Cologne farmers' benches
The Cologne farmers' banks were originally founded as cooperatives for Cologne landowners and landlords . In the Middle Ages they developed into cooperatives of the Cologne farmers . From the 13th century they also became judicial and administrative bodies that lasted until 1798.
Duties and statutes
In addition to the actual courts to be invoked in the legal dispute, there were also voluntary associations among the arable citizens in Cologne to regulate rural conditions, especially to protect against field violence and other attacks, which had to settle their affairs according to fixed statutes , the so-called "peasant benches", "births "Or" Buirgedinge ".
In addition, they were used by the city council for certain public tasks, above all for the maintenance and order of the city hall outside the curtain wall and for the maintenance of paths. They were thereby involved in the administration of the medieval city.
The members made an oath to faithfully follow the established conditions. Violations of the statutes resulted in heavy fines or expulsion from the association. At the head of a "Buirgedinges" stood an elected "Gebuirmeister", who called regular meetings in the "Gebuirhaus" with the help of a sworn archer. A sworn rifle took the place of a court messenger or a police officer. During these meetings, any disputes were heard and judged, and each member had to submit to the judgment.
There were peasant benches not only in Cologne. In addition to the court court, there is evidence of a farmer's bank for Fischenich in the area around Cologne, whose jurisdiction and procedure were regulated in a “ farmer's letter ”.
The five Cologne Buirgedinge
There were five such associations, which were named after the seat of the "Gebuirhauses", and the dioceses were assigned to the country side near the city walls. The first of these associations, the farmers' bank in Weiherstrasse, was mentioned in a document as early as 1240. The five farmers' banks were each responsible for a sector of Cologne's Schweid , the farmland in front of the city wall: the farmers' bank on the Eigelstein , the last one established by the council in 1391, belonged to the district of Sankt Kunibert , the one on Friesenstrasse to the district of Sankt Christoph / Sankt Gereon , the Bauerbank Schaafenstrasse to the district of Sankt Mauritius , the oldest in Weyerstrasse to the district of Sankt Pantaleon and one in the parish of Sankt Severin . In a map of Cologne Schweids 17th century, these areas are part of the city gates came through which you into the subject area named. Apparently the author of the map corrupted the word “Buirbank” to “Burgbahn” (see Burgbann ).
Representation as Kölscher Boor
The painters and engravers of the 17th and 18th centuries often used the designation "Kaiserlicher Bauer" (since Cologne, as a free imperial city, was subject only to the Emperor ) in their depictions of the Cologne peasant , as in a representation from 1820. In the "Directory of the figures of the great Cöllnian mask procession in 1825 ”, the farmer appears as“ the representative of the sturdy peasant benches with the city keys bravely defended in Worringen in 1288 and the flail ”, a forerunner of the Cologne farmer in the“ fifth season ”, the carnival. Whether the peasant bankers took part in the Worring Battle has not yet been documented, but it is probable because the free citizens of Cologne had to make themselves available for armed service in the event of war.
The change of the name to "Cöllnischer Bauer" can be found on a color print by the draftsman Levy Elkan from 1847.
End of the Cologne farmers' benches
Like the Cologne guilds , the Cologne farmers' benches were also abolished in the French period in 1798 by a decree of the French administration. Although they no longer existed as a public institution, they continued to have an informal effect in the city, especially in customs, the festivals of their church district and the Cologne carnival . So "the boys and girls who - as the children of the peasant bankers - were allowed to carry statues of saints in processions, became the 'Hilligen servants and maidservants" "of the Cologne Carnival.
When, after the demolition of the city wall and the conversion of the fields into building areas, the farmers in the city no longer had a livelihood, their associations were also lost. In addition to related archives from the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne , only Bauerbankstrasse in the southern Cologne district of Zollstock is reminiscent of the Cologne Bauerbänke.
The farm bank Eigelstein founded the large carnival society Greesberger Köln out of a regular table in 1852, which still exists today and is the oldest family company and third oldest carnival society in Cologne.
Literature / sources
- Adam Wrede : New Cologne vocabulary . 3 volumes A - Z, Greven Verlag, Cologne, 9th edition 1984, ISBN 3-7743-0155-7
- Adolph Thomas: History of the parish St. Mauritius in Cologne. , 1st edition JP Bachem, Cologne 1878
- Leonard Ennen , Gottfried Eckertz (ed.): Sources for the history of the city of Cologne . Cologne 1860–79, vol. 1-in: Between Scholle und Grube , born 1954
Remarks
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, page 94
- ↑ Adolph Thomas, page 78. with reference to Ennen and Eckertz, Urk. II, 210 sq.
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, page 94
- ↑ Clemens Klug: Hürth, how it was, how it was. Published by the Heimatverein der Gemeinde Hürth, undated (1962), p. 50, after Siegfried Zerfas
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, page 94
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, page 94
- ^ Adam Wrede, Volume I, page 94
- ^ Arnold Stelzmann, Robert Frohn: Illustrated history of the city of Cologne , 11th edition. Bachem, Cologne 1990 (1st edition 1958), ISBN 3-7616-0973-6 , p. 176