Mathias Mulich

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Mathias Mulich (1470–1528) ( Jacob van Utrecht )

Mathias Mulich , also Mattes (* before 1470 in Nuremberg ; † December 2, 1528 in Lübeck ) was a German long-distance merchant of the late Middle Ages from the Nuremberg merchant family Mulich. His brother Paul's shopping book from 1495 and the 29 letters that relatives, friends and business partners sent him from Lübeck to Nuremberg in the winter of 1522/23 are important sources for the economic and social history of the late Hanseatic era .

Origin and family

Mulich was born in Nuremberg as the son of the local long-distance trade merchant Kunz (Conrad) Mulig the Elder († 1473), who himself had been trading as an Upper German merchant in Lübeck since 1436. The Mulich family did not belong to the Nuremberg patriciate . In 1470 Kunz Mulich was from Emperor Friedrich III. the family coat of arms, a man with two burning branches, awarded.

When his father died, Mathias Mulich was still a minor himself. The inherited trading business was taken over by his sons, especially the older brothers Kunz the Elder. J., Hans and Paul, but later also Mathias Mulich himself considerably expanded. The Mulich merchant family is considered to be a prime example of the successful penetration of southern German trading houses into the trade in the Hanseatic cities on the southern Baltic coast in the late Middle Ages. Kunz d. As the elder of the brothers, J. remained a citizen of the city of Nuremberg, although he can be traced back to Lübeck in 1470. With Hans Mulich, the first Mulich married in 1476 into a Lübeck council family and received an impressive dowry of around 7,000 marks. With this capital the trade between northern and southern Germany could be increased considerably. At the same time, the first mulich acquired citizenship in Lübeck . In 1510 the brother Paul accepted the citizenship of Lübeck.

Life

Mathias Mulich lived in Lübeck since 1490, where he was a member of the Leonhard, Antonius and Corpse Brotherhood as well as the Society of the Schonenfahrer, but only acquired citizenship of the city in 1514. In the same year Nuremberg released him from citizenship.

Mathias Mulich married Katharina von Stiten , daughter of Lübeck's mayor Hartwig von Stiten , in 1515 , and after her death in 1518 Katharina, b. Kortzack (Kortsack, Herb Gryf ). He was related by marriage to the powerful Lübeck council families Castorp , Lüneburg and Kerckring and was accepted into the powerful circle society in 1515 . In the same year he was the creator of the brotherhood responsible for the Marientides in the Marienkirche .

In the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck , two discs carved in oak with his coat of arms and that of his second wife ( Greif ), which came from Lübeck's Petrikirche , have been preserved . The Mulichs were fond of the Lübeck Carnival , as can be seen from a traditional letter from Lübeck Councilor Hinrich Kerckring to Mulich from 1523. As early as 1515 he had been a carnival poet for the circle society.

Mathias Mulich died childless in 1528 and was buried in the Katharinenkirche , his grave has not been preserved.

shops

Paul Mulich's shopping book from 1495

The development of the Mulichs' business can only be guessed at today. An idea is conveyed in the shopping book of 1495, which lists the purchases that Brother Paul Mulich made for and against the account of his brother Mathias, i.e. as his commission agent, at the Frankfurt Lent Fair. The total amount of 7,655 Rhenish guilders (equivalent to 11,483 marks Lübisch ) is impressive. At the same time, the book contains a breakdown from which the goods purchased for Mathias Mulich can be read. The clear focus of purchasing is in the luxury goods segment:

  • Pearls, jewelry made of precious metal for 3,040 guilders
  • Luxury fabrics (e.g. velvet from Northern Italy) for 1,720 guilders
  • Fine silver for 1,481 guilders
  • Arms and equipment for 505 guilders
  • Spices for 315 guilders
  • Paper from Lombardy 116 guilders.

