Nicolaus Feyerabend

Nicolaus Feyerabend (* around 1350 , † after 1413 ) was a carpenter and builder of the Marienburg Nogat Bridge . In the sources, the name is also written Niclas or Niclus Feyerobund, Fyerobund or Vyerobund.

Life

Feyerabend's family probably came from Silesia and owned the leading carpentry business in Marienburg around 1400 .

In any case, he was regularly commissioned by the Teutonic Order of Knights to maintain the strategically important bridge over the Nogat, which connected the city to the Ordensburg on the other side of the river.

The first Nogat Bridge was built between 1335 and 1340 and was the property of the Teutonic Order. It was protected on the castle side by the bridge gate and on the opposite side by the Vogelsang bridgehead .

When the bridge, which was repeatedly damaged by floods and ice, needed a general overhaul in 1405, the order sent Feyerabend, for example, to the Polish Masovia (which was the main supplier of forest products to Prussia) to purchase and cut the necessary wood, for which, according to the accounting book, he was was rewarded princely for the circumstances at the time: “Item 2 m. Niclas Fyerobund deme zymmermanne, who sent the wood from the Mazow to the Nogothbrucke ken Mariemburg sal ”or“ Item 30 m., Which Niclus Vyerobund received from the Nogotbrucke ”.

However, the restored building was not granted a long period of use, as the order's army retreated to Marienburg after the defeat in the Battle of Tannenberg in July 1410 and Commander Heinrich von Plauen , who had to organize its defense with all available forces, not only reinforced the castle fortifications , but also had the city burned down and the Nogat Bridge demolished.

After the Marienburg (in contrast to the rest of the Order) had withstood the siege that lasted until September 1410 and the Polish troops had withdrawn, Feyerabend was commissioned to build a new bridge.

Feyerabend completed the construction, supported by eleven rows of stakes, in 1413. It was handed over to the city by King Casimir IV Jagiello in 1466 and remained in operation until its remains were dismantled in 1743.

literature

• Erich Joachim (editor): The Marienburger Tresslerbuch from 1399 to 1409, 1896 (new edition 1973), p. 366
• Hans Joachim Borchert: Marienburger Geschichtsbuch, Dates, Events and Names 2006, p. 83