Brotherhood of Stonemasons
A stonemason brotherhood was an order for the mostly church building sites on which stonemasons worked.
“ Compared to the city craftsmen organized in guilds, the stonemasons who were employed in the huts of the churches were at a disadvantage, as they were mostly not settled on site and were forced to move around when the hut was closed when construction was completed or reduced if there was a lack of money. This is how the stonemasons employed in churches created themselves around the middle of the 15th century. a supra-regional order . "
This supraregional organization was discussed in Speyer, Strasbourg and decided on April 25, 1459 in Regensburg by 19 masters and 21 journeymen. Important master builders were present at the Regensburg conference: Hans Böblinger from Esslingen, Vincenz Ensinger from Konstanz, Stephan Hurder from Bern, Peter Knebel from Bern and Jost Dotzinger from Strasbourg. The hut regulations were statutes that the conference participants present themselves and by no means a substitute for a guild or guild order. It was legislation by the stonemasons for which official recognition was occasionally sought, as the letter of protection from 1498 for the Strasbourg area, certified by the German king and later Emperor Maximilian I, testifies.
The stonemason brotherhood is to be distinguished from the hut, the guilds or guilds . The hut is the on-site organization of the stonemasons involved in the construction of the cathedral, the guild is an association of merchants and the guilds are a class organization of master craftsmen. The stonemasons' brotherhood is the national organization of stonemasons who worked on large church building sites.
Günther Binding points in particular to the difference between the terms hut and building hut and stonemason brotherhood, because the term building hut is not used in contemporary literature. The hut is the organization on site that deals with all construction tasks. The term hut is not derogatory, the term can in no way be compared with workshops. In addition to wooden and stone buildings, the hut also included other buildings for the kitchen and sleeping quarters, along with the necessary inventory. One could compare the hut with today's building yards, with food and accommodation. Members of the hut could only be freelance stonemasons who worked on the large church building sites, had an impeccable lifestyle and a recognized craft training.
The Strasbourg order of 1459 was a stonemason order that was valid for all part-fraternities of the entire German Empire at that time. The responsible side huts had to transfer a tenth of their income from the so-called rifle money to the main huts. This was money that the members of the stonemasonry had to pay when they entered the hut and as maternity allowance. The tins were graded according to master and journeyman.
As the supreme jurisdiction, the main smelter in Strasbourg monitored the observance of the order, which regulated the staffing of a hut and the training of the offspring, dealt with work and wage issues, journeyman and master craftsman law and the ban on strikes. In the event of disputes between the huts, the Strasbourg hut was the last resort. Attempts were made to regulate the life of the stonemasons down to the most private detail, whereby a religious and charitable basic attitude was reflected. For example, severe penalties were imposed for gambling or adultery. Participation in certain church services was compulsory. Violations of the hut regulations threatened to expel individuals. Similar efforts have been handed down for England a hundred years earlier. The order passed in London in 1356 contains parallel provisions.
The Strasbourg order, which comprised 93 articles and was adopted in Regensburg in 1459, is best preserved in the Thanner manuscript of the 16th century. In their introduction it says:
“In the name of the father, the sun and the holy spirit and the worthy mother of Mary and also in the holy servant, the holy four crowned, for eternal reference. ... and also for the benefit of all the masters and companions of the utterly common handicraft of stonework and stonemasons in German countries, and especially for the sake of the same of the handicraft, future secondary works ... and damage, which is then quite a bit more serious Damaged and hardly been against such good habit and come from old ... "
Due to the steelworks law, the craftsmen were only bound to the building to be built and had no obligations to the community, which resulted in their superior position to other craft associations.
The entire area, which stretched over today's Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and parts of the Slavic East, was organizationally assigned to the four main huts Strasbourg, Cologne, Vienna and Bern and represented an economically and artistically impressive power The catchment areas included:
- Strasbourg hut : Electoral Palatinate, Franconia, Hesse, Thuringia, Meissen, Saxony, Swabia, southern Germany
- Hut Vienna : Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Hungary
- Cologne Hut : Northwest Germany
- Hut Bern (from 1516 Zurich): Switzerland
With the end of the Gothic period there was a decline in the number of large construction sites for churches, which particularly affected the stone masonry brotherhoods. There were huts until the 19th century, but the Strasbourg hut regulations were at the same time an expression of the heyday of the stonemasonry brotherhoods and of the coming decline.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Günther Binding : Construction in the Middle Ages. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-10908-2 , p. 107.
- ^ Günther Binding: Construction in the Middle Ages. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-10908-2 , p. 102.