Reichswald

An imperial forest (often called imperial forest in older literature) was a forest area in the Holy Roman Empire that belonged to the imperial estate , i.e. the royal estate of the Roman-German elected kings , without being part of a principality, a duchy or a county. The property of an extinct dynasty , especially since Conrad II , the first Salian to succeed the Ottonians , was regarded as the property of the subsequent kings.

Reichswald Schönbuch

The imperial forests were reserved for use by the head of the empire and his administrators. The royal palaces were therefore often not far from the imperial forests, such as the Aachen royal palatinate near the Eifel and Ardennes , the imperial palatinate Goslar in the Harz , the palatinate Nijmegen at the Klever Reichswald , the imperial palace Kaiserswerth at the Kalkumer Reichswald, the imperial palace Kaiserslautern at the Palatinate imperial forest , the imperial palatinate Hagenau am Hagenauer Reichswald , the Kaiserburg Nuremberg near the Nuremberg Reichswald , the Kaiserpfalz Gelnhausen am Büdinger Reichswald , the Königspfalz Frankfurt not far from the Wildbanns Dreieich , the Palatinate Seligenstadt opposite the Bannforst Spessart .

This proximity made it possible for the court to hunt and at the same time made it easier to take care of the numerous retinues and visitors to court days . Like the early medieval Palatinate, many imperial castles were built by the German kings near the imperial forests in the High and Late Middle Ages and used as temporary accommodation. If the court was absent, the game ban (the exclusive hunting right in the wild forest ) was often leased to others by the kings; they had to pay the so-called game money .

Partly already in the Middle Ages, but at the latest with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, these areas lost their special status and were incorporated into the surrounding territories under constitutional law. In part, the term Reichswald is still used today as a landscape designation.

Well-known imperial forests

Büdinger Forest , a forest of the realm only in the Middle Ages, an accessory of the Reichsburg Gelnhausen , core of the Wildbanns Büdinger Wald

Reichswald Dreieich, the three oaks , only a forest of the realm in the Middle Ages, located south of Frankfurt am Main, core of the Dreieich wilderness , partly came to the Counts of Ysenburg-Birstein around 1500, and (imperial) princes of Isenburg- since 1744 Birstein , 1816 to the Grand Duchy of Hesse

Hagenauer Reichswald , an older name for the Holy Forest near Hagenau in Upper Alsace

Hauptsmoorwald , east of the city of Bamberg

Kaufunger Wald , in northern Hesse to southern Lower Saxony

Klever Reichswald , approx. 5,100 hectare state forest near the city of Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia

Königsforst , 2519 hectares of forest east of Cologne, originally crown property of the Franconian kings , since the 10th century in the possession of the archbishops of Cologne, partly also of Cologne monasteries

Nuremberg Reichswald , about 25,000 hectares of protected forest near the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria

Reichsforst (Fichtelgebirge) , with 26 km² remainder of an originally much larger royal forest

Reichswald (Palatinate) , nature reserve near Rodenbach (West Palatinate) , Kaiserslautern district, Rhineland-Palatinate

Reichswald Schönbuch , southwest of Stuttgart

literature

Gustav Simon : On the history of German hunting and forestry in the Middle Ages. In: Supplements to the Allgemeine Forst- und Jagd-Zeitung, Volume IV, Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main, 1863, (Fraktur)
Gustav Simon: Contributions to the history of German hunting and forestry in the Middle Ages. In: Supplements to the Allgemeine Forst- und Jagd-Zeitung, VI. Volume, Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main, In: Supplements to the Allgemeine Forst- und Jagd-Zeitung, V. Volume, Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main, 1865 (Fraktur)
Gustav Simon: The forest and forest regulations of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in Germany. In: Supplements to the Allgemeine Forst- und Jagd-Zeitung, VI. Band, Sauerlander, Frankfurt am Main, 1867 (Fraktur)
Friederich Ulrich Stisser (also Stißer): Forest and hunting history of the Germans. Johann Christian Langenheim, Leipzig, (1st edition 1737), 2nd enlarged and improved edition 1754 (Fraktur)

Individual evidence

^ Friederich Ulrich Stisser (also Stißer): Forest and hunting history of the Teutschen. Johann Christian Langenheim, Leipzig, (1st edition 1737), 2nd enlarged and improved edition 1754, in the 8th chapter, Reichsforste pp. 330–446 (Fraktur)
^ Convention Territorial entre le Grand Duc de Hesse et Electeur de Hesse. - Signèe à Francfort sur Mein, le 29 Juin, 1816. British and Foreign State Papers 1815-1816, Volume 3, Compiled by the Librarian and Keeper of the Papers, Foreign Office, James Ridgway and Sons, Piccadilly, London 1838, pp. 812-819; (mostly in German) books.google.de; also printed in Grindaha, issue 26, Geschichtsverein Gründau e. V., Gründau 2016 ISSN 2194-8631 pp. 4–12 with a comment by Norbert Breunig

[1] Friederich Ulrich Stisser (also Stißer): Forest and hunting history of the Teutschen. Johann Christian Langenheim, Leipzig, (1st edition 1737), 2nd enlarged and improved edition 1754, in the 8th chapter, Reichsforste pp. 330–446 (Fraktur)

[2] Convention Territorial entre le Grand Duc de Hesse et Electeur de Hesse. - Signèe à Francfort sur Mein, le 29 Juin, 1816. British and Foreign State Papers 1815-1816, Volume 3, Compiled by the Librarian and Keeper of the Papers, Foreign Office, James Ridgway and Sons, Piccadilly, London 1838, pp. 812-819; (mostly in German) books.google.de; also printed in Grindaha, issue 26, Geschichtsverein Gründau e. V., Gründau 2016 ISSN 2194-8631 pp. 4–12 with a comment by Norbert Breunig