Maria Clementine Martin

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Statue of Maria Clementine Martins at the Cologne city hall tower

Maria Clementine Martin (* May 5, 1775 as Wilhelmine Martin in Brussels ; † August 9, 1843 in Cologne ) was the inventor of the "Klosterfrau-Melissa spirit", one of the main products of the Klosterfrau Healthcare Group .

Life

Maria Clementine Martin was the daughter of the imperial-royal officer Johann Heinrich de Martin and Christine de Martin von Mergenthal. In 1783 her parents moved to Jever . She lived there until she entered the St. Anna Annunciation Convent in Coesfeld on October 2, 1792, at the age of 17 .

After the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the monastery was seized by secularization and abolished. Maria Clementine Martin then went to the Glane monastery near Gronau . This monastery was shared by the Annunties with Franciscan Sisters . As a result, it was affected by a decree by Napoleon from 1811, according to which all Franciscan monasteries were to be dissolved. This went hand in hand with economic impoverishment for the sisters. They received little compensation in the form of annual pensions.

Maria Clementine Martin finally came to the Paterskerk in Tirlemont in Brabant via her native Brussels . There is evidence of a stay there until 1815. According to various sources, Martin took care of the wounded German soldiers under General Field Marshal Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815 , possibly also during the battle. Helmut Heckelmann assigns descriptions of this kind to the legends about Martin, but is of the opinion that she was active in the Prussian hospitals and therefore by King Friedrich Wilhelm III. was honored with an annual annuity of 160 thalers.

The stay from 1815 to 1821 is not clearly documented. According to his own information, which was not precisely determined, Martin lived for eight years in Brussels in the Carmelite Convention . However, no other records have survived.

A stay in Münster from 1821 to 1825, however, is considered safe. She lived there in a house in the Münster cathedral chapter . Little is known about their work there. However, in 1821 they were investigated for medical bungling and quackery . In her submission, she wrote that from her time in Coesfeld she had experience of the healing process against “fistula and cancer damage” mediated in the local monastery and asked for permission to use it. She was denied this and the investigation, the outcome of which is unknown, was not initially closed. There was no evidence of a healing method against fistulous and cancerous diseases used in the Annuntian convent Sankt Anna in Coesfeld .

Move to Cologne

In the course of 1825 Martin came to Cologne , to the house on the Litsch 1 , which is close to the cathedral . There she probably looked after the sick 86-year-old cathedral vicar Hermann Gumpertz (* 1739), whose house it was. In this building she produced a cologne using a simple distillation process , which she advertised in the Kölnische Zeitung on November 6, 1825 with an advertisement:

“A real eau de Cologne recommended by itself is available at Litsch Nro. 1, the big bottle of 6 Sgr. 3Pf. "

The company was founded with the entry on May 23, 1826 in the municipal magistrate register ( commercial register ) under the company "Maria Clementine Martin Klosterfrau".

Gravestone for Maria Clementine Martin in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

In 1827 Martin moved into a house at Domhofgasse 19, which she rented from the Cologne Cathedral Chapter and bought in the 1830s. From there she advertised for the first time a Carmelite spirit she had produced, with an advertisement in the Kölnische Zeitung on June 17, 1827. At the same time, in addition to the already mentioned cologne, she offered lavender water and a vinegar de quatres voleurs, which was made before “pest-like Diseases ”. This designation goes back to a description according to which thieves plundered corpses on the battlefields during the French wars, whereby the rubs with the antiseptic agent should have protected them from infection by the plague and other diseases.

Melissa spirit

On July 5, 1828, Martin wrote to the Cologne government and asked for “the quality of the lemon balm water it produces to be checked and certified by the royal medical authority”. She stated that she had worked for a longer period of time as a "manufacturer" in a monastery that was financed by the production of Carmelite water. From her eight-year stay at the Carmelite Convent in Brussels, she also had “the key to this specificity as well as any member of this order […]”. Helmut Heckelmann doubts this information and found no evidence that a Carmelite or Melissa spirit was ever produced in the Coesfeld and Glane monasteries. There is also no evidence of Martin's membership in the Brussels Carmelite convent, or of the creation of a lemon balm spirit in it. The origin of the recipe for the lemon balm spirit differs from Martin's statements, but also from widespread reports that she got to know the secret recipe for "real Spanish lemon balm water" in a Westphalian monastery pharmacy.

What is undisputed, however, is that Maria Clementine Martin had the ability to produce a lemon balm spirit that was comparable to the Carmelite spirit from Regensburg , which was also available in Cologne and dominating the market at the time. Nevertheless, the Koblenz medical authority, to which the Cologne authority had submitted the case for a decision, refused to test and protect its product: A chemical analysis or a comparative test against the Regensburg competitor product is not possible due to the similarity of such products. In addition, every pharmacist can produce the comparable Alcoolat de melissa compositum , which is also approved as a medicinal product , which is why it lacks the necessary relevance for the authority to deal with recipes from monastic clergy.

Use of the Prussian eagle

About a year after this negative decision, Martin turned to King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , which she asked to be allowed to display the Prussian eagle on her products , which she underscored with her services in the service after the Battle of Waterloo. This privilege was granted to her on November 28, 1829, which made her one of the few Cologne companies producing cologne to bear the royal coat of arms. The company Johann Maria Farina across from Jülichs-Platz, for example, had tried in vain for the same competitive advantage.

