Copper master
Kupfermeister is the name of early modern brass producers in Aachen and later in neighboring Stolberg . They ran the copper yards there from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century .
Although the designation "copper master" reminds of the guild-legal origins in premodern or bound production forms and relationships, the trade of copper master, who rightly called themselves "brass manufacturers" since the 18th century, was through the integration of various production steps, the use of non-organic natural forces and a high level of capital expenditure an important stage in early industrialization.
Aachen
The Aachen brass industry owes its origins and growth to a large extent to immigrants from the west. Daniel van der Kannen (other versions: Chamen, Kammen), who came to Aachen from the neighboring Maas area around the middle of the 15th century and worked there with the Düppengießer family, set up a special copper club ambacht in Aachen in 1450. After the destruction of Dinant in 1466 by Charles the Bold , it was moved by the Amya , Momma and Byda families . As part of the second Aachen gaff letter , from 1513 onwards, as a recognized guild, they were finally entitled to appoint councilors from their ranks.
Only brass that had been extracted from Altenberger Galmei and Mansfeld copper was allowed to be stamped with the Aachen city arms . A notarial deed from 1559 mentions 69 copper masters by name. At the same time there were 1,000 copper servants. In 1581 a source reports that several thousand people feed the brass industry in the city. In 1578, the boilermakers, who processed the semi-finished products of the rich copper masters and were often dependent on them, founded their own outfit with 56 members. The city of Aachen's ban on setting up so-called depth hammers for the further processing of brass, which would have made the Kesslers unemployed, was a serious restriction for the copper masters, who operated a capital, technology and investment-intensive form of business.
From Aachen to Stolberg
Since the copper masters in Aachen did not have sufficient hydropower due to guild regulations that favored their competition for this resource, their relocation of production began before the religious unrest in Aachen came to a head in the course of the Counter-Reformation . As early as 1551, many copper masters were supporters of the Protestant faith and contributed significantly to this religious movement in Aachen. In 1580 the Protestants won a majority in the city council, and three years later freedom of religion was permitted in the city. In contrast, the emperor demanded the expulsion of the Protestants. That is why Catholic princes tried to bring the copper masters to their knees as their “most distinguished leaders” by blocking the raw materials and fuels calamine, copper and coal . Philip II blocked the Altenberg calamine deliveries. When these measures were unsuccessful, Rudolf II imposed a ban on Aachen in 1598 . After the capture by the Spaniards under Ambrosio Spinola in 1614, the practice of the Protestant religion was immediately forbidden. The two leaders of the Protestant party were executed two years later at the behest of imperial commissioners. Many Protestants were expelled or left Aachen of their own accord. As a result, the copper masters also hit the increased taxes on economic activity to finance defensive measures of the city in response to their income.
The Lords of Efferen promoted the relocation of the copper masters from Aachen to the Stolberg rulership with its favorable natural location factors such as rich deposits of calamine, forests for wood and charcoal production, water from the Vichtbach (also known as the Vicht) and hard coal in the adjacent Indian area to the north . In 1564, the lord of the castle, Johann von Efferen, had to answer to the Duke of Jülich for allowing “people contaminated with Calvinist, sacramentary, Anabaptist or other suspicious teachings” to stay. From 1592 to 1606, Johann von Efferen made the castle chapel available to the Lutherans for their services.
In 1575, the Aachen copper master Leonard Schleicher built the first copper yard in Stolberg and three more in the following years. In 1598 there were already a good dozen, in 1663 90 to 95 smelting furnaces were working in Stolberg. At the same time, the number of ovens in Aachen fell from 100 in 1603 to 12 to 25 in 1663. Production was relocated, in which the Aachen city fire in 1656 also played a role, but no expansion took place. Total production in both cities during this period should have been 30,000 quintals of brass annually.
Although the Aachen copper master and later owner of the Dollart hammer , Heinrich Dollart , came to Stolberg as early as 1497 , brass production played a subordinate role there in the first half of the 16th century, alongside iron, lead and precious metal extraction. It was the copper masters who provided the decisive impetus for the upswing of this branch of industry. The Stolberg copper masters in particular invented processes to mix the inferior calamine of the region with the high-quality Altenberger calamine without sacrificing quality and thus to work particularly economically. Since the Aacheners enjoyed duty-free trade in the empire and in France until the end of the 16th century , the copper masters initially only relocated production to Stolberg. Because of the dismantling of these customs privileges, the headquarters were also moved there, in many cases only after the Peace of Westphalia . In Stolberg, the copper masters did not form a guild, but a kind of cartel , which was confirmed in 1667 by a guild privilege of the Count Palatine and Duke of Jülich Philipp Wilhelm .
Economic, social and political role in Stolberg
The copper masters have shaped Stolberg's townscape to this day: two Protestant churches, the Vogelsang Church and the Finkenberg Church with the copper master cemetery and numerous copper yards, bear witness to their work to this day.
In 1621 a complaint was made that the most distinguished Stolberg copper masters lived in the adjacent Wilhelmstein office . In the 17th century, the copper masters made the copper courts increasingly representative, so that they offered the opportunity to receive noble guests in a fitting manner. In addition to the miracles that members of a guild used to mark their products, the copper masters also wore coats of arms, which can still be seen at the copper yards today. Like the barons of Merode and Collenbach , Johann Schleicher the Elder had the master potter Jacob Kuckertz from Langerwehe put a water pipe to his residence, the Kupferhof Rosenthal .
During the heyday of the brass industry in the 17th and 18th centuries, around forty copper master families were active in Stolberg. The best known are Beck, Dollart, Hansen, Lynen, Mewis, Momma, Peltzer , Prym , Schardinel, Schleicher , von Asten and Wuppermann. The Hoeschs , who were riding masters in the upper reaches of the Vichtbach , also worked as copper masters in Stolberg and originally came from Aachen.
Although the copper masters imitated the aristocratic way of life with representative residences and burial places, coats of arms and family portraits, dynastic continuity with marriage and inheritance connections as well as property disputes , they were not elevated to the nobility. Rather, their increased self-confidence was probably the reason that in Stolberg a local parish headed by a mayor opposed the lord of the castle as a separate legal subject in litigation. After Odilia von Efferen deviated from the Reformation-friendly line of her predecessor, the servants of the copper masters successfully fought back 50 to 60 Stolberg riflemen who had been sent by the lord of the castle to enforce his claims to water rights and copper yards against the abbot of Kornelimünster . Although the copper masters conducted internal disputes over property, they were able to work together to defend the resources necessary for their trade. In this way, they prevented the water of the Vichtbach from driving drainage pumps in the Birkengang pit instead of the hammers, mills and bellows of their copper yards, and in the dispute over charcoal they prevailed so successfully against the riding masters of the upper Vichttal that a number of riding stables were converted into copper yards and copper mills were.
literature
- Peltzer, Rudolf Arthur, History of the brass industry and the artistic work in brass (Dinanderies) in Aachen and the countries between the Meuse and the Rhine from Roman times to the present, In: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein , Vol. 30, 1908, pp. 235– 463.
- Hans Pohl: Copper extraction, copper processing and copper trade in the Aachen-Stolberg area from 1500 to 1650. In: Hermann Kellenbenz (Hrsg.): Main focus of copper production and copper trade in Europe 1500 to 1650. Cologne, Vienna 1977.
- Schleicher, Karl, History of the Stolberg Brass Industry, Stolberg 1956.