Mill law
The right to plant, i.e. to build and operate mills, was called mill law or mill justice in the Middle Ages . The mills were particularly protected by the mill peace . The rights and obligations of the miller were regulated, among other things, by guilds , but above all by the mill order, for the granting of the mill right a mill interest or water flow interest was paid.
Background and definition
The mill law was one of the regalia (royal sovereignty, " mill shelf "). The mill law was based on the manor and the associated right to dispose of the land and the facilities on it.
The rulers, (large) cities or churches and monasteries have had mill justice on their sovereign territories since the 12th century. This right, which had been transferred to them by their king , could be passed on to other people through the feudal system and they could claim mill interest for it. The mill buildings were mostly fiefs that fell back to the fiefdoms after the death of the fiefdoms.
The place of the mill was a special legal space guaranteed by the mill peace. For incidents in the mill (e.g. murder, accidents, destruction of customers' property through fire or theft), different regulations have been issued from place to place. The miller's liability for damages also extended to the mill ditches and ponds belonging to the mill. Rights of use for fishing, driving and rafting in the mill ditches etc. often collided with the mill shelf.
A regional peculiarity was in Franconia , where the hereditary interest loan was common, i.e. the mill could be passed on directly from the miller to his successor. In Westerwald that was long lease in the mill being widespread.
With the expansion and modification of mill technology for different manufacturing processes (e.g. tanneries, gunpowder, cardboard and paper) and the needs of mining and smelting technology (stamp mills, water lifts, hammer forges, smelters), corresponding legal aspects had to be regulated. From the 19th century the mill justice explicitly in land registers and land registers listed.
literature
- Jutta Böhm: Mill bike tour. Routes: Kleinziegenfelder Tal and Bärental , Weismain environmental station in the Lichtenfels district, Weismain / Lichtenfels (Lichtenfels district), 2000, 52 pages (numerous illustrations, canton).
- Daniel Schneider: The mill trade in the county of Sayn-Altenkirchen , in: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Kreis Altenkirchen 59 (2016), pp. 219–237 (with an illustration of the development of mill law).
- Bernhard Großfeld , Andreas Möhlenkamp: The mill in fairy tales and law. To link business, culture and law . In Neue Juristische Wochenschrift , 1996, issue 17, pp. 1103–1111 text without footnote in bockwindmuehle-wettmar