Psychic and starry

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Psitticher and Sterner were two rival noble societies in the city of Basel in the 13th and 14th centuries. Their names were derived from their coats of arms: the psittiches wore a green parrot (psittich) on a white background, the stars a white star on a red background. They emerged in the course of the 13th century through the contrast between urban and rural nobility . The conflict between the two groups deepened through the disputes between the Staufers and the Curia in the 13th century and culminated in a feud between the Basel bishop Heinrich von Neuenburg and Count Rudolf von Habsburg in the 1270s, as a result of which those on the count's side Sterners were banned from the city. After the Habsburgs rose to become a royal dynasty , the political orientation of the two parties changed. In the course of the 14th century they disappeared again from Basel politics.

Origin and members

Miniature from the Codex Manesse with jousting knights wearing the coats of arms of the psychic and starry

With the rise of the diocese of Basel to the important prince-bishopric of Basel in the 11th and 12th centuries, the originally unfree servants and ministerials of the bishop developed into an urban knighthood . The members of this class usually held important court and administrative offices such as Schenk , Truchsess or Schultheiss , and they also increasingly received episcopal fiefs such as castles in the vicinity of Basel. The urban nobility of the bishop thus increasingly pushed into the country. At the same time, more and more aristocrats from the Basel area came to the city and looked for employment at the Basel court. These two opposing currents led to the urban and rural nobility mutually entering into each other's spheres of interest, which resulted in disputes and conflicts over dominance at the Basel court. That is why the two parties of the Psitticher and Sterner were formed around the year 1265. The urban service aristocracy gathered among the psychics, the rural aristocracy with the stars. According to the chronicler Matthias von Neuenburg , the lords of Eptingen , Vitztum, Uffheim , Kraft, Reich , Pfaff, Ramstein, Neuenstein, Matzerell and Frick were among the stars. Schaler, Münch (sometimes also Mönch), Zu Rhein , Marschalk and Kammerer were among the psychics . The leading families are the Schaler and Münch for the Psitticher and the von Eptingen for the Sterner.

In addition to the Basel knighthood, the noble families from the area also joined the two noble societies or were at least close to them. Matthias von Neuenburg sees the Counts of Neuenburg , the Margraves of Hachberg and the noble free von Rötteln on the side of the Psittiches, the Habsburgs , Heinrich von Badenweiler (from the family of the Counts of Freiburg ) and the Counts of Pfirt, he counts among the stars. The assignment of the Counts of Pfirt is, however, doubted by modern research, since they appeared more like opponents of the Habsburgs and their proximity to the bishop also suggests that they belonged to the psychics.

In addition to the line of conflict between the urban and rural nobility, there may also have existed old differences between the genders who were more Hohenstaufen and those who were more likely to have a higher church-papal spirit. The Habsburgs, who were close to the Sternern, were among the supporters of the Hohenstaufen. At the time, the parrot was also a symbol of the Holy Virgin , the patron saint of Basel Minster.

Sterners and psychics probably faced each other often in tournaments and feuds; According to Matthias von Neuenburg, the foundation of the companies is also based on disputes at a tournament:

“[A] Once the knights of Basel went out for a tournament and other amusement and you asked:“ Who are these? ”It said:“ the Schaler and the Mönch ”, who were the more distinguished among them. This offended the rest of them and, after plowed advice, had a flag made with a large white star in the red field, which they wielded at tournaments and otherwise. "

The psittichers had their drinking room in the house "zur Mücke", where assemblies were held and parties were celebrated, but where tournaments and fights were also held. A separate drinking room of the Sterner is not yet known, but is considered likely, whereby the house "to sigh" is named as a possible place. In addition, the two parties also vied with each other for influence in the city. The Psitticher seem to have got the upper hand: Until the middle of the 13th century, the office of the bailiff and mayor were mainly in their hands, and in the seven years before 1274 the mayor also came out of their ranks.

The dispute reached a climax in the 1270s in the course of a feud between the Basel bishop Heinrich von Neuenburg and Count Rudolf von Habsburg .

The feud between Rudolf von Habsburg and the Basel bishop

Rudolf von Habsburg moves into Basel after his election as king ( history painting by Franz Pforr , 1809–1810). The Sterners, who had been driven out since 1271, were allowed to return to the city with Rudolf.

The Basel bishop Berthold von Pfirt had obtained control of Breisach and Rheinfelden in the 1250s : Breisach had recognized his sovereignty in 1250, and Rheinfelden , which belonged to the Hohenstaufen, had been awarded to him by Pope Innocent IV in 1252 . Around the same time, however, King Konrad IV had pledged Breisach and other areas to Rudolf von Habsburg and possibly also promised him Rheinfelden. After Konrad's death in 1254, Rudolf and Berthold seem to have come to an understanding for the time being and they settled their dispute over the two cities.

