years he took over the family business after Ruprecht's death in 1625. In the same year, Henning Cramer was elected mayor of the even years as the successor to the late Konrad Meyer. Cramer's accession to government in 1626 was immediately followed by a trial of strength with Duke Christian the Elder. J. von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , who tried twice in March to take Goslar by force. The first attempt on the morning of March 15th had been foiled by accident. In subsequent negotiations, Henning Cramer had committed himself to the imperial party against the Brunswick dukes on behalf of the council. The Duke had to leave without having achieved anything. During the second raid on March 25th, the few citizens succeeded in repelling the duke's mercenaries. Henning Cramer processed these events in two reports, which he wrote down in 1633 to justify his policy.

As a result, Henning Cramer continued the policy of the council and kept the city with the imperial party. The mediators succeeded in winning Tilly and Wallenstein as advocates for the cause of the council and the city, who should advocate a revision of the Riechenberg treaty with the emperor . In the end, Henning Cramer did not succeed in obtaining a final commitment from the emperor on the mining issue through his diplomatic trip to Vienna via Güstrow and Aschaffenburg in 1628/29, but he achieved personal advantages for himself through the intercession of Tilly and Wallenstein: He was on a diplomatic mission sent to Hungary, received the title of nobility Cramer von Clausbruch and the right to a knighthood in Werlaburgdorf. For Cramer, the latter fief was supposed to compensate for the war-related losses in long-distance trade through solid income from real estate.

Back in Goslar, Henning Cramer and the council tolerated the plans of the Osnabrück bishop Franz Wilhelms von Wartenberg to set up a higher Jesuit school in the Palatinate district as part of the restitution of the monasteries and monasteries, which Wartenberg plans to expand into a university. The council and mayor even supported the implementation, in the hope that they would not have to accept further restitution measures in their own sphere of influence and at the same time break the power of the Brunswick dukes in the Goslar monasteries. Henning Cramer and Councilor Tilly also support the siege of Magdeburg by delivering weapons, equipment and provisions.

When, after the victory of Gustav II Adolf of Sweden near Breitenfeld, the fortunes of war turned against the imperial family, Henning Cramer and the council initially remained on the imperial side. By negotiating with Wilhelm von Weimar and General Johann Banér , they hoped, after the protection of the imperial city by Pappenheim no longer seemed realistic, to reach a tolerable accord for the city. However, the city gates were opened to the Swedes by the frightened citizens in the hope of protection, which was followed by the plundering of the city.

Henning Cramer's imperial sentiments were his undoing in the period that followed. He was repeatedly exposed to reprisals. Banér had him incarcerated for extorting contributions. Eventually Cramer suffered a weakness, but still had to swear an oath to the Swedish crown. After the main force had withdrawn, Cramer tried to come to an agreement with Ludwig von Anhalt about a tolerable occupation, but this was largely thwarted by the on-site commissioner Daniel Müller. Duke Friedrich Ulrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel accused Cramer of high treason and tried to calm down the disliked mayor. As a result, Henning Cramer felt compelled to comment on the allegations in his work "Exculpatio and Honor Rescue".

After the Swedish occupation had withdrawn on October 22, 1632, the council began negotiations with the imperial officer de Glehn in Wolfenbüttel. As a result of these contacts, accusations were raised against Cramer von Clausbruch and the council that they had committed high treason against the King of Sweden. Because of these allegations, Henning Cramer had to leave Goslar, also because an arrest warrant had been issued against him. First he fled to Hildesheim, which was imperial occupied. From there he went to Minden in the hope of being able to travel on to Cologne to see his relatives. Associated with this was the expectation that Johann Cramer von Clausbruch, a councilor from the Electorate of Cologne, would make progress in the feudal matters and fend off the allegations. However, since the war situation did not allow him to continue his journey to Cologne, Henning Cramer chose the route of short stays with relatives of the Rhenish line in Bremen and Hamburg to Lübeck. There he stood under the protection of the council through the intercession of his brother-in-law Henning Schlueter. His wife Katharina and his brother Hans followed on March 12, 1634 after suspicion of treason.

In October 1634, Henning Cramer and his colleague mayor traveled to Vienna because of the mining rights, as there were rumors of a peace treaty again. On October 30, 1634, Henning Cramer is said to have returned to Goslar, where he probably did not stay long, as he was already on November 29. wrote letters from Lübeck. In 1635, Henning Cramer returned permanently to Goslar after another trip to Vienna. After a confirmation of the expektance on the fief by Ferdinand III. on September 1, 1637 and the extinction of the Meinsinger on September 23, 1637 the fief deed for Henning Cramer was issued on June 15, 1638.

In the following years, the tenant tried to bundle his fiefdom. In June 1641 he had to flee from the Swedes again for a short time, but the following time remained calm. Some diplomatic missions brought only short-term success for the city. The long-term goal, the revision of the Riechenberg Treaty, was not achieved.

Increasing health problems combined with anger over fiefdoms led to a withdrawal from imperial politics. After the death of his wife Katharina, Henning Cramer remarried. The daughter of the Liebenburg bailiff Elisabeth Prasuhn was supposed to clean up the shattered finances and at the same time strengthen the connections in the Hildesheimer Große Stift. Increasing health problems, a mixture of actual physical suffering and melancholy ultimately led Henning Cramer von Clausbruch to commit suicide in his chamber on January 12, 1646 .

