Merlau contract

The Merlau Treaty was signed on September 8, 1583 between Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel and the new Archbishop of Mainz, Wolfgang von Dalberg, in Merlau , now a part of the community of Mücke in the Vogelsberg district in Hesse .

In the contract, the two sides agreed on long-smoldering border conflicts between Kurmainz and the Landgraviate, whereby almost all of the remaining Mainz possessions in northern Hesse finally fell to the Landgraviate, but Hesse-Kassel gave up its claims in Eichsfeld . All of the pledges made during the Mainz collegiate feud finally came to Hesse for a further payment of 40,000 guilders. This affected the offices of Battenberg and Wetter, along with the castles Kellerburg (near Battenberg) and Mellnau, as well as the places Rosenthal , Hofgeismar , Jesberg and a number of villages (including Linsingen and Hertingshausen ).

The ore monastery of Mainz then only kept Fritzlar in Hesse , the Naumburg , Neustadt and city and office of Amöneburg redeemed by Landgrave Ludwig IV of Hesse-Marburg from the counts of Waldeck and returned to the ore monastery in 1588 , as well as the right to redeem for half of Itter's rule .

In a subsequent contract on Eschwege between Hessen and Kurmainz, territorial disputes were settled in 1583 and the affiliation of villages in the Werra valley was clarified. The former Electoral Mainz Frieda and Hessian Döringsdorf (with the Keudelstein ) were swapped and the border between Hesse and the Eichsfeld was set with 343 boundary stones. This boundary definition still forms the border between Hesse and Thuringia today. In this context, a detailed map of the entire border area in the southern Eichsfeld to the neighboring Hesse was made. The colored map by an unknown cartographer is 3.13 by 0.63 meters and was found again in the 1950s. After it was exhibited at the Museum Gülden Kreuz in Worbis, it has been located in the Landesarchiv in Weimar since 2017 .

literature

Friedrich P. Kahlenberg: Consolidation and consolidation of the territorial state in the second half of the 16th century. The Merlau Treaty of 1582 between Hesse and Mainz. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 14. 1964, ISBN 3-921254-14-0 .

Web links

August Heldmann: On the older history of the monastery, the church and city of Wetter, and Mellnau Castle. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. New series, volume 24, first half, Kassel, 1899, pp. 120–121.

Individual evidence

^ Friedrich Rehm: Handbook of the history of both Hesse. First volume, Marburg / Leipzig 1842, fourth book, first chapter, §37, pp. 62–64.
^ Archives in Hessen: Treaty to Eschwege on the exchange of villages between Hessen and Mainz. HStAM inventory 40a rubr. 54 No. 183
↑ Sigrid Aschoff: Farewell to an old map. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung . 15th December 2017.

[1] Friedrich Rehm: Handbook of the history of both Hesse. First volume, Marburg / Leipzig 1842, fourth book, first chapter, §37, pp. 62–64.

[2] Archives in Hessen: Treaty to Eschwege on the exchange of villages between Hessen and Mainz. HStAM inventory 40a rubr. 54 No. 183

[3] Sigrid Aschoff: Farewell to an old map. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung . 15th December 2017.