Saigerhütte Chemnitz

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The Saigerhütte Chemnitz was a non-ferrous metallurgy mill in today's Chemnitz district of Altchemnitz, which was founded at the end of the 15th century and existed until the middle of the 16th century . The Saiger method , which was new at the time, was practiced in it for distinguishing silver from copper.

Prehistory and preliminary remarks

The Saxon sovereign stipulated in the shelf law that all molten silver from mined silver ore was to be delivered to the mint. This buying monopoly ensured the silver price regardless of the actual expenditure. As a rule, the tenth of the copper ore had to be delivered, but the mine owner was free to dispose of the metal contained in it in terms of quantity and price.

With the discovery of the Saiger process for differentiating silver, the owner of the smelter succeeded in obtaining possession of the silver contained in the copper ore, which was not subject to delivery. Because the share of copper ore due to the sovereign was already settled with the tithe. The metal trade quickly recognized the importance of the process, which prompted financially strong merchants in this trade to build large Saiger smelters.

At the beginning it was ostensibly the Nuremberg patricians who distinguished themselves when founding Saigerhütten or Saiger trading companies . At the time, Nuremberg was one of the most important centers for metal processing in Europe. At the same time, the metal trade, as the owner of the smelters, was able to secure the supply of raw materials.

Between 1461 and 1565, a total of twelve Saiger huts were built in Thuringia, which at the beginning mainly unsaiged Mansfeld black copper . The Saigerhütte Schleusingen was the first of these huts to be licensed on November 20, 1461.

In the Duchy of Saxony, the Saigerhütte Chemnitz was built in 1470/71, the first steel works of this type.

History of the metallurgical plant

Privilege of a Saigerhüttengesellschaft des Nickel Tyle in 1471

A privilege issued in 1471 says u. a. from the fact that a Nickel Tyle had told Ernst and Albrecht von Sachsen that he and his Saigerhüttengesellschaft built a Saigerhütte near Chemnitz with high costs and work and asked the princes for freedom and a prescription. The privilege stipulates that Tyle and his Saigerhüttengesellschaft are allowed to saig copper mined from their mines if they have previously tamed it, as well as all domestic and foreign copper purchased and freely sell the silver and copper obtained. This document was signed on February 5, 1471, which suggests that the hut was built in 1470.

The Chemnitz citizen Nickel Tyle (or Thiele) was councilor in the city several times since 1458. He participated early in the flourishing mining industry in Geyer in the Ore Mountains , where he owned several mines together with other people - united in the Tirmannstolln Society . Among the members of this society was Hans Schütz from Nuremberg .

Ulrich Schütz takes over the company and builds the new facilities

Since 1466 the brother of Hans Schütz, Ulrich Schütz, lived in Chemnitz. Around 1470 he became Tyles' son-in-law. A year later, both brothers Hans and Ulrich Schütz are both members of the Stollngesellschaft and the Saigerhüttengesellschaft. It is not yet known how long Ulrich Schütz has been running his father-in-law's business and whether this happened for both companies at the same time. Schütz took over the Tirmannstolln Society as the main shareholder in Leipzig by 1479 at the latest, together with his brother Hans and the husband of his sister Anna, Merten Pauer .

As a result of the increased yield from Geyer's mines in the 1470s and 80s , the Sagerhüttengesellschaft, now managed by Schütz, planned to build a new hut in the 15th century. In order to avoid conflicts with the mill owners based on the Chemnitz , Schütz acquired numerous properties, mills and water rights from 1477 onwards. In 1486 he acquired the rod mill and the following year the Reissig mill , at whose location he had a new Saigerhütte with a moat, a copper hammer and three houses built in 1488.

Ulrich Schütz, who probably died shortly before his brother Hans in 1505/06, experienced and helped shape mining in Geyer, the Saigerhütte in Chemnitz and the city of Chemnitz in their greatest heyday.

Change of ownership after Schütz's death and monopoly efforts by the Welser

Ulrich Schütz's son of the same name received the lordly feudal letter over the ironworks in 1506. With the death of Hans Schütz, the ownership changed: Hans Schütz's sons Gregor and Marx acquired the shares from Merten Pauer in Leipzig and so many shares from the heirs Ulrich Schütz the Elder that they only owned a quarter.

In 1525 Gregor and Marx Schütz acquired the last shares in the iron and steel works from Ulrich Schütz's heirs. At this point in time, the Welsers , who were active in the Nuremberg copper business, appeared. A certain Hieronymus Walther in Leipzig, co-partner, relative and servant of Bartholomäus Welser, had apparently done business with Gregor Schütz in his name and founded a new company, before asking Duke Georg von Sachsen for confirmation after buying the Chemnitz smelting plant in 1526 asked about this.

However, the Welsers could not enforce their desired monopoly plans over lead production in Goslar , the Bohemian copper and silver production and the Saxon and Bohemian tin yield. After 1530, the Schütz family regained influence on the metallurgical facilities, which were able to benefit from their own mines and their extensive family roots in the Erzgebirge mining and metallurgy industry. In 1533 Gregor Schütz became a mountain tithe in the Annaberg district. As a Saxon mining official, he was actually forbidden from doing his own business, because he found out early on where there was good yield and so probably could supply rich copper ore to the Chemnitzer Hütte.