Controversy over death

The suicide was disguised as an accident on the part of the city magistrates using a suitably issued instrument. Henning Cramer was therefore killed by a ricochet while cleaning the pistols. The statements of the instrument and the funeral sermon are so far apart that a suicide seems more likely. Appearances had to be preserved. On January 25, 1646, a grand funeral service and burial took place in the market church with the sermon of Simon Struves.

Central documents from Henning Cramer von Clausbruch

• StA Goslar, CvC D 64: Report on Goslar by Henning Cramer von Clausbruch, [1633].
• StA Goslar, B 05974: Report by Mayor Henning Cramer von Clausbruch on the attacks by Duke Christian von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and the Swedish occupation, [1634].
• Cramer von Clausbruch, H. (1632): Exculpatio and honor rescue, Goslar.

literature

swell

• StA Goslar, B 01185: Antiquities of the city of Goslar collected in 1713 by Erwin von der Hardt.
• StA Goslar, B 02308: Ferdinand II's mandate to Friedrich Ulrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel regarding the lawsuit of the city of Goslar, 1629.
• StA Goslar, B 05830: The execution of the edict of restitution in the city of Goslar and the transfer of the imperial palace to the Jesuits, 1629-1631.
• StA Goslar, B 05958: Relatio, of Mr. Landtdrosten zue osterode and Fürstenthumbs Grubenhagens, advertisement for IfG Hertzog Georgen Zue B. and L. to the city of Goßlar on December 13, 1631.
• StA Goslar, B 05960: Council ordinance on reimbursement of travel expenses to Henning Cramer von Clausbruch and Dr. Franciscus Kleine, 1629.
• StA Goslar, B 05974: Report by Mayor Henning Cramer von Clausbruch on the attacks by Duke Christian von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and the Swedish occupation, [1634].
• StA Goslar, B 05976: Letter from Henning Cramer to the mayor and council of Goslar, 1632.
• StA Goslar, CvC D 62: Family matters, 17th century.
• StA Goslar, CvC D 64: Report on Goslar by Henning Cramer von Clausbruch, [1633].
• StA Goslar, CvC D 65: Family matters, 17th century.
• StA Goslar, CvC D 69: Letter of nobility from Emperor Ferdinand II for the brothers Henning, Hans and Heinrich Cramer, 1629.
• StA Goslar, CvC D 97: Wedding invitation (copy from 1940), 1643.

Old prints

• Cramer von Clausbruch, H. (1632): Exculpatio and honor rescue, Goslar. (StA Goslar, B124 / 80)
• Struve, S. (1642): Christian funeral sermon / Bey of the funeral / Der weyland noble / Much honor: and virtuous Frawen / Catharinen, Goslar. ( HAB Wolfenbüttel: J 15 Helmst 4 °)
• Struve, S. (1646): Leichpredigt / Bey dem Volckreichen funeral / Des Weyland Ed-len / vesten and very white Mr. Henningk Kramern from Clausbrugk, Goslar. (HAB Wolfenbüttel: J 15 4 °. Helmst. (5))

Research literature

• Brinkmann, CC (2011): Henning Cramer von Clausbruch. Mayor in the Thirty Years' War (Bachelor thesis in history at the Georg-August University Göttingen), Göttingen [MS].
• Crusius, E. (1842): History of the city of Goslar, Osterode.
• Gidion, H. (1951): “Henning Cramers von Clausbruch. Attempt to rescue honor ”, in: Harz-Zeitschrift 3, 1-58.
• Gidion, H. (1952): “Magister Hans Nendorf”, in: Bruchmann, KG; Spier, H. (Ed.): Frölich-Festschrift. Karl Frölich on the completion of the 75th year of life on April 14, 1952 (Contributions to the history of the city of Goslar 13), Goslar, 127-154.
• Gidion, H. (1954): "The Exculpatio Henning Cramers von Clausbruch", in: Harz-Zeitschrift 5/6, 57-63.
• Hans Gidion:  Cramer, Henning. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 393 ( digitized version ).
• Gottschalk, W. (1999): Chronicle of the City of Goslar. 919-1919. Vol. 1, Goslar.
• Griep, H.-G. (Ed.) (1994): Die Brandeschronik, Goslar.
• Hölscher, U. (1907): “Henning Cramer von Clausbruch. Mayor of the city of Goslar 1626-1646 ”, in: Zeitschrift des Harz-Verein 40, 2-52.
• Hölscher, U. (1908): History of the Cramer family from Clausbruch. The first generation. The second generation. The third generation.
• Evidence on the family tree of the newer family up to 1900, Goslar [MS].
• Kelichhaus, S. (2003): Goslar around 1600 (Göttingen Research on Regional History 6), Bielefeld.
• Kelichhaus, S. (2005): “Goslar in the time between the Riechenberg Treaty and the Thirty Years War. 1552-1626 “, in: Engelke, H. (Hg.): Goslar from Reformation to Revolution. Lectures at the history association (contributions to the history of the city of Goslar 53), Bielefeld, 27-44.
• Kloppenburg, H. (1906): "The Jesuits in Goslar", in: Zeitschrift des Harz-Verein 39, 137-166.
• Wieries, R. (1915): “An embassy from the imperial city of Goslar to Wallenstein to Aschersleben in 1626”, in: Zeitschrift des Harz-Verein 48, 56-61.