Knowledgeable role
The Kundige Rolle , in Low German "Kundige Rulle" , was a fundamental legal document of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen . It was used to read out current law.
prehistory
The first consistently effective codification of Bremen's city law was recorded in book form. There were even blank pages in the book for later additions. Political conflicts in the early 15th century led to a restructuring and partial amendment of the regulations. The resulting original texts of the constitution and the embarrassing criminal law of 1428 and 1433 have been preserved. In order to demonstrate its isolation, it was decided to record all further provisions separately in the form of a scroll.
1450
The knowledgeable rule from 1450 has been preserved as a copy in the Ratsdenkelbuch . It contained the main features of Bremen's city law and subsequent council ordinances. The texts also referred to an older, lost, knowledgeable rule. They were written on parchment paper that was sewn together to form a roll. The regulations were presented annually on the 4th Lent Sunday Laetare (3rd Sunday before Easter) in front of the Bremen Town Hall , the Bursprake , first probably from the proclamation arbor in front of the upper town hall hall, then by the star chamber above the small town hall arbor above the entrance to the Ratskeller . First of all, all regulations were read out, in the 15th century only the police regulations .
1489
In the knowledgeable rule of 1489, the content of the knowledgeable rule from 1450 was adopted and supplemented by 1513. As with the previous model, new parchment sheets were sewn on. It has a length of 6.93 meters and is 15 cm wide. It comprises 225 articles.
16th to 19th century
In 1513 the council pronouncements and proclamation were replaced by novellas. The oldest surviving booklet of the office copy contains changes up to 1549. The second copy contains the changes from the second half of the 16th century, which was followed by changes from 1606 to the middle of the 17th century and one copy with changes between 1656 and 1756.
The knowledgeable rule was still written in notebook form in Low German , but has not been read publicly since 1756.
After an interruption during the French era , the old regulations were reinstated in 1813. Only after the revolution of 1848 did Bremen adopt a new, democratic constitution in 1849, which in turn was replaced by a conservative constitution in 1854, which greatly favored the higher classes.
Buyback of the oldest roll, which has been missing since the Second World War, edition
In the Second World War , the knowledgeable role was outsourced and has been lost since then.
It was only rediscovered in May 2014 at a dealer in California and was repurchased by the Bremen State Archives . Only the expenses incurred by the trading company had to be reimbursed.
It has been generally accessible as a reprint since the following month. After a scientific introductory text, a photograph of the original document, a transcription of the original text and a High German translation are compared in columns.
literature
- Herbert Schwarzwälder : The Great Bremen Lexicon , Edition Temmen , Bremen 2003. ISBN 3-86108-693-X
Edition
- Jan Ulrich Büttner, Konrad Elmshäuser , Adolf E. Hofmeister : Die Kundige Rolle from 1489 , Verlag Bremer Tageszeitungen AG, June 2014. ISBN 978-3-938795-47-7
- Original text (PDF with 8.3 MB )
supporting documents
- ^ Constitution of the State of Bremen. Published on March 21, 1849 (PDF)
- ↑ weser-kurier.de/Weser-Kurier from 26./27. May 2014 Historical sensation in Bremen: The knowledgeable role is back [1]
- ↑ welt.de/Die Welt from 26./27. May 2014 Looted art: Bremen's lost right reappeared [2]
- ↑ taz.de/tagzeitung from 26./27. May 2014 Sensational find: Bremen legal again [3]
- ^ Announcement from the Senate Press Office of May 26, 2014 - Sensational find: Knowledgeable role from 1489 back