Johann Rinck
Johann Rinck (or Rink , Rynck ; * last quarter of the 14th century in Korbach ; † 1464 in Cologne ) was the best-known representative of the Rinck patrician family and worked as a merchant and councilor in Cologne in the late Middle Ages .
Rinck family dynasty
According to the genealogist Anton Fahne , the progenitor of the influential Cologne family is probably Conrad Ryngk de Corbecke from Korbach , where he was mayor. The family members were active in the goldsmith's business, long-distance and cloth trade. The family name Rinck is derived from the goldsmith's activity.
Career of Johann I Rinck
The cloth merchant Johann I Rinck was called “de Colonia mercator” (the Cologne merchant) in 1423 when he was still a merchant in England; he only acquired Cologne city charter in 1432. In 1426 he married Geirtgin (Gertrud) Blitterswich from Cologne; after her death (1439) he married Beelgin von Suchtelen, the rich widow of the patrician Tilmann Questenberg, in 1447. Between 1439 and 1457 he was a member of the city council in his capacity as a representative of Gaffel Windeck . The increasing wealth of Johann Rinck can be seen in his house purchases alone in Hohen Strasse . On April 27, 1430, Rinck bought “Haus Nideggen” there (today's no. 135); In 1435 he acquired the neighboring house "Heimbach" (No. 137), which he connected with "Haus Nideggen" in 1435 and lived in it himself. Half of the house "to the (new) golden scales" seems to have been brought into the marriage by wife Geirtgin; because after her death Rinck was able to acquire the other half on July 25, 1439 and release it in 1445. By amalgamation, the house that gave the street name its name was created “to the golden scales” (No. 133). In 1448 English boatmen robbed him of weapons and rigging in Colewater (near Colchester ).
Johann Rink donated 400 guilders to the "House of Beautiful Women" (sconvrouwe) - a medieval brothel - so that the girls could free themselves from their matchmakers. This brothel "sconvrouwe" already existed as evidenced by a tax list from 1286 ("domus sconevrouwe") in Schwalbengasse 709 near Berlich and is the oldest women's shelter in Germany, which only became urban in 1525.
Trade, politics and patronage
Dealer
The trading company founded by "Johann Rinck" was based on an extensive range of goods, the variety of which ranged from the trade in spices to the arms trade , from the Cologne cloth and wine trade , but also from fine fur from the Baltic Sea countries to precious metals . Rinck had an unerring instinct for supply and demand and accordingly acted quickly. Around 1450 his company had grown into a "concern" whose activities extended far beyond the core area of the Hanseatic League . Rinck's trade relations extended along an axis to London , Antwerp , Cologne and Frankfurt (first mentioned as a trade fair city in 1160). But he also had contacts in northeastern Europe as well as in France and Italy .
The network of trading companies and holdings, which became differentiated over time, in which mostly family members later coordinated, allowed the family business to grow to such an extent that it was also able to cope with increasingly frequent losses such as ship hijacking and raids on the transport of goods by land. Johann Rinck managed his “trading empire” from his Cologne office - the family's ancestral home was the Hofgut am Rinkenpfuhl between Schaafenstrasse and the Mauritiuskirche . With increasing age he reduced his strenuous business trips and invested expendable capital in the acquisition of numerous pensions and extensive real estate . Rinck left the business more and more to his descendants and turned to local politics.
Politician
As a councilor delegated by his guild, Johann Rinck represented the interests of the "Windeck" gaff from 1439 to 1460 , in which the merchants trading with England had organized themselves. Rinck's 21-year work in the council and the connections and friendships established there during this time, his reputation as a businessman, the fortunes of his family and his appearance as a patron of the city paved the way for his nephew Hermann Rinck to the highest office in the city. Hermann was elected to the city's mayor's office in 1481 as the first member of the family .
trademark
In the last years of his life, Johann Rinck commissioned a number of paintings, such as The Coronation of Mary (today in Munich) or his own image, which depicts him kneeling with hands clasped in prayer ( Cologne City Museum ). In these pictures, Rinck had his house brand displayed by the artist. This symbol, a separate emblem used by large companies in trade , was a quality mark and trademark that was known and appreciated beyond national borders. Rinck's son Peter († 1501) then developed the emblem shown at the bottom right in the picture above into a coat of arms for the Rinck family. It shows a raven holding a ring (rinck!) In its beak, the raven in turn serving as a holder for the house brand presented in a sign.
Benefactor
Johann Rinck united in his person the tough, assertive businessman and the benevolent believing Christian. However, his actions are more meaningful.
St. Nikolai Foundation
He did not forget his birth town Korbach, which is mentioned in 1469 as a member of the Hanseatic League . Rinck initially donated 6000 guilders in 1450 and another 520 guilders in 1461. The first foundation should serve to complete the Nikolaikirche there, the second a gift to the council of the city of Korbach. The foundations were approved by the Archbishop of Cologne, Dietrich .