The suppliers of this trade fair purchase are also noted and show other Upper German trading houses as suppliers with the respective purchase volume: the Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft with 850 guilders, Georg Fugger and Peter Watt with 700 guilders each.

In return, but there is already a lack of documentation, the raw products from Northern and Eastern Europe will have been sold at such a fair.

The source of the shopping book shows the importance of the often underestimated land trade in northern and southern Germany in relation to trade with Flanders and the local Hanseatic office in Bruges across the sea. At the same time, it is foreseeable that the Frankfurt / M. was on a par with the Bruges exhibition center in trade with the Baltic Sea region.

international economic Relations

From the shopping list you can also draw conclusions about the customers of the merchant Mathias Mulich: He supplied the surrounding royal courts of Northern Germany and the kings John and Christian II of Denmark with what they needed for the representative side of their court holdings. Mulich had been financier and purveyor to the court of Duke Friedrich I of Schleswig and Holstein since 1490 and also supplied the Danish kings. He maintained a good relationship with their councilors. When Duke Friedrich Anna of Brandenburg married in 1502 and at the same time her brother Joachim married the Danish Princess Elisabeth , Mathias Mulich was responsible for the financial realization of the double wedding between the Danish royal house and the Electorate of Brandenburg . The fact that the dowry was paid out on time was a notable exception, thanks mainly to Mulich.

The Mulichs also did banking from Lübeck. The north German nobility like the Rantzaus , but also the surrounding ruling houses, borrowed money from him. The payment behavior of the princes was not always good: Mulich's correspondence from 1522/23 shows that Duke Friedrich, for example, did not repay the money he borrowed for the war against Christian II because of the high war costs. In addition to pure trading, the Mulich brothers also carried out financial transactions such as a bank in the tradition of the Italian banker Gherardo Bueri, who died in Lübeck in 1449 . They benefited from a political change in trade flows in Europe.

Copper and silver trading

On August 25, 1515, Mathias Mulich received from the Danish King Christian II, who was indebted to him, an 18-hectare property for this and his father at Oldesloe to set up and operate the copper mill at the Beste . Mathias Mulich was no stranger to the copper business; He had already been trading in Thuringian copper from Erfurt , where his brother Paul had been a silent partner in the Saigerhüttengesellschaft in Arnstadt since 1501 and he himself had been a silent partner from 1506 . Mathias inherited this stake from his brother Paul. As Hans Castorp Mulich wrote to Nuremberg on January 27, 1523, the copper from Mulich's copper mill was in great demand because of its quality. After the death of childless Mathias Mulich, the oldesloe copper mill became the property of the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital in Lübeck, which initially leased the facility and only sold it in 1815.

Since 1495 Mathias Mulich also had the silver monopoly of the Lübeck mint.

capital

Mathias Mulich had inherited real estate from his father in Nuremberg. In Lübeck he acquired 13 house plots, some of which were sold again. Despite his wealth and patriciate membership , he did not become a member of the city council. It is believed that in this way he also gave preference to his independent financial and commercial interests with the city's political opponents.

In 1520 his brother Paul Mulich gave him his entire property in pensions and property in his will, while his son of the same name only received a capital of 7,000 marks and - he was widowed - had to undertake not to marry again. Mathias Mulich donated 4,000 marks from the fortune of his brother and his own in 1525 for a house for smallpox and syphilis sufferers .

Dollinger estimates the fortune of Mathias Mulich at his death at more than 25,000 marks. In terms of monetary value at the time, he was probably one of the richest citizens of Lübeck, roughly comparable to the dressmaker Johann Bussmann . Nikolaus Brömse , whose fortune amounted to around 40,000 marks according to his will of 1525 and grew considerably in the following years, was, however, considerably wealthier.

