Jacklein Rohrbach

Jäcklein Rohrbach was burned alive near Neckargartach in 1525, drawing by Peter Harrer from a description of the Peasants' War of 1551.

Jakob "Jäcklein" Rohrbach († May 20 or 21, 1525 near Heilbronn - Neckargartach ) was a leader of the farmers in the Peasants' War in 1525. Under his leadership, the castle and town of Weinsberg were stormed on April 16, 1525 , with the local bailiff and his followers were killed by running the gauntlet in the so-called Weinsberg blood act . Rohrbach was burned alive on May 21, 1525 near Neckargartach for his actions.

Life

origin

Already his eponymous father Jacob Rohrbach built in reichsstädtisch- heilbronnischen village Böckingen as Hofmann (leaseholder) two courtyards of the monastery of St. Peter to Wimpfen and operated a business. In 1499 the father and other Böckingers took over from the city of Heilbronn the annual yield of the Heilbronn sixth on the Böckinger fruit tithing. It is possible that the father is also identical with that, unknown Rohrbach, who ran the Böckinger Hof of the Heilbronn Carmelite monastery .

Little Jakob ("Jäcklein" or "Jäckle") was probably born shortly before 1500 and his mother was a serf of the Lords of Neipperg . He knew how to write and therefore probably went to school in Heilbronn. As early as 1516 he rebelled several times against the Neippergischen bailiff in the neighboring village of Klingenberg , for which he was temporarily in the tower rest. Because of an inheritance dispute, he sent a feud letter to the community of Dürrenzimmern in 1519 and pursued the local mayor . He was briefly imprisoned for this too. In the autumn of 1519 he was one of the three brushmen that Heilbronn, along with other mercenaries , had to face as a federal member against Duke Ulrich, who was expelled from the country . Rohrbach probably took part in the battle near Hedelfingen . After the end of the Württemberg war, the city of Heilbronn charged its associated villages with three times the tax burden to cover the war costs. While Rohrbach's father and most of the other Böckingers willingly paid the treasure , Rohrbach and Margareta Renner, the “ Black Courtwoman ”, were among those who refused to pay or were in arrears. Rohrbach stated at the time that he was no longer in the Böckingen civil or village law. In 1524, however, he was back in Böckingen and took over the smaller of the two Wimpfen monasteries built by his father. In the same year he married a Böckinger woman.

Disputes with the Wimpfener pen

From his farm in Böckingen he had to deliver five Malter rye and spelled , six Malter oats and two geese to Michaelis and a chicken on Carnival to Wolf Ferber, the vicar of the Kilian Altar at the Wimpfen collegiate church. He owed a large part of this validity in the first year, although his economic circumstances would have made it easy to meet the taxes and the tax burden was even comparatively low compared to other Böckingen leaseholds. Instead, he protested against the tax relationship between the two Böckingen colleges, saw himself in the wrong and threatened the Wimpfener Stift. The Wimpfen vicar Ferber urged a clarification of the situation at the legal day in Böckingen on March 27, 1525. Rohrbach invited a large number of supporters there, so that Ferber was afraid and stayed away from the appointment.

Rohrbach mixed his private disputes with the general mood of optimism among the poor farmers (not very much in the Böckingen area) and swore his supporters to the Twelve Articles and the formation of peasant heaps . Shortly after the Böckingen legal day, he campaigned in Teusserbad for the formation of farmers. On March 30, 1525, another attempt was made in Heilbronn to clarify Rohrbach's disputes with the Wimpfen monastery, which, however, remained unsuccessful. Rohrbach then recommended himself to the vicar in Wimpfen with the Swabian greeting and the threat to visit the Wimpfen pen with rebellious farmers.

Leader of a peasant group

On April 1, 1525 Rohrbach campaigned for his cause in Brackenheim , the next day he was in Flein , where he was elected captain by the farmers gathered there from the Heilbronn and surrounding Teutonic villages as well as Heilbronn citizens and Württemberg farmers from the Weinsberger Valley . His lust for conflict, his military experience in the Württemberg war, his past dealings with the authorities and the ongoing controversy with the Wimpfen pen may have predestined him as a leader.

Under Rohrbach's leadership, the farmers gathered in Flein moved to Sontheim on the night of April 3, and to Böckingen the following morning. Other comrades-in-arms were requisitioned in both places. Rohrbach sent letters to the surrounding towns and forced them to unlock it under threat of arson. His peasant mob first moved on to Großgartach , but instead of tackling the planned attack on the Wimpfen monastery from there, the peasants moved back to Sontheim via Nordheim in order to prepare a union with the Odenwald peasant mob. Meanwhile, the Heilbronn City Council corresponded with Rohrbach and warned him and his followers to end the uprising and return home. Rohrbach replies to the “ersamen and weyssen burgermeister” of Heilbronn: “Also, I have never been a harm to thon, nor to leyb, nor to good, d (a) rumb ke (h) ren you ni (ch ) t a igklich sw (a) etz and fli (e) gende spirit - Jacob Rorbach your unthertheniger servant. ”Avoiding Heilbronn, the farmers moved on April 5, 1525 to Erlenbach and from there to Hohenlohe , towards the Odenwald heap. The town of Öhringen opened the gates to the united farmers, the Counts of Hohenlohe bowed to the Twelve Articles on April 11th. On April 12th, the farmers looted the Lichtenstern monastery . On April 14th the farmers moved past Heilbronn again to Neckarsulm , where the gates were opened for them and from where the Heilbronn craftsmen were to be won as allies.

