Official (Duchy of Westphalia)

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The official office in the Duchy of Westphalia was originally a church court and as such the Westphalian counterpart to the Cologne official office . At its height was the official office that had its seat in Werl since the 15th century , the highest religious and secular court in the Duchy of Westphalia . After the Hessian occupation in 1802 it was limited to spiritual cases. Relocated to Deutz in 1804 , it lost its importance a little later.

History and Development

The official office in Cologne was originally a purely spiritual court of the archbishopric to prosecute spiritual offenses. For the Archbishop of Cologne, the importance of the Officialate lay, among other things, in his endeavor to make it the highest court in the entire Archbishopric of Cologne and thus also in southern Westphalia . As a result, he tried to expand his jurisdiction to neighboring territories, namely to the County of Mark . In 1381 and 1387, the Brandenburg count had to give the Archbishop Friedrich III. von Saar are granted unrestricted ecclesiastical jurisdiction in his lands.

After the union with the county of Kleve in 1398, the count tried to push back the clerical court in his dominion. For this purpose served his ultimately unsuccessful attempt with the help of the Pope to set up his own Klevian regional diocese. This would have been exempted from the spiritual court of the Archbishops of Cologne. In any case, the dispute over the ecclesiastical court remained a constant topic between Kurköln and Kleve-Mark, while these two powers fought for supremacy in West Germany.

The Westphalian official office was first mentioned in 1434 when Archbishop Dietrich II von Moers moved his seat from Arnsberg to Soest . In 1436 he tried to settle his official Heinrich Bode in Warburg . This failed because of the massive resistance of the Paderborn clergy, because the official was not expressly intended for the Paderborn diocese, but only for the Cologne diocese. The Paderborn Cathedral Chapter saw this as a further attempt to pursue the incorporation of his diocese into the Archdiocese of Cologne despite the papal ban. In 1440/1441, on the order of the Archbishop, the official office moved from Soest back to Arnsberg, and stayed in Werl from 1478/1483 until 1804 . That year it moved to Deutz . After that it lost its importance for the Duchy of Westphalia.

composition

In contrast to the other courts, an officially named single judge ruled and no lay judges. The Archbishop of Cologne employed him in his clerical position, and the duchy of the duchy could make suggestions. The official did not have to be a cleric, but was always unmarried and a trained lawyer.

The official representative was Siegler , who was also legally trained and mainly dealt with the financial matters of the court cases. He administered the Sieglerkasse and with it the income from court fees, which he settled annually with the court chamber.

Other employees were the advocatus fisci "financial administrator", a notarius communis "community notary " and various procurators . For example, a sworn messenger and postman , as he was called in the 15th century, had to deliver court summons. Around 1800 he was called an expeditor or courier.

The court is called in the sources Werler ecclesiastical court court (1602) or in the 18th century ecclesiastical court court Arnsberg residing in Werl .

Seat, procedure and responsibilities

The trial took place in the official's private apartment, and later also in the houses of the other court officials. The judgment was announced from 1725 in the court seat of the Officials in the parish church of St. Walburga in Werl. In 1793 it was planned to set up an archival building to house the registry in the rear part of the Werl parish church. This is where the judge should sit in the future. This did not happen again.

In the 15th century the jurisdiction of the Official Court extended to usury, counterfeiting, perjury, sexual offenses, sorcery and heresy. Responsible for purely spiritual offenses from the point of view of origin, the officialate could ultimately attract all proceedings to the extent that every worldly offense could be viewed as a sin. It was not for nothing that an absolution of sin was associated with the pronouncement of the judgment and the imposition of penance. From 1724 the Westphalian estates resisted the extension of the competence of the official office to all conceivable disputes.

In matters of property law with a value in dispute of at least 50 gold guilders, the Werler office competed with the office in Cologne. The citizens of the cities in the Duchy of Westphalia were free to choose their place of jurisdiction before proceeding, i.e. either the competent magistrate court of their city, the court in Arnsberg made up of Landdrost and councilors or the official office. From 1739 onwards, at the request of one of the parties, this could take legal action. As soon as proceedings were pending there, no other court could take over the case. If the parties could not agree on the competent court, the highest court should be used. As a rule, that was the official position. Competence disputes were inevitable.

In 1781, the elector introduced a collegial constitution for the court, according to which the official was no longer to speak the judgment alone, but a majority vote from the official and his now two assessors should rule. Until 1784 the usual written language for documents of the official office was Latin. In 1789 the last elector of Cologne introduced a new court order. From now on, the court should meet regularly twice a week.

meaning

To a much greater extent than on any other court, the Archbishop of Cologne initially had almost unlimited influence over the official, who was only responsible to himself. He was the only one among the judges who, under Roman law , was allowed to speak judgments of his own accord, as in other courts, without the involvement of lay judges. He could also raise any dispute of his own accord and initiate proceedings of his own accord. In this respect, the Archbishop of Cologne was able to use the official office quite successfully in his early days as an instrument to increase the sovereign power in the territories that were in the area of ​​his archbishopric. As a result, the rulers concerned tried to prevent the power of the officialate in their countries. The estates in the direct sphere of influence of the Cologne Elector tried to influence the composition and procedures of the spiritual court themselves. As early as 1437, this was one of the most important points in the demands of the Estates Association against the sovereign. In 1438 the Archbishop of Cologne had to make concessions on this issue. In 1441, in the conflict with Soest, he accused the city of hindering the work of the Officials in and around Soest. In the Hereditary Land Association of 1463, the new archbishop had to guarantee the estates first and foremost an official position before his election, which should judge according to a coordinated court system and not according to the arbitrariness of the sovereign. This determination was repeated in all later hereditary land associations. It was in this framework set for him that the court worked for the next centuries. The new Hessian rulers limited the competence of the official office in 1802, as soon as they had occupied the country, to spiritual matters. In 1804 the court was relocated to Deutz. After that it no longer played a role for the Duchy of Westphalia.

