Treaty of Ripen
The Treaty of Ripen established the personal union between Denmark and the previously Schauenburg territories of Schleswig and Holstein in 1460 . In order to achieve his election as sovereign, the Danish King Christian I had to grant the knighthood significant privileges. The later term Ripener Privilege on the part of the knights emphasized their special position vis-à-vis the sovereign.
At the royal hand-fests on March 5, 1460, issued as an electoral surrender in Ripen , the second contract text was the Kiel homage surrender of April 4, 1460, the so-called Brave Improvement . Together, these documents established joint rule over Schleswig and Holstein and created a state of peace .
The Treaty of Ripen lost its immediate validity with the death of Christian I (1481), but the basic ideas laid down continued to have an effect. The partly separatist Schleswig-Holstein movement resisted Danish plans to separate Schleswig and incorporate it into the kingdom in the 19th century with reference to the Treaty of Ripen.
history
When he died on December 4, 1459, Count Adolf VIII of Holstein and Stormarn - at the same time Duke of Schleswig - did not leave an immediate heir who could claim rulership rights in both areas. Since the Duchy of Schleswig was a Danish fief, the next potential heir (legitimate cognitive heir under Danish inheritance law) was his sister son King Christian I of Denmark . The counties Holstein and Stormarn, however, were German fiefdoms, so that Count Otto II. Adolfssohn (* 1400, † 1464) of Schauenburg and Holstein zu Pinneberg was the heir according to Salian law. Emperor Friedrich III. stayed out of here completely.
The knighthood residing in the three countries and closely related to one another now took over the initiative. She was interested in a permanent settlement and wanted to avoid new conflicts and the loss of her pledged goods. The last Schauenburg line, Holstein-Pinneberg , represented by Otto II, was excluded from succession in Schleswig (Schleswig was subject to a different inheritance law as a Danish fiefdom) and was therefore out of the question from the point of view of the knighthood. King Christian I of Denmark as Oldenburg and nephew of the deceased seemed to be the right candidate for the knighthood and prelates of the countries. The Holstein nobility had long since unified and were represented in Denmark with large estates. The connection between Schleswig, Holstein, Stormarn and Denmark under one ruler was also well suited to prevent the conflict between different powers between the Baltic and the North Sea from flaring up again. Christian called a meeting in Ripen in 1460 , at which he was elected ruler of both territories on March 2, contrary to Salian law . On March 5th the electoral contract (handfests) of Ripen was drawn up, in which a number of laws and ordinances for his royal time were laid down. In what is probably the best-known passage, taken out of context, it says about the knighthood in Schleswig and Holstein: "dat se bliven ewich tosamende ungedelt" (that they remain together forever undivided). What was meant by this was that there should be no feud between them.
The stands were about stable conditions. The Treaty of Ripen not only set a permanent end to the conflicts between the Danish royal house and the Holstein counts. Above all, they wanted to prevent conflicts between the rulers and secure their participation in the rule of the country. Later interpretations put the point of avoiding divisions at the center of considerations. This was only partially fulfilled, however, because the power of the estates soon succumbed to the rising princes. In Holstein and Stormarn as well as in Schleswig there was a tradition of division or the establishment of secundogenitures , as was common in the German Empire. As early as 1490, Schleswig was divided for the first time and Holstein, which was also elevated to a duchy in 1474. This division between Christian's sons King Hans and Duke Friedrich became obsolete with the accession of the latter to the throne, and the division between him and his son Christian in 1523 only lasted until the next change of throne. In contrast, the division of land between Christian III. and his half-brothers Johann the Elder and Adolf I had long-term consequences in 1544, as did the partitions of 1564 and 1581. The possessions of the nobility and clergy remained exempt from the partitions and were formally governed jointly by the sovereigns.
The position of the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck and Hamburg
The northern German cities of the Hanseatic League had no interest in this result for reasons of trade policy and tried to circumvent this solution diplomatically in advance. However, they were not heard. After the conclusion of the contract, there was no further opposition, as the cities were initially able to do bearable business with King Christian by mutual agreement and, due to his weak financial situation and dependency, they assumed that he would not question the privileges granted.
In the age of nation states
It was not until the 19th century that the Ripen Treaty gained new meaning when the historian and secretary of the knighthood Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann declared it to be a kind of constitution not only for the estates but for the duchies as a whole. In view of the burgeoning national conflict between German and Danish, the hitherto almost forgotten treaty unfolded unimagined explosive power, as the knighthood and soon large parts of the originally liberal Schleswig-Holstein movement saw it as a "historically documented right". The inheritance claims of Duke Christian August von Augustenburg reinforced this. The political slogan " Up forever ungedeelt " was (undivided forever) in 1841 by the Schleswig-minded smal Apenrader taken physician August Wilhelm Neuber and orchestrated the Ripener contract also in the sense of detachment of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark.
But also on the Danish side a movement developed in which the demands for political liberalization soon faded into the background before the national issue. The Eider Danes invoked the original affiliation and existing feudal connection between Schleswig and Denmark and claimed the entire Duchy of Schleswig as part of a future Danish nation-state. Both sides ignored the realities in the linguistically and culturally mixed country. In 1848 the tensions finally led to civil war, in 1864 to the end of the state under the Danish crown.
Although the royal hand-held festivals of Ripen were increasingly hollowed out and replaced by new regulations just a few decades after its creation, it was able to become a myth in the 19th century . This myth of the Ripener Treaty as a "Schleswig-Holstein constitution" persisted in Schleswig-Holstein well beyond the middle of the 20th century. It is only in the last decade that the treaty has been viewed more soberly as an important historical agreement. The indivisibility of Schleswig and Holstein is not seen as the most important aspect, but rather the creation of a state peace and common rule.
literature
- Robert Bohn : History of Schleswig-Holstein. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-50891-2 .
- Kai Fuhrmann: The knighthood as a political corporation in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein from 1460 to 1721. Edited by the ongoing deputation of the Schleswig-Holstein prelates and knighthood. Ludwig, Kiel 2002 ISBN 3-933598-39-7
- Carsten Jahnke: "dat se bliven ewich tosamende ungedelt". New reflections on an old catchphrase. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History 128/2003, pp. 45–59.
- Ulrich Lange (Hrsg.): History of Schleswig-Holstein. From the beginning to the present . 2nd Edition. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2003, ISBN 978-3-529-02440-5 .
- Oliver Auge , Burkhard Büsing (Ed.): The Treaty of Ripen 1460 and the beginnings of political participation in Schleswig-Holstein, in the empire and in Northern Europe. Results of an international conference of the Department of Regional History at Kiel University from March 5th to 7th, 2010 (= Time + History. Vol. 24 = Kiel Historical Studies. Vol. 43). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7995-5943-0 .
- Thomas Riis: Up forever untagged. A catchphrase and its background. In: Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann (Hrsg.): Geschistorbilder. Festschrift for Michael Salewski on the occasion of his 65th birthday (= historical messages. Supplement 47). Steiner, Stuttgart 2003 ISBN 3-515-08252-2 , pp. 158-167.
- Henning von Rumohr (ed.): Dat se bliven tosamende ewich ungedelt. Festschrift of the Schleswig-Holstein Knighthood on the 500th anniversary of the Ripen Day on March 5, 1960 . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1960.
Web links
- Privilege of Ripen. Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, accessed on October 26, 2010 .
Remarks
- ^ Robert Bohn: History of Schleswig-Holstein . Beck, Munich 2006, p. 39.
- ↑ Christian III. became Duke of the royal share, Adolf von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf and Johann von Schleswig-Holstein-Hadersleben .