Lüneburg Prelate War

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The Lüneburg Prelate War was not a war in the strict sense, but a relatively bloodless, albeit hateful, conflict between the City Council of Lüneburg and the clergy who owned the brawn pans.

Causes and history

The causes of the war went back to 1371. The city had successfully held its own against Duke Magnus and suffered heavy losses . In total, the debts already amounted to 100,000 marks at the time, which the citizens did not want to raise alone.

The Wittenberg rulers in office since 1373 ( Albrecht (Sachsen-Wittenberg) until 1385 and Wenzel I (Sachsen-Wittenberg) until 1388) decreed that every resource available in the city (including the saltworks) had to be used to reduce debt. That would have hit the Sülfmeister as the leaseholder of the salt pans . However, they did not want to pay so much and as council members demanded that the prelates of the surrounding parishes should be financially more burdened as owners.

The prelates refused to participate, the Lüneburgers exceeded their competencies and made excessive use of the salt pans. As a result, the prelates erwirkten the excommunication against the city, but this was canceled in 1374. The prelates now, however, granted a greater financial contribution on the condition that their property was respected. The concession was repeatedly confirmed (until the last time in 1388), because Lüneburg's debts continued to grow due to wars of succession.

Exacerbation of the conflict

For the next 40 years, the situation in Lüneburg was moderate despite high political instability outside the city gates. That changed, however, with the death of Boldewin von Wenden , who always acted as a mediator between the council and the prelate (1441). The prelates meanwhile paid 25% of their income to the city, but the debts amounted to 550,000 marks (1450). This was due on the one hand to the construction of a second city wall and on the other hand to the unscheduled contributions that had to be paid to the sovereigns.

In 1445, the dispute came to a head when the council demanded half of the salt income from the prelates. Although the monasteries were ready for this after a while, the Provost zu Lüne , Diderik Schaper, made sure that at the last moment the prelates began to believe that the council was demanding excessive sums. As a result of the dispute, Lüneburg lost its credibility.

In 1451 the Pope sent a spokesman who ruled that the prelates should pay. A little later, however, the instruction was canceled again. When Schaper was removed from office by the council and the council received the church's invitation to reinstate him only after the ultimatum had expired, he was put under a spell. This initially had no effect, as clergymen who refused to hold masses for council members were summoned to the town hall, where they were advised to leave the country.

In October 1454, the ban on church was finally confirmed and the freedom of birds was added. Citizens were given 30 days to remove the council if the ban was not extended again. A visit to the Pope was unsuccessful for the council. The mood of the citizens changed at the news and despite a citizens' meeting, the citizens put together a council of 60 people and asked for the keys to the city gates and wall towers. The council gave in to stop a revolution.

The new council and the 60s

After further negotiations, the freedom of the Council was finally guaranteed if it voluntarily resigned from office. This also happened immediately. However, the prelates demanded from the new council elected by the sixties that, on the one hand, 285,000 marks were to be paid to them from the private assets of the old council, and, on the other hand, that all tax revenues should be used to repay debt. This caused hatred and passion on both sides, especially as both parties refused to believe that the city debt hadn't arisen in recent years, but was the result of spending much further back, which the old council presented in a bill. The old councilors were expropriated by the council on December 12, 1454 and placed under house arrest. Johan Springintgut asked for time to think about it and was imprisoned on personal orders from Schaper (meanwhile town councilor) without any contact with the outside world and died shortly afterwards (July 15, 1455).

Intervention of the emperor and settlement of the conflict

In 1456, Diderich Springintgut, brother of Johann Springintgut, who had died in prison, and his friend Nikolas Stoketo presented to the emperor and asked for satisfaction for the deceased and for the emperor to intervene in the increasingly escalating conflict. The request was unexpectedly successful, the emperor ordered the immediate reinstatement of the old council, and the dismissal of the new council. In Lüneburg, however, Schaper tore the emperor's bull from the church door, which in turn did not prevent the citizens from gaining knowledge of the instruction. Schaper's deed so indignant many Lüneburgers that on November 10th that year a spontaneous, if bloodless, revolt broke out on the market square. The new council gave in to the demand, the old council was released from the camp and introduced into the old office. Almost two weeks later, the official recognition by Duke Bernd took place.

In 1458 two former guards at Springintgut were tried, Schaper lost office and dignity and had to leave the city. After further confusion and repeated pronouncement, affirmation and revocation of the ban on church and the ban on the empire, the conflict with the prelates only came to an end when a compromise in the form of a contract was concluded in 1462 in Reinfeld Monastery , one of the larger shareholders. Shortly afterwards, the ban on the church and the ban on the Reich were finally lifted.

consequences

The Reinfeld Treaty enabled the city of Lüneburg to settle a large part of its debts, the peace treaty with the Emperor and Pope opened up new opportunities for trade and the Hanseatic League had proven its worth in protecting cities from access by princes.

literature

  • Heinrich Lange : Chronicle of the Prelate War in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz : Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium , 3 vols. Hanover 1707–1711. (Source collection published by Leibniz on Guelph and Lower Saxony history), p. 233 ff. Digitalised version of the ULB Düsseldorf
  • Georg Friedrich Francke: The Lüneburgsche so-called. Prelate war . In: Fifth and sixth annual reports of the Museum Association for the Principality of Lüneburg 1882–1883 . Lüneburg 1884, p. 1-48 .
  • Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller: "Pfaffenkriege" in the late medieval Hanseatic region. Sources and studies on Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Lüneburg and Rostock (=  urban research ). C. Köln, Vienna 1988 (2 vols.).
  • Elmar Peter: Lüneburg - history of a 1000 year old city 956–1956 . Lüneburg 1999, ISBN 3-922616-15-1 .
  • Wilhelm Reinecke: History of the city of Lüneburg . 2nd Edition. Lüneburg 1977 (2 vol., First edition 1933).
  • Robert Gramsch: Municipal society and church in the so-called "Lüneburg Prelate War" (1446-62) . In: S. Schmitt, S. Klapp (ed.): Urban society and church in the late Middle Ages . Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-515-08573-1 , pp. 93-122 .
  • Silke Springensguth: Death in the Tower. The role of personal and social relationships in conflicts of the Middle Ages using the example of the Lüneburg Prelate War (Diss. 2004)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Ernst Hermann Krause:  Springintgut, Johann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 35, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 322-325.