Cologne Rhine mills

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Ship mills on the Rhine from the shrine painting The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula 1411 (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum)
Agrippina of Coellen , the title page of the Koehlhoff Chronicle of 1499, shows a Rheinmühlen unit on the right side of the Rhine
Ship mills on the Rhine in front of Cologne from Anton Woensam, Large view of Cologne 1531
Repair of a ship mill unit on the Werthchen , from Anton Woensam, Large view of Cologne 1531

The Cologne Rhine mills were anchored in the river off Cologne, undershot ship mills that were driven by the current and produced for the everyday needs of the city of Cologne. They are the river mills of the late Middle Ages most reliably documented by Anton Woensam's Cologne cityscape from 1531 .

business

The ship mills anchored in front of Cologne are known from almost all late medieval and early modern cityscapes. It is assumed that these Rhine mills have a history of more than 900 years in Cologne. In the 13th century, 36 ship mills are said to have been operated upme rine hanging (= anchored in the Rhine). The archbishop and bourgeois mill heirs shared the meal rights.

Woensam's Cologne view shows details of day-to-day operations. A mill unit is being taken out of the lower row and pulled by 26 men on a rope to Werthchen , the shipyard island. The outer mill house is covered by a pent roof, the grinder is covered by a gable roof set against it. There are doors sideways. Windows are missing.

technology

A Rhine mill consisted of box-shaped ships, each holding the mill house and the grinder on board. At the back there is a wide waterwheel that barely protrudes above the beltline. The central nave and the axles were connected by a plank deck. A mill ship was about 10 meters long, four meters wide and had a side height of almost two meters.

In 1754 Johann Wilhelm Schuller first drew some components of a three-aisled Rhine mill. This probably worked with a higher degree of efficiency than the Woensam mills from 1531. For a development period of over 200 years, however, the recognizable improvements in detail appear to be rather minor.

The performance of the ship mills depends exponentially on the flow speed of the river. The Cologne-based Rheinmüller was equipped with eight such mills, which made possible a multiple of the annual grinding capacity required of around 50,000 Malter.

swell

The structure and functionality in the mill shrine are detailed. Four documents from 1444, 1588 and 1603 clarify the management and organization of the grinding operation. Detailed accounting books show the connections between 21,000 entries and the Cologne baking industry.

From the 15th century onwards, the Rhine mills are depicted in numerous early contemporary paintings and prints. The shrine painting The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) from 1411 shows for the first time a working mill unit, which is represented as a symbol of the city. In the woodcut view of the city of Cologne from the Rhine from 1474/80 by Werner Rolevinck , Fasciculus temporum , the Rhine mills are shown schematically. The flyleaf of the Koehlhoff-Chronik 1499 shows next to a boat and a floating crane the apparently typical water mill unit.

With great realism and richness of detail, Anton Woensam depicts the mills in his Cologne cityscape from 1531. A woodcut from 1548 shows a group of four and three water mills. In the depiction of the festive reception of the bride of Duke Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Berg, Antonia von Lothringen from 1599, Der Stat Waßer Mullen can be seen at work. In copperplate engravings from 1610, 1632 and 1654, as in Wenzel Hollar's 1656 Large View, a coupled nineteen association of water mills is consistently shown.

aftermath

The Mühlengasse (platea molinendinorum) bears its name in memory of the Rhine mills anchored there in the river.

literature

  • Horst Kranz: The Cologne Rhine mills. Investigations into the mill shrine, the owners and the technology of the ship mills. (= Aachen studies on older energy history. Publications of the Historical Institute of the RWTH Aachen Chair for Middle History, Vol. 1). Alano Rader Publications, Aachen, 1991
  • Horst Kranz: The Cologne Rheinmühlen II. Edition of selected sources from the 13th to 18th centuries. With a database. (= Aachen studies on older energy history. Publications of the Historical Institute of the RWTH Aachen Chair for Middle History, Vol. 2). Alano Rader Publications, Aachen, 1993
  • Horst Kranz: A big city solves its energy problem. Grinding operation of the Cologne Rhine mills in the 16th century Online ( MS Word ; 23 kB)
  • Peter CA Schels: Small Encyclopedia of the German Middle Ages. A lexical collection of material on the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries online
  • Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schiffsmühlen in: Peter CA Schels: Small Encyclopedia of the German Middle Ages. A lexical collection of material on the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries
  2. ^ Horst Kranz: The Cologne Rhine mills. Investigations into the mill shrine, the owners and the technology of the ship mills. Alano Rader Publications, Aachen, 1991.
  3. ^ Horst Kranz: The Cologne Rheinmühlen II. Edition of selected sources from the 13th to 18th centuries. Online at darwin.bth.rwth-aachen.de, accessed on January 12, 2017.
  4. ^ Horst Kranz: The Cologne Rheinmühlen II. Edition of selected sources from the 13th to 18th centuries. With a database. Alano Rader Publications, Aachen, 1993.
  5. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 .
  6. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 66f.
  7. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 78f.
  8. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 100f.
  9. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 115 ff.
  10. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 126f.
  11. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Cologne Greven, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , pp. 144f.
  12. ^ Hugo Borger / Günter Zehnder: Cologne, the city as a work of art: city views from 15.-20. Jh. , Köln Greven, 2nd ed. 1986, ISBN 3-7743-0222-7 , p. 146f., P. 152ff., P. 168f., P. 171ff.