Mail rider
As Postreiter , in the older parlance as postboy is called a first in an inn later at a post office stationed rider , the received, closed and sealed Felleisen transported or letter packets to an adjacent post office or picked up from there. Post riders were also active in the courier business and in postal travel by accompanying a "posting" traveler to the next post station on the so-called postal routes.
The beginnings
_1990,_MiNr_860.jpg)
The first mention of post riders can be found in the Memminger Chronik recorded by Heinrich Löhlin from 1490
- The Roman king places riding boats in the jar
- from the country easter calibration, BIIS in the Niderlandt , in BIIS
- franck rich and BIIS go Rohm and lay Allweg a potten
- 5. Miles away from each other, there was one at Kembten ,
- one at Bleß , and one at the Brugg zu Elchingen all so
- forever 5 miles away from each other and must al "
- because one pot of the other wait and so soon the other to him
- rode, so he blew a Hörnlin the hoard a bott in the hostel
- lay, and must be equal. it must all stand securely
- ride a mile, or it was deducted from his wages, so "
- vil it was law, and had to ride day and night, all so
- If a letter came from Memingen, Rhom often went in 5 days, waz
- That in the hat, I don't know.
Since a long mile was about 7.5 km, the distance from changing station to changing station was 37.5 km in 1490. A post rider covered a mile in one hour, which would have taken a footman two hours to do, as is evident from a gloss in a copy of the Memmingen city chronicle from the 17th century: One had to ride a mile every hour, that's two hours . The mail riders were initially stationed in hostels. There were still no fixed post offices, so that the posts, as the contracts with Franz and Johann Baptista von Taxis said, could be canceled at any time. The post rider's accommodation in hostels is also evident from the post office slip from 1506, where a post rider complained that the landlord wanted to seize his horse because of arrears in payment.
After 1550
With the establishment of fixed post stations and the introduction of the Ordinari Post, which rode at set times and was accessible to everyone, the status of the post rider changed. The investigations into the postal robbery of 1561 (FZA PA 2347), which Christoph von Taxis undertook on an inspection trip from Augsburg to Brussels in October – November 1561, are an informative document . Darin Christopher described the hijacked Postreiter as "Post servants" and questioned postmaster as a postman "Postpot". At the same time, these documents show what activities the post riders carried out. A mail rider accompanying a courier and his servant was ambushed and tied to a tree branch. Another mail rider, who transported the Brussels ordinari mail in a locked skin iron to the nearest post office, was attacked by robbers, the skin iron smashed and the contents robbed.
The Postal Code of 1596
According to the postal regulations of 1596, the postmen were forbidden to deviate from the path against a fine of 5 guilders. On the other hand, they were allowed to accept mail on the way, provided that it was noted on the post office slip.
- Wher with the Ordinari or post from the post office =
- streets abreidt, and other idiosyncratic Umbwegh
- addicted, fl. 5.
If no mail rider was to be found at the next post office because of the company of a courier, the mail rider should continue riding until he met the other mail rider.
- Wher the Ordinari or post from a post office
- fed to the other, and the horse on her
- Most post with a curier in front
- so it should, according to the post office or ordinarily,
- to be guilty of riding through and on, bit honest
- meets the other postman (: but umb
- be pure money, as it has been from old age :)
Later evidence
Already in the time after the Thirty Years' War the post riders were also referred to as " Postillons ". This can be seen, for example, from the Trier city renting department bills from 1658/59, where both the Lieserer postmaster responsible for Trier and the postilion subordinate to him received a New Year's fee. After the end of the French occupation in 1676, when Trier had its own post office, both the Trier postmaster and the "Postillon" subordinate to him received a New Year's fee.
Summary
The names for a post rider were therefore fluent, although nothing changed in their activity. While the Memminger Chronik still spoke of "messengers", the term postman was also used for the postman in the 16th century. After 1561 the mail riders were referred to as "postmen", and from around 1658/59 as "postillons".
See also
- Pony Express - the first express mail connection to California.
literature
- Hermann-Josef Becker: The post course Brussels - Innsbruck in the Eifel, Moselle and Hunsrück area. In: Postgeschichtliche Blätter (PgB) Saarbrücken 1962/1, pp. 12–17, 1962/2, pp. 4–10
- Wolfgang Behringer: Thurn and Taxis. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03336-9
- Uli Braun: The Post - mentioned for the first time in Memmingen. In: Archive for German Postal History (AfdPg) 2/1990, pp. 6-9 (Memminger Chronik).
- Martin Dallmeier: Sources on the history of the European postal system. Publishing house Michael Lassleben, Kallmünz 1977.
- Martin Dallmeier: The Habsburg, imperial imperial post under the princely house of Thurn and Taxis. In: Archive for German Postal History. 2/90, pp. 13-32.
- Rudolf Freytag, in: AfPuT 1921/49, pp. 289–295.
- Rudolf Freytag, in: Das Bayerland 1 / Oct. 1922, p. 4.
- FZA PA 2347, mail robbery from 1561.
- Leo M. Gard , in: PgB Trier , 1966, p. 27f
- Ludwig Kalmus: World History of the Post. Vienna 1937
- Ernst Kießkalt: The creation of the post. Bamberg 1930
- Fritz Ohmann: The beginnings of the postal system and the taxis. Leipzig 1909
- Joseph Rübsam, in: AfPuT 1905. pp. 650–652.
- Ernst-Otto Simon: The postal route from Rheinhausen to Brussels over the centuries. In: Archive for German Postal History. 1/1990, pp. 14-41
- Trier city rent-out bills, 1600–1676 / 7
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Transcription after Uli Braun: Die Post - mentioned for the first time in Memmingen. In: Archive for German Postal History (AfdPg) 2/1990, p. 7 with own corrections based on the illustration.
- ↑ Quoted from Rudolf Freytag, in: Das Bayerland 1 / Oct. 1922, p. 4.
- ↑ historicum.net: Post
- ↑ quoted from the Postordnung für Lieser , Transkriptionen by Gudrun Meyer, see also Dallmeier, Quellen, p. 52f