Rhenish knighthood

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The Rhenish Knighthood is a cooperative of the Rhenish nobility.

Ehreshoven Castle , current seat of the Rhenish knighthood
Bedburg Castle, the former seat of the Rhenish knighthood

The public corporation came into being by virtue of a royal Prussian foundation on January 21, 1837 (Prussian Law Gazette of May 13, 1837). It was initially an amalgamation of 30 families of the old knightly nobility in the Prussian Rhine Province around Johann Wilhelm Freiherr von Mirbach, Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Christoph Freiherr von Wylich. The board of the cooperative is formed from the Knights captain and the Knights councils that are members of the historical nobility belonging to owners of manors in the former Prussian Rhine Province. The knight's captain required confirmation from the sovereign.

The members of the knighthood was granted the right by the Prussian king to free (autonomous) certify . In the formerly French parts of the country, the inheritance regulations prescribed in the Civil Code continued to apply, which did not provide for a free will. An undivided inheritance of goods would not have been possible according to the regulations of the Code Civil. This special scheme for the members of the member families had in the form of a release from compulsory portion rather than Article 216 of the Civil Code Introductory Act (EGBGB) input into the Civil Code found (BGB), but now due to the implementation of Article 109 of the Weimar constitution adopted Regulations have become irrelevant.

The court of arbitration of the knightly Rhenish nobility was a special court from 1837 to 1918 to clarify inheritance disputes that affected the member families. To this end, the board of the cooperative, to which a lawyer had been assigned for this purpose , first made a proposal for arbitration. If this was not accepted, the arbitral tribunal was formed. It consisted of the knight captain, the syndic and two arbitrators. Of these, each party named one from the ranks of the autonomous. If there was no agreement, the parties named a chairman by mutual agreement. If there was no agreement, the board appointed the chairman. An appeal against the decision of the arbitral tribunal could be filed. The revision body was formed just like the arbitration tribunal. However, each party now nominated two arbitrators. In the event of a tie, the captain decided.

The cooperative maintains several private and public foundations , including the Ehreshoven Castle Ladies' Foundation ; this is where the cooperative has been based since 1923. At this point in time, the previous seat, the Rhenish Knight Academy at Bedburg Castle, as well as the secondary school maintained by the cooperative there, had to be abandoned.

The cooperative was very controversial when it was founded. Among other things, Ernst Moritz Arndt had written a pamphlet against the Rhenish Autonomists . There were fears that in the long term all of the provincial agricultural property would end up in the hands of the few member families, since the property could have passed into one hand undiminished in the event of inheritance. However, this has not been confirmed. Families who do not belong to the historical, knightly nobility of the Rhineland are also accepted into the knighthood. Some of them do not belong to the knighthood but to the prince class , some do not belong to the knightly primal nobility , and some have come to the Rhineland from other knighthoods and have inherited or acquired manors here.

The founding families are the Counts Loë , Fürstenberg , Spee , Eltz , Wolff-Metternich , Hoensbroech , Beissel von Gymnich , Schaesberg , the Barons Mirbach Harff, Eltz-Rübenach , Rolshausen , Bongardt , Warsberg-Dorth , Spies von Büllesheim , von der Leyen zu Bloemersheim , Geyr von Schweppenburg , Vittinghoff called Schell zu Schellenberg , Wenge , Raitz von Frentz zu Garath, Raitz von Frentz zu Schlenderhan, Raitz von Frentz zu Kellenberg, Loë , Salis-Soglio .

Then there were the princes Merode and Salm-Salm , the counts Bernstorff , Walderdorff , Droste zu Vischering , Galen , Schall-Riaucour , Westerholt , the barons Boeselager , Twickel , Elverfeldt , Stein, Wylich and the gentlemen from the east and von Hobe .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reference to the Institute for German Aristocracy Research, foni.net
  2. ^ Franz Jürgen Säcker in: Franz J. Säcker / Roland Rixecker (eds.): Munich Commentary on the Civil Code. 5th edition, CH Beck, Munich, note 1 to Art. 216 EGBG
  3. Max Bär : The Authorities Constitution of the Rhine Province , 1919, reprint 1965, p. 442