In the 1260s the disputes between Rudolf and the Basler Stift, now headed by Heinrich von Neuenburg, broke out again, and from 1268 Rudolf and Heinrich were in an open feud. The two aristocratic groups from Basel also took part in the clashes. The Psitticher kept to the Bishop of Basel, the gentlemen from Stern to Rudolf von Habsburg. The Psitticher gained the upper hand in Basel and drove the Sterner out of the city in 1271. In the course of the feud, there were raids and conquests. Rudolf von Habsburg conquered Tiefenstein Castle in 1272 and razed it, Rudolf and the bishop destroyed several villages and monasteries of their respective opponents, and on Silverster's Day Rudolf also conquered Wehr Castle , which Heinrich von Neuenburg had only rebuilt in the same year. When Rudolf was in the Basel area the following year, the Basel mayor, from the Marschalk family, attacked him along with a few fellow combatants and was killed in the process. In July 1273 Rudolf moved with his armed force, which also included the Lords of the Stern, before the city of Basel and began to surround it. This state of affairs lasted for around two months, until Rudolf learned in September from Friedrich von Nürnberg that he had been elected king. Rudolf and Heinrich signed an armistice through which the gentlemen from the Stern were allowed back into the city.

reconciliation

After being elected king, Rudolf rewarded his supporters from the Star Party: He made Gottfried von Pratteln , who was related to the Eptingians, governor of the Basel Imperial Bailiwick , and Matthias von Eptingen became Basel's mayor. In addition, Rudolf also succeeded in reconciling the hostile psychics with him by marrying more distant relatives with members of the Schaler and Münch families. Rudolf also seems to have come to an understanding with the gentlemen from Rötteln. In 1285 he granted the citizens of Kleinbasel extended privileges, but excluded those who were subjects of the Habsburgs or Röttler. At the beginning of the 14th century, Rudolf's son Albrecht made Otto von Rötteln burgrave of Rheinfelden and imperial bailiff over Basel. The result of this policy was that the split between Psitticher and Sterner persisted, but that now the leaders of both societies were supporters of the Habsburgs. The conflicts thereby lost their political character; on a private level, however, they continued, so that in 1286 Rudolf proclaimed a city truce in Basel and made violations a punishable offense. In the same year, Peter I. Reich became a member of a starry family, Bishop of Basel. He further contributed to the reconciliation by stating that Sterner and Psitticher should alternate in the office of mayor and chief guild master and that the city council should always be half-filled. There were also several marriages between the two parties, so that the conflict finally disappeared and no longer existed at the beginning of the 14th century. The regular change between the two parties was still practiced and thus outlived the two underlying noble societies. It is also possible that other disputes in later years still had an origin in old contradictions. In political terms, however, the old contradiction no longer played a role. New conflicts soon arose here, culminating in the Basel bishops' dispute between 1309 and 1311; Psitticher and Sterner were no longer facing each other, but mostly together on the side of the Habsburg-minded people.

Psychic and Starry in Contemporary Poetry

The contrast between the two parties also had cultural implications. So the minstrel Konrad von Würzburg appears several times in connection with the psychics. Konrad owned a house in Basel that was located within the episcopal district and in the vicinity of canons and episcopal officials, although it is still unclear whether Konrad also had a job at the episcopal court. In 1266, on the occasion of a celebratory meeting organized by the Schaler and Münch, the leaders of the Psitticher, he probably presented his story for couples, “ Der Welt Lohn ”, as a crusade advertisement. Members of Psitticher families also commissioned two other poems by Konrad: For Peter Schaler he wrote “Partonopier und Meliur”, and for the canon Lüthold von Rötteln he wrote “New Year's Eve”. “New Year's Eve” in particular is interpreted against the background of the disputes in and around Basel: Possibly the life story of Pope Silvester should show an ideal cooperation between secular and spiritual power and contrast it with the conflicts between the bishop and Rudolf von Habsburg. In “ Die goldene Schmiede ” Konrad also mentions a green parakeet on a white background as a symbol of Mary. The same symbolism is also used in Konrad's unfinished novel “The Trojan War”, where in verses 33505–33507 it is shown how Perseus rushes into battle like “a wild siticus”. This is also seen in part as an allusion to the Basler Psitticher, and the depiction of the siege of Troy could also have been inspired by Rudolf von Habsburg's siege of Basel.

A representation of the Psitticher and Sterner can also be found in the Codex Manesse in the miniature of Goesli von Ehenheim . A tournament scene is shown in which Goesli and two other knights face each other. Goesli wears a green parrot in a white "nest" as a helmet ornament, while the cloaks of his opponents show whitish stars on a red background, so the coats of arms of the psychic and starry are shown. What is surprising is that the Lords of Ehenheim near Oberehenheim (today Obernai ) were based in Lower Alsace and that their coat of arms differs somewhat from the one shown in the miniature. It is therefore conceivable that it was not Goesli but the painter of the miniature that had a relationship with Basel.