On April 16, 1525 ( Easter Sunday ) the united Neckar Valley-Odenwälder heap stormed under Rohrbach Castle and the town of Weinsberg . The Obervogt Graf Ludwig von Helfenstein , who had previously stabbed the rear guards of the farmers and shot at their heralds, was chased through the spits together with his followers . The deed became famous as the Weinsberg bloody deed , but was not without controversy among the farmers, as there were efforts to pull the nobility to the side of the farmers, which was made difficult, if not impossible, by the Weinsberg bloody deed.

After the bloody deed in Weinsberg

After taking Weinsberg, the farmers turned to the city of Heilbronn and first attacked the Heilbronn Carmelite monastery outside the city . Rohrbach and Enderlin von Dürrenzimmern negotiated with the city council and persuaded them to join the farmers' union. Some farmers were allowed into the city and plundered the Deutschhof of the Teutonic Order , but spared the rest of the city. Rohrbach is no longer mentioned in the further course of the events in Heilbronn. After the bloody deed in Weinsberg he had lost the trust of a large part of the farmers who had previously followed him. The farmers of the Teutonic Order had always distrusted him, the more moderate farmers who hoped for support from the nobility saw themselves betrayed. Together with Enderlin and about 200 men, Rohrbach turned to Lauffen am Neckar , where Rohrbach's heap united with the Württemberg farmers under Matern Feuerbacher on April 20, 1525 .

Feuerbacher and Rohrbach united their farmers with the heap of Hans Wunderers and moved via Horrheim to Vaihingen an der Enz , where Feuerbacher and Wunderer were confirmed as colonels on April 24, while Rohrbach was not given a leadership position. On April 29, 1525 he was in Maulbronn Monastery , from where he interfered in a dispute between Böckingen and Heilbronn over a Wasens and the issuance of letters of protection ("Passporten") for both the Böckingen quarreling because of the Wasen and the rebels Peasants considered. On May 1, 1525 Rohrbach protested at Wunderer about the disorder among the farmers who had arrived in Maulbronn, who could not decide whether to burn the monastery, tear it down or sell it. Because of this protest, the monastery was saved from destruction. Meanwhile, the Heilbronn council protested against the planned passports at the Odenwald-Neckartaler Haufen, whereupon Götz von Berlichingen and Georg Metzler, the chief field captains of the peasants, addressed a sharp protest note to Rohrbach with the threat of punitive measures.

Capture and execution

On May 6, 1525, Rohrbach was not far from Stuttgart and announced Feuerbacher and Wunderer that the next day they would meet with 1,400 men near Sindelfingen . The meeting took place, but whether Rohrbach could muster the announced manpower is unknown. On May 8th the farmers stormed Herrenberg , but suffered a devastating defeat on May 12th in the Battle of Böblingen . Rohrbach himself did not take part in the battle, but was captured on the same day with some other farmers between Markgröningen and Vaihingen by the Burgvogt zu Asperg, Bastian Emhard. He was on the Hohenasperg set and on May 19 at the passing Steward of Waldburg delivered, the delivery of the Weinberger already early May ringleaders had demanded and tied him on May 21, 1525 near Neckargartach, with a chain to a willow tree, alive Burned my body . At the same time, other captured peasants were beheaded and hung from the trees.

The custodian awarded his legacy to the widow of the bailiff who was murdered in Weinsberg. Rohrbach's own property in Böckingen was sold to Leonhard Günter, a citizen of Heilbronn. Since Rohrbach's widow was a serf of the Lords of Ehrenberg , they tried for a long time to have the goods returned, about the whereabouts of which nothing is known. The farm of the Wimpfener Stift, managed by Rohrbach, was re-leased in 1544 by Vicar Ferber under the same conditions.

reception

Jäcklein Rohrbach is one of the better-known peasant leaders of the German Peasant War . In contrast to Wendel Hipler , however, he was characterized by a lack of diplomatic skills , and he is not romanticized like Florian Geyer . Rohrbach had no discernible political goals, but rather the origin of his actions lay both in his contentious nature and in a private dispute with the Wimpfener Stift , which he took as an opportunity to rally like-minded people. After he had alienated the majority of his like-minded people with the bloody deed of Weinsberg , Rohrbach no longer played a significant role in the further events of the Peasants' War and also had no support from the other leaders. The Heilbronn historian Moriz von Rauch describes him as “just a riot”. The Böckinger, who had to pay bitterly for their support for Rohrbach in retrospect, called him “our seducer”. Nevertheless, the more casual rescue of the Maulbronn Monastery is due to him.

The Jäckleinstraße in Heilbronn-Böckingen is named after Rohrbach .

literature

• Moriz von Rauch: The farmer's leader Jäklein Rohrbach von Böckingen. In: Württembergische Vierteljahreshefte für Landesgeschichte , NF XXXII, 1925/26, Stuttgart 1926, pp. 21–35.
• Joachim Hamm: History and Interpretation of History. On the so-called "Blood deed von Weinsberg" (April 16, 1525) in contemporary literature of the 16th century. In: From the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age. Festschrift for Horst Brunner on his 60th birthday. Ed. V. Dorothea Klein in collaboration with Elisabeth Lienert and Johannes Rettelbach. Wiesbaden 2000. pp. 513-540.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heilbronn - You made history. Twelve portraits from the life and work of famous Heilbronn residents . Heilbronn printing and publishing house, Heilbronn 1977, p. 26 ( series on Heilbronn. Volume VII)
2. ↑ Christhard Schrenk , Hubert Weckbach , Susanne Schlösser: From Helibrunna to Heilbronn. A city history (=  publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 36 ). Theiss, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8062-1333-X , p. 54 .