The inheritance to the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital Foundation - always represented by two Lübeck mayors - was until the beginning of the 19th century repeatedly the reason for drafts and expert opinions by Lübeck council lawyers.

portrait

In art history literature there is a record of a portrait of Mathias Mulich from 1522 by the Dutch artist Jacob van Utrecht , who worked in Lübeck, but whose whereabouts were unknown for a long time. It was listed on the New York art market in 2013 at an estimate of $ 250,000- $ 350,000 and auctioned for $ 350,500 on January 30, 2013. It was acquired by the Lübeck museums with the support of the Kulturstiftung der Länder .

The 42.4 × 29.6 cm picture on oak shows Mathias Mulich as an older man in expensive clothes. The chain bears the coat of arms of his second wife, the griffin. He is holding a horned violet in his hand . The coat of arms in the corner shows his own coat of arms framed by the coats of arms of his women. Mulich and two other patricians portrayed in the same year were, like Jacob van Utrecht, members of the Leonhard Brotherhood in Lübeck.

literature

  • Thorsten Rodiek : Jakob Claesz. van Utrecht in: Lübeckische Blätter , No. 11, Volume 178, June 1, 2013, pp. 188 ff.
  • Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): The Hanseatic League - Reality and Myth , 2 vols., Hamburg 1989. In: Catalog of the exhibition of the Museum for Hamburg History in Hamburg August 24th - November 24th 1989 . 4th edition of the text, Schmidt-Römhild , Lübeck 2006.
  • Philippe Dollinger : Die Hanse , 2nd edition Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3520371022 .
  • Gerhard Fouquet : Business and Politics, Marriage and Kinship - Letters to the Nuremberg-Lübeck businessman Matthias Mulich from the winter of 1522/23. In: Helmut Bräuer / Elke Schlenkrich (ed.): The city as a communication space. Contributions to the history of the city from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Festschrift for Karl Czok on his 75th birthday. Leipzig 2001, pp. 311–346
Abridged reprint: From home and business in distant Lübeck. The letters to the Nuremberg-Lübeck merchant Matthias Mulich from the winter of 1522/23. in: Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 2002, pp. 65-73
  • Gerhard Fouquet : "Hear and write about war". From the letters to the Lübeck-Nuremberg merchant Matthias Mulich (1522/23). In: History pictures: Festschrift for Michael Salewski for his 65th birthday. Stuttgart: Steiner 2003 (Historische Mitteilungen: Aufhefte: Geschichte 47) ISBN 978-3-515-08252-5 , pp. 168-187
  • Antjekathrin Graßmann (Ed.): Lübeckische Geschichte , 1989, ISBN 3-7950-3203-2 .
  • Günter Meyer: On the history of the copper mill in Oldesloe, founded in 1515 by Matthias Mulich . In: Das Gedächtnis der Hansestadt Lübeck , Lübeck 2005, pp. 287-300, ISBN 3-7950-5555-5 .
  • Günter Meyer: Mathias Mulich in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Volume 12 Neumünster 2006, p. 321 ff., ISBN 3529025607
also in: New Lübeck CVs. Neumünster: Wacholtz 2009 ISBN 978-3-529-01338-6 , pp. 457-461
  • Claus Nordmann: Nuremberg wholesaler in late medieval Lübeck. 1933.
  • Fritz Rörig : The shopping booklet of the Nuremberg-Lübeck Mulichs at the Frankfurt fasting fair 1495 , in: Economic forces in the Middle Ages (edited by Paul Kaegbein), Weimar 1959, pp. 288-350.
  • Friedricke Schütt: Portrait of Mathias Mulich in: Jan Friedrich Richter (Ed.): Lübeck 1500 - Art metropolis in the Baltic Sea region , catalog, Imhoff, Petersberg 2015, pp. 334–335 (No. 59)
  • Hildegard Vogeler : The triptych of Hinrich and Katharina Kerckring by Jacob van Utrecht , Lübeck 1999.