literature

  • Rüdiger Brandt: Konrad von Würzburg- Smaller epic works , 2nd revised and expanded edition, Schmidt, Berlin 2009
  • August Burckhardt: The parties within the Basel knighthood. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde . Volume 22 (1924), pp. 288-310, doi : 10.5169 / seals-113457 .
  • August Burckhardt: The Basel mayors from 1252 until the Reformation. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde , Volume 23 (1925), pp. 1–29 doi : 10.5169 / seals-113552
  • Werner Meyer-Hoffmann : Psitticher and Sterner. A contribution to the history of non-state warfare. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde. Volume 67 (1967), pp. 6-21, doi : 10.5169 / seals-117536 .
  • The chronicle of Mathias of Neuchâtel (= The historians of the German prehistory. Vol. 84). Translated by Georg Grandaur. With an introduction by Ludwig Weiland . 3. Edition. Dyk, Leipzig 1912 ( online edition from 1899 ; PDF; 6.7 MB)
  • Annals and Chronicles of Kolmar (= The historians of the German prehistoric times. Vol. 7). Translated by Hermann Pabst, Franz Duncker, Berlin 1867. ( limited preview in Google book search)
  • Oswald Redlich : Rudolf von Habsburg. The German Empire after the fall of the old Empire. Wagnersche Universitätsbuchhandlung, Innsbruck 1903 (Reprint 2012: limited preview in the Google book search).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Burckhardt, The parties within the Basler Ritterschaft , pp. 290, 293ff.
  2. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann: Psitticher and Sterner , p. 7f.
  3. ^ Chronicle of Mathias of Neuchâtel, p. 11
  4. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Psitticher and Sterner , p. 7
  5. ^ Chronicle of Mathias von Neuenburg, p. 11 for the list, p. 10 for the origin of Heinrich von Badenweiler
  6. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , p. 14
  7. ↑ Aloys Schulte: History of the Habsburgs in the First Three Centuries , Innsbruck, 1887, p. 113f., Online at archive.org
  8. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann: Sterner and Psitticher , p. 17f.
  9. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , p. 20
  10. ^ Chronicle of Matthias of Neuchâtel, p. 11
  11. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , p. 13
  12. ↑ Sterner and Psitticher on altbasel.ch
  13. ↑ Burckhardt, Die Basler Bürgermeister , p. 8
  14. ^ Redlich, Rudolf von Habsburg , pp. 42 and 83f.
  15. ↑ Redlich, Rudolf von Habsburg , p. 114
  16. ↑ Burckhardt, The parties within the Basler Ritterschaft , p. 299; for the expulsion see also: year books of the city of Basel in Annalen und Chronik von Kolmar , p. 12
  17. ^ Yearbooks of the city of Basel in Annalen und Chronik von Kolmar , p. 13f.
  18. ^ Chronicle of Kolmar in Annalen und Chronik von Kolmar , p. 127
  19. ↑ Redlich, Rudolf von Habsburg , p. 122f.
  20. ↑ However, he only held this office for one year. After the death of Heinrich von Neuchâtel in 1274, the cathedral chapter elected Peter Reich from a star family as bishop, for whom Matthias also sided. However, Peter Reich was not confirmed as bishop by the Pope and replaced by Heinrich von Isny. This in turn confirmed Matthias von Eptingen no longer as mayor (cf. Burckhardt, The parties within the Basler Ritterschaft , p. 301). The reason for the non-confirmation of Peter Reich is assumed that Rudolf von Habsburg preferred Heinrich von Isny ​​and promoted him to the Pope, but did not make this known to the outside world so as not to offend Peter Reich and the cathedral chapter. (cf. Carl Bischoff: The Palatine Office of the High Monastery of Basel , Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 1922, pp. 335f.)
  21. ↑ Burckhardt, The parties within the Basler Ritterschaft , pp. 301f.
  22. ^ Roller, History of the noble lords of Rötteln, in Blätter aus der Margrafschaft, Schopfheim, 1927, p. 29f.
  23. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , p. 12
  24. ^ Chronicle of Matthias von Neuchâtel, p. 45
  25. ^ Otto Roller: Der Basler Bischofsstreit 1309-1311 , in: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde , Volume 13 (1914), p. 279
  26. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , pp. 13 and 19
  27. ↑ Meyer-Hoffmann, Sterner and Psitticher , p. 11
  28. ^ Otto Roller: Der Basler Bischofsstreit 1309-1311 , in: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde , Volume 13 (1914), p. 279
  29. ↑ Brandt , Konrad von Würzburg , pp. 16-17
  30. ^ Rüdiger Brandt, Konrad von Würzburg , p. 38
  31. ↑ Reinhard Bleck, A Palestine Crusade on the Upper Rhine 1267 In Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde (87), 1987, p. 15f.
  32. ↑ For the text of the novel, see The Trojan War on the Bibliotheca Augustana website
  33. ↑ Brandt, Konrad von Würzburg , p. 25, p. 38f.
  34. ↑ Ingo F. Walther (Ed.): Codex Manesse - The miniatures of the great Heidelberg song manuscript . With the collaboration of Gisela Siebert. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt 1988, p. 135
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 14, 2012 in this version .