Lueneburg saltworks

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The Lüneburg saltworks was a plant that was used in Lüneburg until 1980 for salt production . Deposits of the 250 million year old Zechstein Sea are relatively close to the surface near Lüneburg and could therefore be dismantled early on with simple means.

According to legend, a hunter killed a snow-white wild boar, the color of which was due to crystallized salt. The sow basked in a salt spring, the first salt spring was discovered around the year 800 in Lüneburg.

function

Salt mining has determined the life of the city of Lüneburg since the 12th century. Table salt was very valuable at that time. It was measured in the unit choir (1 choir = 554.32 kg), with one choir corresponding to around 300 Reichsmarks . The salt works , which was located between Sülzwiese and Kalkberg and had its main gate on Lambertiplatz, was surrounded by strong walls and tall towers.

To promote the salt trade, the Stecknitz Canal and a crane were built on today's Stint , a former Stint market at the port. The Am Sande square , unpaved but sandy in the Middle Ages, served the merchants as a trading place for their goods, including salt.

Construction of the salt works

The center was formed by the sod (= salt well) surrounded by 54 boiling huts . The four boiling pans of the boiling huts, named after their first owners, were supplied with brine via channels and channels . The brine was transported from the boiling chamber to the surface in buckets and distributed from there to the 216 boiling pans. On the Siedegelände is also one of the retail selling serving was salt Bude , and a charge of judicial affairs salt inches Bude .

Pan forge in the medieval saltworks
Boiling pan of the Lüneburg salt works (around 1775?), The only surviving specimen of around 340,000 similar pieces

Ownership

The owners of the pans were called Sülzbegüterte and were not necessarily based in Lüneburg. They did not settle their pans themselves, but leased them to people who were entitled to boil in Lüneburg. If a person entitled to boil had leased at least four pans, he was called a Sülfmeister and was entitled to his own boiling hut. However, a master boiler was never allowed to boil more than two huts, i.e. eight pans. The lease amounted to half of the pan yield.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the wealthy people were divided into clergymen and nobles. Between the years 1250 and 1320 there was an increasing increase in bourgeois ownership shares, which ran parallel to the decrease in the aristocratic Sülz wealthy. In 1370 civil and clerical pan ownership was almost the same, although 100 years later three quarters of the pans belonged to the clergy wealthy people, who were called prelates.

In addition to the boilers and boilers, there was also the bar master and the sod master. The bar master was the head of the pan forge (= bar) in which the pans were poured. He was elected by the Sülfmeister and the city council. The sod master took care of the distribution of the brine and was elected by the drinkers and the city council.

Sülzhilfe

The Sülzhilfe was a tax from the prelates to the council for the reduction of city debts.

Here, the clergymen had to give up part of their saline income, starting with the tenth part of the pfennig, the share increased over time to a quarter of the pfennig. Although the fourth part of their saline income was paid in 1442, the city debts could not be covered.

For this reason, from 1445 double the brawn aid was to be paid, that is, the second part of the pfennig had to be given to the council. Above all, the Butenland family , as well as the Lüneburg provost Scharper, showed their distrust of the council by refusing to provide the required amount of the boil aid. The Lüneburg Prelate War developed from this conflict .

See also

literature

  • Tobias Reimers : The origin, goodness and justice of the noble Süllenzen zu Lüneburg: with a thorough outline of the Süllenzen . Lippern, Lüneburg 1710, digitized
  • Karl Bachmann: The pensioners of the Lüneburg salt works (1200-1370) . Hildesheim 1983
  • 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, pp. 1-3
  • Axel Janowitz: The Lüneburg saltworks in the 18th and 19th centuries . 2003, ISBN 978-3-89534-435-0
  • Elmar Peter: History of a 1000 year old city 956–1956 . Lüneburg 1999, p. 191 f.
  • Wilhelm Reinecke: History of the city of Lüneburg . 2 volumes. 2nd Edition. Lüneburg 1977 (1933)
  • Wilhelm Friedrich Volger: The Lüneburg Sülze . 1956
  • Manfred Balzer: The Lüneburg Saltworks - From the industrial ruin to the industrial museum . Lueneburg 2009
  • Harald Witthöft: The Lüneburg Saltworks. Salt in Northern Europe and the Hanseatic League from 12. – 19. Century, an economic and cultural history of long duration . (De Sulte, Vol, 22), Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rhaden / Westf. 2010, ISBN 978-3-89646-060-8

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