Mainz knot uprising
Riot-like excesses in the city of Mainz between August 30 and September 3, 1790, in which students from the Electoral University of Mainz and craftsmen violently attacked each other and public security in the city temporarily collapsed, are referred to as the Mainz knot rebellion . The name goes back to knots as a (contemptuous) student name for craft boys.
course
On the evening of August 30, there were attacks by students on the accommodation of journeyman craftsmen after journeyman craftsmen had fought with students at a dance event. The craftsmen, for their part, filed a lawsuit against the students with the city authorities, but the students dismissed these lawsuits and referred to the university's own jurisdiction. On September 1, an angry mob of journeymen and apprentices from the various guilds attacked the university and beat up the students found there. History professor Nicolaus Vogt , who tried to mediate , was seriously injured. The students then caused considerable damage to property in the university.
The city authorities felt overwhelmed by this situation. A good two thirds of the Kurmainzer army was at this point in action as part of the Reich execution against Liège and the few units assigned to police and security service were either spread over the whole country or simply outnumbered. The elector and the governor of the fortress were not in the city at this time either. In addition, there was fear of an expansion of the unrest and a chain reaction like the year before in Paris.
When the rampaging artisans realized that there was no form of countermeasure by the government, they became more confident. In the course of the following day, the master craftsmen also joined them and together they began to formulate demands. Some of the rebels now called themselves “patriots” and used the symbols of the French Revolution with cockades and tricolors , although these were only a few exceptions.
The Mainz government, especially in the form of State Minister Gottlieb von Strauss and the brother of the Elector, Lothar von Erthal, tried to negotiate with the guilds, while at the same time a request for help went to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. He sent a troop of 600 to 800 men, which reached Mainz on September 3rd and ended the unrest without bloodshed. A series of arrests followed in the following days, but the sentences remained simple for some craftsmen and some students were expelled. In addition, "all gossip, conversations against religion, custom, state and sovereign ordinances" were summarily forbidden by the elector on September 10, 1790.
literature
- Christian Lübcke: Kurmainzer Military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd Coalition War, Paderborn 2016.
- Karl Klein: Georg Forster in Mainz: 1788 to 1793. Perthes, Gotha 1863, pp. 138–142 digitized
- Axel Kuhn, Jörg Schweigard: Freedom or Death! The German student movement at the time of the French Revolution. Böhlau, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-412-14705-1 , pp. 84-86
- Jörg Schweigard: Enlightenment and enthusiasm for revolution at the University of Mainz 1782–1792. GRIN, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-71329-0 , pp. 75-80
Individual evidence
- ↑ DWB Vol. 11, Sp. 1499: hence the well-known student. usage: 'knots are called the craft trail by the students'.
- ^ Christian Lübcke: Kurmainzer Military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd coalition war . Ed .: RWM-Verlag. Paderborn 2016, p. 124-146 .
- ^ Christian Lübcke: Kurmainzer Military and Landsturm in the 1st and 2nd coalition war . Ed .: RWM-Verlag. Paderborn 2016, p. 146 f .