Court staff

List of officials

  • 1322 Hartlieb Syl
  • 1436 Heinrich Bode
  • 1443 Hartmann Modewiick from Lippstadt
  • 1484 Petrus van Olepe
  • 1499, 1507, 1517 Johann Hennemann
  • 1528, 1537 Peter von Drolshagen
  • 1546 Lic. Caspar Koch
  • 1547 Lic. Iur. Frank von der Wieck
  • 1550 Dietrich von Ham
  • 1555, 1556, 1561/1570 Gerhard Kleinsorgen
  • 1572 Friedrich von Fürstenberg
  • 1579 - 1581 Georg Jacobi
  • 1582, 1586, 1587 Henneke (Henning) Rham
  • 1591, 1593 Nicolaus Ram
  • 1605 Heinrich Kleinschmidt
  • 1615 Adolf von Pempelfurth
  • 1624 - 1631 Petrus Martini
  • 1657, 1660 Caspar Reinhartz
  • 1693 Johann Peter Rheinfelden
  • 1709 Adolf Schnorrenberg
  • 1720–1724, 1728 Johann Dethmar von Mellin
  • 1747–1761 Gerhard Caspar Bigeleben
  • 1774–1780 Peter Gaudenz Bigeleben
  • 1802 Bigeleben

List of sealers

  • 1602 Johan Beste
  • 1712 Franz Michael Reinhartz
  • 1723 Anton Wilhelm Joseph Bergh
  • 1756 Franz Ferdinand Caspar Schultes

Literature and Sources

  • Alfred Bruns: Hallenberger sources and archive directories , Münster 1991.
  • Heinrich Josef Deisting: "... miserable streets (do not allow one to suspect the prosperity ... that really prevails here"). Werl in the period of secularization, in: From the Kurkölnischer Krummstab over the Hessian lion to the Prussian eagle. Secularization and its consequences in the Duchy of Westphalia 1803 - 2003, Arnsberg 2003, ISBN 3-930264-46-3 , pages 185-197.
  • Helmut Müller: The Territorial Archive of the Duchy of Westphalia , Vol. 1, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-932892-18-6 .
  • Manfred Schöne: The Duchy of Westphalia under Hesse-Darmstadt rule 1802 - 1816 , Olpe 1966.
  • Elisabeth Schumacher: Cologne's Westphalia in the Age of Enlightenment , Olpe 1967.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Jürgen Brandt / Karl Hengst: History of the Archdiocese of Paderborn, Volume 1: The Diocese of Paderborn in the Middle Ages, Paderborn 2002, page 163.
  2. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Westphalia department, Wedinghausen Monastery, Urk. 113
  3. ↑ see note 1 in the text
  4. ↑ Wolf No. 170
  5. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Westphalia department, Galilee Monastery, document no.51
  6. ↑ Archive Herdringen, Certificate No. 20 415 v. October 6, 1517
  7. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Westphalia department, Marienfeld monastery, document no. 1203; Ewig Monastery, Document No. 197
  8. ↑ Landesarchiv NRW, Dept. Rhineland, Spiritual Institutes E - H, Essen Abbey, Urk. 1734; Wolf No. 291
  9. ↑ Stadtarchiv Werl, Best. Freiherrn von Lilien-Echthausen, VI. Family and estate v. Schüngel, No. 20
  10. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Rhineland Department, Kurköln, documents no. 4342
  11. ↑ Manfred Wolff (arr.) Sources on the history of Stift und Freiheit Meschede, Meschede 1981, p. 285, Urk. 661.
  12. ^ Rhenish Archives and Museum Office, Schoenstein Castle Archive, Urk. No. 1257; Wolf No. 369, 375, 396 Albert K. Hömberg: Bauerntrotz. In: Heimatstimmen aus dem Kreis Olpe, 35th episode, 1959, pp. 45–51
  13. ^ Alfred Bruns (arr.) The diaries of Kaspar von Fürstenberg, Part 1, Münster 1985, p. 24
  14. ^ Alfred Bruns (arrangement) The diaries of Kaspar von Fürstenberg, part 1, Münster 1985, p. 67, also part 2, p. 522
  15. ↑ Manfred Wolff (arr.) Sources for the history of Stift und Freiheit Meschede, Meschede 1981, p. 305 Urk. 709, p. 308, Urk. 714; Bruns No. 353
  16. ^ Alfred Bruns (arr.) The diaries of Kaspar von Fürstenberg, part 1, Münster 1985, p. 443; Rhenish Archives and Museum Office, Schoenstein Castle Archive, Urk. 1864
  17. ^ Alfred Bruns (arr.) The diaries of Kaspar von Fürstenberg, part 2, Münster 1985, p. 266; Manfred Wolf (arrangement): The documents of the Oelinghausen monastery. Meschede 1992, p. 345f, document 995
  18. ↑ Werl City Archives, B 27a II 5 and B 27 a III No. 22
  19. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Westphalia department, Scheda monastery, document no.244, Werl city archive, B 27 a III no.22
  20. ^ Brilon City Archives, Files No. 64, 481
  21. ↑ Werl City Archives, B 32 II 2
  22. ↑ Müller p. 304
  23. ↑ Müller p. 303; Werl City Archives, B 27a IX 14
  24. ↑ Müller p. 303
  25. ↑ Müller p. 303
  26. ↑ Deisting, p. 192
  27. ↑ Bruns No. 421
  28. ↑ Müller p. 303
  29. ↑ Müller p. 303
  30. ↑ Müller p. 303