Acquisition by the descendants of Ulrich Schütz and end of the smeltery

The interests of the descendants of Ulrich Schütz the Elder, who had the ironworks built in 1488, were now represented by the multiple mayor of Chemnitz, Hieronymus Schütz. As the heir of Ulrich Schütz, he was already a co-owner of the Saigerhütten trading company after his death. Schütz was evidently well acquainted with the factor of the Welser in Leipzig, Hieronymus Walther, who lived in Chemnitz for a time or moved here. In 1544 Schütz bought the Saigerhütte with a copper hammer and the three houses. For the first time there is a single person in the loan letter, there is no reference to a society. Hieronymus Schütz died in 1552. His sons did not receive the feudal letter from Elector August until 1554; the list of heirs in the feudal letter does not contain any information about the management of the complex.

After 1554 the records of the Chemnitz smelting facilities end. It is possible that the buildings - presumably already closed at that time - fell victim to a flood in 1560.

Site exploration

Exploratory excavations in Chemnitz city park in July 2011

The approximate location of Ulrich Schütz's Saigerhütte is known from a map by Matthias Oeder and, based on this, can be narrowed down to a small area near a weir in Chemnitz in today's city ​​park . Wall fragments, copper slag, remains of charcoal and the former mill ditch discovered in the course of canal construction work in 1972 indicate that a smelting site could have been located here.

In autumn 2008 - based on the results of a historical preliminary exploration - the decision was made to carry out a geophysical exploration of the presumed location. This was then implemented in March of the following year. An evaluation of the results of georadar and magnetic field measurements with the involvement of the Saxon State Office for Archeology led to the decision to carry out an exploratory excavation as soon as possible.

Between July 18 and 29, 2011, the Institute for Industrial Archeology, History of Science and Technology (IWTG) of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and the Saxon State Office for Archeology arranged for an excavation. The mill ditch mentioned above, slag and ceramic remains were found at a depth of around 4.5 meters. However, it was not possible to precisely locate the hut.

additional

References to a description of the Saigerhütte in Agricola's "De re metallica libri XII"

Since 1533/34, the polymath Georgius Agricola , who had lived in Chemnitz since 1531, acted as guardian of the children of Ulrich Schütz's eldest son, which brought closer contact to his family. After the death of his first wife, Agricola married his ward Anna Schütz in 1542/43 and thus became part of the influential family that owned the Saigerhütte in Chemnitz. It is therefore highly likely that Agricola had direct access to the hut and perhaps used this to supplement his work on his main work “De re metallica libri XII”, which he did between 1530 and 1550, with practical studies on site.
Based on scattered, textual references, the suspicion that Agricola could possibly have referred directly to the Chemnitz Saigerhütte in his descriptions in the 11th book.
However, a precise textual analysis of the 11th book seems to be necessary, since only on this one can decide whether the Chemnitzer hut is the hut described by Agricola. However, this also presupposes that the location of the hut can be localized and the remains of the structures analyzed and the structure reconstructed.

Models of the Saigerhütte in the Schlossbergmuseum Chemnitz

In 1993/94, two detailed models of a Saigerhütte were made for the Schlossbergmuseum Chemnitz based on descriptions and illustrations at Agricola on a scale of 1: 100 and 1:25, the larger of which found a permanent place in the museum's city history exhibition.
As part of a student project work at the IWTG in summer 2008, however, considerable doubts were aroused about the correct reproduction of the description of the Saigerhütte in Agricola's 11th book "De re metallica libri XII" by the model in the Schlossberg Museum, which particularly relates to the technical equipment as well as the supply and distribution of hydropower in the hut.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hanns-Heinz Kasper : From the Saigerhütte to the Kupferhammer Grünthal 1537-1873 - From the 450-year history of a metallurgical company in Olbernhau-Grünthal. Publisher: Saigerhüttenverein eV Olbernhau-Grünthal, Druckerei Olbernhau GmbH, 1994, p. 11.
  2. ↑ a b cf. Hanns-Heinz Kasper: The Saigerhütte Grünthal. Care and maintenance of a metallurgical monument from the time of Georgius Agricola. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter issue 2/1994, pp. 87-91, ISSN  0486-8234 .
  3. ↑ See Hanns-Heinz Kasper: From the Saigerhütte to the Kupferhammer Grünthal 1537-1873 … p. 10–11.
  4. ↑ See Peter Lange: Saigerhütten in Thuringia. In: Copper Silver Steel - Contributions to the history of metallurgy. Published by the museums of the city of Olbernhau, Olbernhau 1988, p. 15.
  5. ↑ See Peter Lange: Saigerhütten in Thuringia. ... pp. 15–17.
  6. ↑ a b cf. Kramarczyk 2003, p. 3.
  7. ↑ a b See Kramarczyk 2003, pp. 4–5.
  8. ↑ a b c cf. Kramarczyk 2003, p. 7.
  9. ↑ See Kramarczyk 2003, p. 8.
  10. ↑ See Kramarczyk 2003, p. 9.
  11. ↑ See Kramarczyk 2003, p. 10.
  12. ↑ See: Ur-Öder (Part I), 1:13 333, hand drawing, 1586-1634, sheet 99: Südwesten von Chemnitz , accessed on March 14, 2012.
  13. ↑ See Albrecht 2009, p. 47.
  14. ↑ See Albrecht 2009, pp. 48–49.
  15. ^ Excavations to Kupfersaigerhütte in Chemnitz City Park are coming to an end , accessed on March 16, 2012.
  16. ↑ a b See Albrecht 2009, pp. 46–47.

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 15.5 ″  N , 12 ° 54 ′ 46.5 ″  E