Kulmer hand-held celebrations

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The document issued on December 28, 1233 by the Teutonic Order in Kulm , with which the settlements of Kulm and Thorn were raised to the first cities in the Kulmer Land between the Vistula and two of its tributaries and were given a city ​​ordinance , is called Kulmer Handfeste . The legal norms recorded in Latin at the Kulmer Handfeste soon became exemplary for the entire Order and even its neighboring territories and formed the basis for a new law that was later referred to as Kulm Law .

Exhibition and transmission history

On December 28th, 1233 put Hermann von Salza († 1239), the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Hermann Balk († 1239), the Landmeister (Preceptor) " in Slavic land and in Prussia " (" per Sclavoniam et Prusiam preceptor "), as well the entire convent of the order issued the document named after the place of issue, which made Kulm and Thorn the first two cities in the Kulmer Land bordered by the Vistula , the Drewenz and the Ossa . The Kulmer Handfeste is thus the official " founding document " or the location privilege of Kulm and Thorn. The members of the order and the other people who had come to the Vistula with Hermann Balk were named as witnesses at the Kulmer Handfeste. However, no mention was made of Duke Konrad von Mazowien († 1247), who had summoned the knights of the order to his territory and awarded them the Kulm Land in 1228.

The original of the Kulmer Handfeste was probably lost in 1244 during the attack by Duke Swantopolk of Pomerania († 1266) in the fire of the Kulm town hall. We owe our current knowledge of their provisions to three later written documents, which, however, do not agree in every detail. The first of these documents is the so-called Renewed Kulmer Handfeste , dated October 1, 1251. It was drawn up on the basis of a document in Thorn, of which, however, it is not known whether it is a second original or just one Copy of the original acted. What is certain is that some changes were made in the handfests reissued by the Order in 1251, which ultimately amounted to a curtailment of the rights granted in the original handfeast of 1233.

The second surviving document is a copy made by the Kulm town clerk Konrad Bitschin in 1431, which has been preserved in a copy collection of the town. However, he gave no information about which text his copy is based on. What is certain is that this document was written in Kulm, from which it can be concluded that another copy of the hand fests from 1233 possibly existed there. Finally, the third document is the so-called Danzig copy , which was published in 1684 by the historian Christoph Hartknoch (1644–1687) in Old and New Prussia , an extensive account of the history of Prussia.

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The Kulmer Handfeste determined the adoption of Magdeburg law for both cities - albeit with slight changes, such as B. lower rates for fines - which has been expanded to include some elements of Flemish and Freiberg law . Both cities received extensive land holdings and generous equipment for their parishes . Its citizens were granted the right to freely elect judges, who should, however, be subject to the order and the community. Associated with this was the lower jurisdiction with a share of a third of the court fines . Kulm was supposed to act as the capital and upper court - probably in connection with the central function of the old Kulm castle, which had been destroyed by the Prussians in 1216 - which meant that his councilors should answer inquiries about municipal jurisdiction and clarify any doubts.

Further provisions regulated the exercise of various sovereign rights, especially land and water rights, ferry taxes, but also the right of inheritance, military service obligations and the duties and services of the owners of country estates. Although the order reserved the right to dispose of lakes, ore and salt deposits, it granted the townspeople more extensive hunting and fishing rights than were customary in the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish duchies, and they also participated in the mill system. City citizens of both sexes had their property under the Flemish law of inheritance , which was all the more remarkable since women, for example, were only allowed to inherit movable property under Magdeburg and Polish law . Furthermore, the order assured the citizens and their goods protection from all improper taxes and duties as well as from compulsory billeting and promised to use houses in the cities that had fallen to it only as the other city citizens did. However, the order obliged the citizens who owned the land to do military service, whereby it was specified exactly how the citizen contingent had to be equipped and armed. Finally, the Flemish hoof (around 16 hectares) was established as the unit of measurement for property and the land was exempted from customs duties.

An important regulation also concerned the coinage. It was determined " that there should be a coin in the whole area and that the denarii should be made of good and pure silver " (" ut una moneta sit per totam [terram], et ut de puro et mundo argento denarii fabricentur ") , whereby 12 denarii or pfennigs should correspond to one shilling and 60 shillings to one mark . The “exchange rates” when exchanging old coins for new coins (14 old for 12 new pennies) were also much cheaper than in the Holy Roman Empire, with coins being struck relatively rarely and limited to every ten years.

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Due to the general claim of the legal norms documented in the Kulmer Handfeste and the changes made to Magdeburg city law, this was " from the beginning more ... than just the location privilege of two cities ". With the hand festival, the order had generously allowed the new settlers who had come from the west to participate in the rights it had acquired , which not only created favorable conditions for the cities founded in the order's area to flourish relatively quickly, but also attracted numerous other settlers because they were here could enjoy more extensive privileges than in the Holy Roman Empire. Because of the exemplary effect of its provisions for the entire later order territory and even beyond, the Kulmer Handfeste finally became the basis of the later so-called Kulm law. For this reason, the Kulmer Handfeste was also referred to as “ » the › Magna Charta ‹ of the Order's territory « ”.

Sources and literature

  • Johann Karl Kretzschmer: The Kulmische Handfeste. At the six hundred year celebration of their graduation . In the publishing house with Albert Baumann, Marienwerder 1832. ( full text )
  • Karola Ciesielska: Przywileje Lokacyjne Torunia. Toruń 2008, ISBN 978-83-7285-408-7 . (Polish, German and English)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ciesielska (2008), p. 25.
  2. ↑ Ciesielska (2008), p. 107.
  3. ↑ For the tradition of the Kulmer Handfeste cf. Ciesielska (2008), p. 110f.
  4. ↑ See Ciesielska (2008) with the original Latin text on pp. 25–32. On pages 47–55, 83–90 and 115–124 there are Polish, English and German translations with corresponding notes.
  5. ↑ Ciesielska (2008), pp. 31 and 120.
  6. ↑ Schilling and Mark were initially only units of account in the Order , as the pfennig remained the only coin minted there until around 1380 (initially in the form of the bracteate , later the Heller ). Ciesielska (2008), p. 121, note 5 and p. 123, note 31 and 32.
  7. ↑ Ciesielska (2008), p. 111.
  8. ↑ Quoted from Konrad Fuchs and Heribert Raab: Dictionary of History , 10th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 1996, p. 452 (keyword: Kulmer Handfeste ), ISBN 3-423-03364-9 .