  • Carl Friedrich Wehrmann : Letters to Matthias Mulich, written in 1523 , in: Zeitschrift des Verein für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde ( ZVLGA ) 2, 1867, pp. 296–347 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Mathias Mulich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Letters to Matthias Mulich, written in 1523  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the confirmation of a tithe to the community of heirs by Emperor Friedrich III. on October 23, 1473 in Trier. After Joseph Chmel at Regesta Imperii
  2. ↑ a b Dollinger, p. 234 ff.
  3. ^ According to Fouquet: Business and Politics, Marriage and Relatives , p. 315f, Elisabeth Ebeling was the widow of Councilor Hermann Sobberhusen.
  4. ↑ a b Meyer, p. 290
  5. ↑ See Hinrich Castorp
  6. ↑ Anna Kortsack, the sister of his second wife, was the wife of Johann Lüneburg († 1529) .
  7. ↑ See Jacob van Utrecht # History of the Kerckring Altar
  8. ^ Heinrich Dormeier : Religious brotherhoods of the "upper class" in Lübeck in the 15./16. Century: Forms of Piety, Social Relationships, and Economic Interests. In: The merchant and God. On commerce and the church in the Middle Ages and early modern times. (= Hansische Studien 18 ) Trier 209, ISBN 978-3-933701-34-3 , pp. 21-44, here p. 41
  9. ↑ Inv. No. 1900/196 a + b, see the photo in the picture index ; with Uwe Albrecht : Corpus of medieval wood sculpture and panel painting in Schleswig-Holstein , Volume I not recorded.
  10. ^ Franz Kafka: in: Deutsche Philologie , Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1967, p. 213
  11. ↑ Fouquet: Business and Politics, Marriage and Relationships , p. 323
  12. ^ Dollinger, p. 235 with reference to Rörig and Nordmann
  13. ↑ Fouquet: Business and Politics, Marriage and Relationships , p. 320
  14. ^ Gerhard Fouquet : Miss and Madam - Anna of Brandenburg (1487-1514) ; in: Christiana Albertina Vol. 54 (2002), Neumünster (Wachholtz); Pp. 19–31, p. 24
  15. ^ Fouquet: "Hear and write about war" , p. 186
  16. ↑ This relocation of trade and financial routes to the Frankfurt exhibition center and the southern German cities was not least the result of political uncertainty (the collapse of Burgundy ) and the economic recession in Bruges due to the Wars of the Roses and the associated bank failures, not least the Banca dei Medici himself. Cf. Michael North: Upper German competition in: The Hanse - Reality and Myth, pp. 161–164
  17. ^ Fouquet: Business and Politics, Marriage and Relatives , p. 319
  18. ^ Dollinger, p. 235 with reference to Rörig and Nordmann; Graßmann, Lübeckische Geschichte , p. 210
  19. ↑ Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 07.1-1 / 02 Internals Appendix 162
  20. ↑ Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 7.1-1 / 02 Internals Appendix 159 and 161. Paul Mulich the Younger apparently did not comply with this order, because in 1525 his widow litigated Mathias Mulich (Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 07.1-1 / 02 Internals Appendix 164 ) .
  21. ^ Dollinger, p. 210
  22. ↑ Werner Richter: Lübeckische Vermögen in the 16th and 17th centuries (1500-1630) . Berlin 1913; P. 11f. 85
  23. ^ Günter Meyer: On the history of the copper mill in Oldesloe, founded in 1515 by Matthias Mulich . In: Das Gedächtnis der Hansestadt Lübeck , Lübeck 2005, p. 295 ff
  24. ↑ Vogeler, p. 19 with footnote on p. 35
  25. ↑ Christie's
  26. ↑ Press release of the Kulturstiftung der Länder , accessed on November 15, 2017.
  27. ↑ Rodiek: Jakob Claesz. van Utrecht in: Lübeckische Blätter , Heft 11, 178th year, p. 188.
personal data
SURNAME Mulich, Mathias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mulich, Mattes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German long-distance trade merchant
DATE OF BIRTH before 1470
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1528
Place of death Lübeck