Tournament society
Tournament companies , even aristocratic societies were socially and politically motivated mergers tournament Direction ritterbürtiger nobleman. In public, these societies appeared above all because of the regular and lavish implementation of knight tournaments .
Although these associations mostly referred to themselves as society , they were later incorrectly perceived and referred to as tournament societies because of the publicity of their tournaments. However, the tournament was only one aspect of these noble societies. Even with the upper bourgeois patrician society Zur Katz , although - unusual enough for an originally non-aristocratic association - it also organized tournaments in imitation of the knightly nobility and was the only one to call itself the Thonergesellschaft , one can in no way speak of a society focused solely on tournaments.
Despite the prohibition of association in Art. 15 of the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV from 1356, numerous such societies appeared from the 14th century to the 16th century. In some cases they were exempt from the ban on associations (for example, the Fürspängler or the society with the donkey, etc.) It is assumed that some societies had existed for a longer time. For example, the Basler Bund der Sterner was founded in 1265, the Hessian Sternerbund in 1396.
Because of the increasing royal elevation of the lower nobility living in cities and the wealthy middle class to knights in the 14th century, the old aristocracy tried to differentiate themselves from these upstart societies by founding societies with strict admission requirements. The conditions of admission stipulated, for example, that several generations of ancestry had to be presented, which confirmed the noble descent. It was also customary to only grant membership if the applicant or his ancestors could prove that they had participated in tournaments for at least 50 years. If the applicant was born in a city or if he lived predominantly in cities and worked in urban professions, admission to most societies was not possible.
The spatial distribution of such societies in Germany and Europe was very different. However, there is a strong concentration on southern and upper Germany with the exception of Switzerland .
The company members were linked to one another by an oath to be taken on the company's statutes. The statutes contained regulations for the implementation of representative tournaments and celebrations, a commandment of peace among each other, the maintenance of knightly and noble culture, a strict dress code and usually also a mutual duty of assistance and protection. In addition, they regulated the internal organization of these societies. For example, it was common for a captain or king, elected for a year, to lead the company. The societies usually gave themselves their names after animals, saints or, less often, after objects that they wore as symbols on their clothing.
literature
- Orders of knights and noble societies in late medieval Germany . In: Holger Kruse, Werner Paravicini, Andreas Ranft (Hrsg.): Kieler Werkstücke, Series D: Contributions to the European history of the late Middle Ages . tape 1 .. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-631-43635-1 .
- Andreas Ranft: Noble Societies . Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1994.
- Clemens Rehm and Konrad Krimm: Between Princes and Peasants - Imperial Knighthood in Kraichgau. Heimatverein Kraichgau , Sinsheim 1992.
- Corld Ulrichs: From the feudal court to the imperial knighthood . Structures of the Franconian nobility at the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. Verlag Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-51507109-1 , page 135 ff.
- Peter Jezler , Peter Niederhäuser, Elke Jezler (eds.): Knight tournament. History of a festival culture. Book accompanying the exhibition in the Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen. Quaternio Verlag, Lucerne 2014, ISBN 978-3-905924-23-7 .