Liber valoris

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The Liber valoris , short for “Liber Valoris ecclesiarum Coloniensis dioceses” (literally translated: “Book of Values ​​of the Churches of the Diocese of Cologne”), is a tax register of the Archbishops of Cologne. It contains information about the income of all ecclesiastical institutions in the Archdiocese of Cologne and was used to assess the taxes of the ecclesiastical institutions. The Liber Valoris is available in several versions that were used from the 13th to the 16th century. The older versions are no longer preserved. The oldest still comprehensible version, which is in the state archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland Department , is assigned to the year 1308 - it only exists as a copy from around 1400. The original version from around 1300/1308 was written by the then Archbishop of Cologne, Heinrich III. arranged by Virneburg .

Extract from Liber valoris 1308
Main State Archive Düsseldorf, Kurköln VIII, 13, page 6

description

In this respect, this tithe directory with its entries visible to us for the first time is considered the oldest actually surviving manuscript of the Liber Valoris; However, it is only preserved as a copy from around 1400 (see also Kurköln VIII No. 13/1). Its date has not yet been clearly established. Some authors speak of a recording period "around 1300". For the majority of researchers, however, there is sufficient evidence for a date of origin of 1308. The version of the Liber Valoris from 1308 is by no means the earliest version, but the oldest still in paper form of all parishes in the Archdiocese of Cologne .

The Liber Valoris was used to determine the decimae , a portion that was due to the Archbishop of Cologne as a so-called “ Subsidium Charitativum ” . The rates stipulated in the Liber Valoris were at least until 1548 the basis for calculating levies that are comparable to today's church taxes.

As is particularly clear from documents from the 13th century, the church's entitlement to tithe constituted the property law basis of its obligation to take care of the construction, maintenance and furnishing of places of worship.

As early as the Carolingian era , i.e. since the 9th century at the latest, individual property registers have been handed down as the basis for levies to the authorities (such as the important Prümer Urbar , which also names large areas of the Rhineland and beyond). But none of these early surveys encompass such a large and at the same time self-contained area of ​​at least 25 deaneries (the Archdiocese of Cologne) as the Liber Valoris in the transition period from the high to the late Middle Ages.

The earliest version around 1300/1308 is particularly significant because it lists a large number of newly created pastorates and vicariates in the Archdiocese of Cologne. However, there are (unfortunately lost) forerunners: There are many indications that a number of local entries for the Cologne Archbishopric were already taken from older versions of this tax book, which was created no later than 1250: The parishes of Weilerswist , Glehn or Hilberath near Rheinbach refer to a first one Entry in a Liber Valoris around 1274. Probably there are (were) earlier records from the Archdiocese of Cologne. However, all of those presumed versions of the Liber Valoris from before 1300 can no longer be found. However, they are the basis for the parish entries that have been reissued, taken over and copied over and over for decades and centuries.

Lore

Several versions of Liber Valoris from around 1300 (presumably 1308), 1378, 1390, approx. 1440, 1510 and 1575 (see Kurköln VIII No. 13 / 1–5) are in the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen (Main State Archive Düsseldorf). 22/2 and Hs. LVI).

The name “Liber Valoris” goes back to the pastor Joseph Hubert Mooren from Wachtendonk , who found an untitled codex with these same records in the documents of the Xanten monastery in the first half of the 19th century . This manuscript dates from 1348. Its original name was: Registrum decimarum civitatis et cleri Coloniensis .

As the oldest directory of all parish churches in the Diocese of Cologne , the Liber Valoris is also the oldest documented evidence for a number of localities in the region. The directory thus represents eminently important evidence for the existence of numerous communities in the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period . Anton J. Binterim and Joseph H. Mooren even go so far as to expressly note that almost all of the parishes mentioned in the Liber Valoris probably already existed at the time of Charlemagne (768 - 814) . However, this assertion is seriously questioned by Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger .

Place mentions (selection)

Alphabetical list of these places:

  • Borbeck / Essen , parish of St. Dionysius, 1308
  • Gohr / Dormagen u. Neuss, parish of St. Odilia Gohr, 1308
  • Immendorf / Cologne , St. Severin Monastery: LV 1308 as Immelendorp, 1378 Ymrnlendorp, around 1400 Y (i) mmendorff
  • Kürten , Berg. Land, parish of St. Joh. Baptist, LV 1308 as Curtine
  • Marmagen , St. Laurentius, Nettersheim community, Euskirchen district, LV 1308
  • Mechernich in the North Eifel, LV 1308

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger (Ed.): The Archdiocese of Cologne around 1300, Issue 1: Der Liber Valoris (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History XII, Explanations of the Historical Atlas of the Rhineland Vol. 9, 1), Bonn 1967 p. 9)

swell

  • Main State Archives Düsseldorf: Kurköln VIII No. 13 / 1–5, 22/2 (LV1308)
  • Main State Archives Düsseldorf: Hs. LVI (LV 1378)
  • Main State Archives Düsseldorf: Hs. 175
  • (see State Archive North Rhine-Westphalia )
  • Historical archive of the city of Cologne: holdings 295, A 1 D: 1917 photograph of the Liber Valoris from 1308

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger (Ed.): The Archdiocese of Cologne around 1300 . Book 1: The Liber Valoris . Hanstein, Bonn 1967, ( Publications of the Society for Rheinische Geschichtskunde 12), ( Explanations of the historical atlas of the Rhineland 9, 1), (General explanations; transcriptions from p. 29).
  • Anton Josef Binterim and Joseph Hubert Mooren: The old and new Archdiocese of Cologne divided into deaneries or the Archdiocese of Cologne with the foundations, deaneries, parishes and vicarages, together with their income and collators as it was ... As a contribution to the geography, statistics and history of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Simon Müller, Mainz 1828–1831. Sign: Cb 920 u. IV 485. (Together with his close friend, the pastor of Wachtendonk Joseph Hubert Mooren / 1797–1887, Binterim edited this four-volume work, which was published over three years. The first volume consists of the annotated text edition of von Mooren discovered and named Liber valoris, which includes “a complete list of all parish churches in the Cologne diocese in the fourteenth century according to their division into deaneries” and their annual income, as well as a Cologne church calendar from the 14th century and one from Xanten the 13th century. An accurate map of the old Archdiocese of Cologne is included.)

Web links

  1. ↑ Liber valoris. Retrieved October 19, 2016 .