Johannes Huffener

Johannes (Hans, Johann) Huffener (also: Hufener, Huffner, Hwffener , † March or April 1492 ) was a Dresden pharmacist and mayor .

Life

Nothing is known about Huffener's early years. It is documented that he came from Leipzig and was brought to Dresden as a pharmacist together with a doctor in 1467 at the instigation of the Dresden city council.

On June 12, 1467 he received the first written pharmacist privilege in Dresden. Associated with this was the freedom from all burdens and the sole right to keep a pharmacy in the city. This first pharmacy in Dresden with a permanent location was "on the market in the last house before Schreibergasse from the Kreuzkirche". There he was allowed to sell crushed herbs, spices and wines and also do grocery shopping . For this purpose the council gave him a "junk" in which he or his wife could sell. Huffener's successor, Magister Laurentius Montzer, ran his pharmacy on the south side of the Altmarkt on the corner of Schreibergasse, which still exists today. The Marienapotheke later emerged from this .

The first pharmacy was very simply equipped. It only consisted of a sales room. The drugs were placed in ceramic vessels on wall boards. In the 15th century, this sales room was separated from the laboratory .

Huffener refused to deliver medicines to Master Baruch, a well-known Jewish surgeon appointed by Elector Ernst and Duke Albrecht in 1468 . It was only the intervention of the sovereigns that finally forced him to give up his resistance.

Business in the pharmacy appears to have gone well, allowing the pharmacist to acquire property and act as a moneylender. The Dresden city book speaks of the purchase of a piece of land "on Plauenschen Weg" in 1481 and of lending money to fellow citizens in 1481, 1482, 1485 and 1489.

In 1483, Huffener was the plaintiff in a trial before the council against a Merten Sporer who had publicly abused Huffener on the market and in various beer houses. After Sporer swore not to do this anymore, the council acquitted him. If this happened again, they threatened him with banishment or the death penalty .

Huffener died in March or April 1492, the exact date of his death is not known. When he died, he left debts that were partially offset against a vineyard on the Tatzberg and another piece of land. Another part paid his brother-in-law Bastian Jobst , who also became mayor of Dresden in 1498.

Political activity

From 1471 Huffener sat in the council of the city of Dresden and was entrusted with the administration of the interest lords office. He was responsible for the collection and administration of the inheritance and capital interest due to the council . He also did this in 1474. In 1478 Huffener was treasurer of the council and from 1491 bridge master. The bridge office was responsible for the maintenance of the Dresden Elbe bridge and the Kreuzkirche and had considerable property.

In 1481 Johannes Huffener took over the administration as mayor . According to the council order of 1470, there was always one ruling and two dormant councilors. The same rhythm applied to the three elected mayors. So they always changed in the order of governing - associate - resting mayors. According to this rule, Huffener was governing mayor again in 1484, 1487 and 1490. For this office he received a salary, known as a tip, 7 shock groschen and various items in kind .

In 1492 Huffener had to give up his office on the city council. In addition, he was fined 700 Rhenish guilders (400 of which were to be paid to the Kreuzkirche, 300 to the city). It must have been an extraordinary "omission", which is not specified in detail: " His precautionary payment half by imposed tightly on our ghost ". Possibly it was a matter of neglect in the city fire of June 15 and 16, 1491, which had destroyed most of the city. To pay the fine, he had to borrow money from his brother-in-law Bastian Jobst. To do this, he mortgaged his house including the pharmacy.

literature

• Sieglinde Richter-Nickel: The venerable council of Dresden , in: Dresdner Geschichtsbuch No. 5, Dresden City Museum (ed.); DZA Verlag for Culture and Science, Altenburg 1999, ISBN 3-9806602-1-4 .
• Matthias Meinhardt : Dresden in Transition: Space and Population of the City in the Residence Formation Process of the 15th and 16th Century . Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3050040684 .
• Jens Klingner: The Dresden City Book 1477–1495 - Edition and research (inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate in philosophy, art and social sciences from the University of Regensburg) . Regensburg 2009 ( digitized as PDF ; 4.5 MB).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Hellmut Räuber: From herb collector to pharmacist , in: Sächsische Zeitung of January 5, 2006, p. 21
2. ^ Karlheinz Blaschke : History of the City of Dresden 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Thirty Years' War (1648) , Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart, 2005, p. 311.
3. ↑ Dr. Hans-Joachim Hofmann: The Altmarkt was your domicile - on the history of the first pharmacy in Dresden . In: Dresdner Latest News , January 22, 1996, p. 12
4. ^ Matthias Meinhardt: Dresden in Transition: Space and Population of the City in the Residence Formation Process of the 15th and 16th Centuries , Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, 2009, p. 77.
5. ^ Matthias Meinhardt: Dresden in Transition: Space and Population of the City in the Residence Formation Process of the 15th and 16th Century , Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, 2009, p. 559
6. ↑ Jens Klingner: Das Dresdner Stadtbuch 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, pp. 121, 125, 140, 174, 176, 251 ( available online as PDF ; 4.5 MB).
7. ^ Jens Klingner: The Dresden City Book 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, p. 156.
8. ↑ Jens Klingner: The Dresden City Book 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, p. 291.
9. ↑ Jens Klingner: Das Dresdner Stadtbuch 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, p. 292.
10. ^ Otto Richter : Constitutional and administrative history of the city of Dresden: First volume: Verfassungsgeschichte , Wilhelm Baensch Verlag, 1885, p. 413f.
11. ^ Jens Klingner: The Dresden City Book 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, p. 274.
12. ^ Otto Richter: Constitutional and administrative history of the city of Dresden: First volume: Verfassungsgeschichte , Wilhelm Baensch Verlag, 1885, p. 114.
13. ^ Otto Richter: Constitutional and administrative history of the city of Dresden: Third volume: Administrative history, second department , Wilhelm Baensch Verlag, p. 362.
14. ^ Jens Klingner: The Dresden City Book 1477–1495 - Edition and Research , Regensburg, 2009, p. 287.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hans Francke (1480, 1483) Nickel Seidel (1486, 1489)	Mayor of Dresden 1481 , 1484 1487 , 1490	Lucas Feist (1482, 1485) Symon Werchaw (1488, 1491)