St. Revilien Foundation
After the death Rinck the Council fulfilled his request and approved the construction of a house for as nonsensical designated mentally disabled people. With the help of the 1000 guilders donated by Rinck for this purpose, an uninhabited beguinage was rebuilt in 1465 by the management of the St. Revilien monastery hospital founded around 1450 in Stolkgasse .
The wansynniger lude house initially contained six chambers lined with straw, so-called geckhuseren , each of which was intended for one person. The straw was changed and the sick were cleaned by a beard trimmer , who also shaved their heads, took place four times a year. The restless sick were tied up or chained. Since at that time lack of understanding and rawness towards the mentally handicapped were everyday behavior, the sick often even had to be used for popular amusement, the facility made possible by Johann Rinck was an immense progress for the circumstances at that time.
St. Kolumba Foundation
Johann Rinck donated the Marienkapelle, built 1448–1464, built on the northeast side of the choir of St. Kolumba in Cologne, consecrated in May 1496. In his will of 1463 he bequeathed extensive assets and is buried (1466) in the one he built Chapel in St. Kolumba.
Descendants and relatives
Johann I had four children, Johann II, Peter , Gertrud (who married Johann Dass) and Styngin (who became a nun). The most famous child was Peter Rinck; he chose a spiritual career and was professor at the law faculty of the University of Cologne . He moved to the University of Erfurt in 1444, to Paris in 1451 and returned to Cologne in 1452, where he was rector of the university between 1484 and 1485. In 1501 Peter Rinck founded a foundation for foundlings and orphans, whose income made it possible to build an orphanage in 1523. Together with Hermann von dem Busche, his brother Johann II Rinck wrote “De verginis Mariae psalterio triplex hecatostichon” in Cologne on May 16, 1498 and October 11, 1499. Johann II Rinck, the oldest and richest of all four siblings, was raised to the nobility on March 2, 1512 and, in addition to the Rinkenhof, also built "Haus Königstein" in Schildergasse , where he lived with his family. In the year of his death in 1516, he also became mayor.
Adolf Rinck (1472–1541) acquired two houses (“to the large and small Kneyart” from 1260; Schildergasse 74–76) from the Cologne cruiser Hermann Kneyart and from 1513 erected the magnificent bourgeois building “to the golden ring” with a large vaulted one Halle (demolished in 1910). Peter Rinck made the property his ancestral home in 1513. House "Königstein" (Kunincksteyn) was acquired by Hermann Rinck († 1541) in 1464 and rebuilt on July 28, 1513. Mayor Johann Rinck lived since 1510 in the house "Königstein" (Rinkenpfuhl 24) with a chapel consecrated in 1511 (both demolished in 1894). The "Berleppsche Hof" with a knight's tower, located on Rinkenpfuhl 4, also belonged to the Rinck family. Count von Berlepp from Saxony acquired the property after Rinck's death. In 1513, Adolf Rinck (1472–1541) bought two houses (“to the large and small Kneyart”; Schildergasse 74–76) from the Kreuzbruder Hermann Kneyart and erected the magnificent bourgeois building “to the golden ring” with a large vaulted hall on the site the patrician family Rinck made their ancestral home.
literature
- Carl Dietmar: The Chronicle of Cologne. Chronik-Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 .
- Adolph Thomas: History of the parish St. Mauritius in Cologne. With an illustration of the old Abbey of St. Pantaleon after Stengelius. 1st edition J. P. Bachem, Cologne 1878.
- Toni Diederich : St. Revilien. From the handling of the Cologne native with the Latin language. History in Cologne 53 (2006), pp. 151–162.
- Wolfgang Schmid: Founder and client in late medieval Cologne. Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-92-739661-3 .
- Brigitte Siebert: The Rinck merchant family in Korbach in the age of the Hanseatic League. In: My Waldeck. Supplement to the Waldeckische Landeszeitung für Heimatfreunde, No. 22/1991.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Anton Fahne von Roland: History of the Cologne, Jülischen and Bergischen families , 1848, p. 361.
- ↑ "rinck" was the medieval spelling of the jewelry object ring
- ↑ Ludwig Röhrscheid: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , Volumes 192–194, 1990, p. 23.
- ↑ Barbara Buys: Familienleben in Deutschland , 1984, p. 164.
- ↑ Yvonne Leiverkus: Cologne: pictures of a late medieval city , 2005 S. 166th
- ^ Adolf Thomas, reference to Ennen and Eckertz, Urk. II, p. 376.
- ↑ a b Carl Dietmar, p. 140.
- ^ Houses in Korbach: St. Nikolai. The Johannes Rinck foundations for Korbach. Regio-Wiki Kassel-Lexikon. Accessed April 13, 2008
- ↑ Carl Dietmar, p. 142.
- ^ Association of German Architects: Cologne and its buildings , 1888, p. 209.
- ↑ The Rinck family owned several houses on the Rinkenpfuhl, the family seat was the Rinkenhof, at 24 Rinkenpfuhl.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rinck, Johann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Councilor and businessman in Cologne in the late Middle Ages |
| DATE OF BIRTH | before 1400 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Korbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1464 |
| Place of death | Cologne |