In the following years, Farina led several disputes and complaints about competitors who used the Prussian eagle for their products without permission, whereby the responsible authorities initially did not intervene in their favor due to a lack of legal bases. Conversely, the companies concerned complained about Martin, because it not only uses the Prussian eagle as part of the Prussian coat of arms, but also the entire Prussian middle coat of arms to mark business and goods, which is not covered by their royal approval. In addition to the actual eagle, this coat of arms contained a crown on the coat of arms as well as the Prussian provincial and territorial coats of arms. It was flanked by two “wild men” as shield bearers. Martin succeeded in responding to the Cologne government authority and to the Westphalian President Baron von Vincke in July 1830, however, in obtaining approval for the use of the complete coat of arms, which allowed them to maintain their competitive advantage.

Differentiation from competitors

Although their main product, Melissengeist, did not have a significant unique selling point in its composition, Martin was very successful in establishing and defending a good market position for her company despite some setbacks. On October 17, 1831, she deposited her "factory mark" with the council of trade experts of the city of Cologne. In 1832 she applied to the Prussian government for the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute the product Melissa spirit and recognition as a medicinal product. Until then, it was only allowed to sell as a perfume. Despite the benevolent treatment of the application by the Cologne authorities, which was already restrictive for the competitors in the run-up to an outstanding ministry decision, the Berlin government rejected the application on March 15, 1834 after a long processing time. The inadmissibility of restricting pharmacists who could prepare the product on prescription at any time and who, apart from that, were solely authorized to manufacture pharmaceuticals, was again pointed out.

The lemon balm spirit was officially only allowed to continue to be sold as a cosmetic and competition in this product segment was not regulated in favor of Martin. Since Melissengeist products were sold, more or less subtly, with reference to medical applications, there were still interventions against competitors, but not against Martin, who enjoyed a certain protection, not least because of the royal approval to use the coat of arms. Martin himself successfully reported a competitor in Cologne in 1835 who wanted to sell the Carmelite spirit imported from Regensburg with an instruction leaflet aimed at medical use, although she herself used very similar papers.

In order to gain international renown, she took part in the "Art and Industry Exhibition" organized by the trade association in Cologne from May 27, 1838 to July 4, 1838 on the Heumarkt . On August 30, 1842, advertisements appeared in the Kölnische Zeitung about her melissa spirit. Shortly before her death, she wrote her will on April 5, 1843, in which she made “Peter Schaeben, who lives with me”, “heir to my entire fortune in the confidence that he will faithfully preserve the pious disposition that has been demonstrated throughout his life”. Maria Clementine Martin died on August 9, 1843 and was buried in the Melaten cemetery with great sympathy. Her grave is a listed building . After her death in August 1843, her water received a first award at the London World's Fair , which took place between May and October 1851. She bequeathed the company to her assistant Peter Gustav Schaeben (* 1815, † 1885), who expanded it considerably and sold the products worldwide.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Heckelmann : Maria Clementine Martin (1775–1843) , (= Research on Folklore , Issue 62), Monsenstein and Vannerdat Publishing House , Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-95645-480-6 , (also dissertation from the Faculty of Law, University Regensburg ), 2014, p. 30.
  2. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 48
  3. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 48ff.
  4. ↑ Bernd Dreher and Claudia Valder-Knechtges: Life and Legends of the Council Tower Figures , in: Hiltrud Kier , Bernd Ernsting, Ulrich Krings (eds.), Cologne: The Council Tower. His story and his program of figures , (= Stadtspuren - Monuments in Cologne , Volume 21), Bachem, Cologne 1996, ISBN 978-3-7616-1156-2 , pp. 373–653, p. 514.
  5. ^ Heckelmann: Maria Clementine Martin (1775–1843) . S. 56 .
  6. ^ Heckelmann: Maria Clementine Martin (1775–1843) . S. 57-58 .
  7. ^ Heckelmann: Maria Clementine Martin (1775–1843) . S. 59-66 .
  8. ↑ The small street Auf der Litsch was in the vicinity of the cathedral and led downhill past the west facade of the Cologne Cathedral in a north-south direction and connected Trankgasse and the cathedral monastery.
  9. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 75
  10. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 68
  11. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 79ff.
  12. ↑ quoted from Heckelmann, p. 91
  13. ↑ quoted from Heckelmann, p. 92
  14. ^ Significant economic enterprises in the Cologne area , in: Hundred and Fifty Years Administrative Region Cologne , Landesdienst-Verlag, Berlin-West, 1966, p. 422; DNB 457248386 .
  15. ↑ Heckelmann, pp. 93-94
  16. ↑ Heinz-Kurt Wahren: Success factor innovation: Systematically generate, evaluate and implement ideas. Springer-Verlag, Berlin a. a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-642-17033-1 , p. 226, limited preview in Google Book Search.
  17. ↑ Heckelmann, p. 96
  18. ↑ Heckelmann, pp. 107-112
  19. ↑ Heckelmann, pp. 143–155
  20. ↑ Heckelmann, pp. 156-175
  21. ↑ Heiko Hünemeyer (Ed.): Schaebens Jubilee Book - 75 Years Haus Schaeben & 175 Years A. Moras & Comp. Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-940371-00-3 , p. 16, (PDF; 4.29 MB), accessed on March 22, 2020.
  22. ↑ Ursula Köhler-Lutterbeck: With God and the Prussians . In: Die Zeit , May 8, 2003, No. 20.
  23. ^ Petra Witting:  Martin, Maria Clementine. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 292 ( digitized version ).
  24. ↑ Louisa Knobloch: At 77, attorney Helmut Heckelmann did his doctorate at the University of Regensburg - the subject has occupied him since 1975. In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung , January 21, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Martin, Maria Clementine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Martin, Wilhelmine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Inventor of the monastery woman melissa spirit
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1775
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1843
Place of death Cologne