Wetterauer Count Association

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wetterauer Grafenverein , also called Wetterauisches Reichsgrafenkollegium or Wetterauische Grafenbank , was an amalgamation of count houses from the area of ​​the Wetterau , the Westerwald and neighboring areas. It originated in the late Middle Ages and formally existed until the end of the Holy Roman Empire .

The Wetterau according to Matthäus Merian ( Topographia Hassiae )

requirements

The space of Wetterau was until Staufer time and then marked on the one hand of royal rights and property, on the other hand from a variety of emerging small-scale count's , knightly and urban territories .

With the end of the Hohenstaufen empire and with the extinction of the Munzenbergs in 1255, the different political forces of the Wetterau became more apparent, especially the large families of those from Hanau , Eppstein , Falkenstein and Isenburg-Büdingen . In addition, there were the Friedberger Burgmannschaft , the Burgmannschaft in the Palatinate Gelnhausen , lower aristocratic associations, the free courts (especially Kaichen ) and the cities of Friedberg , Frankfurt , Wetzlar and Gelnhausen . Due to a lack of hegemonic power, the location of the area initially in the area of ​​tension between the Landgraviate of Hesse and the Archdiocese of Mainz and later in the area to which Hessian hegemony efforts referred, the kingship was able to maintain its formative influence as an ally of the Wetterau counts for a long time. The the to 1419 served detectable bailiffs whose "area of responsibility" but further south and west than the later reached out Wetterau Association of Counts. The bailiffs usually came from the leading families in the region and also used their position to enforce their own territorial interests.

The late medieval peace policy initially led to mixed-class unions of knights , lords and counts of the Wetterau. These unions created regional identity, which even with increasing social demarcation of the classes endured. Four stabilizing elements can be seen in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era in the Wetterau:

  • The four imperial cities, of which in the end only Frankfurt was of importance in the long run;
  • an association of knights and other nobles who concentrated in the castle teams of Friedberg Castle and the Palatinate of Gelnhausen;
  • a number of inheritance ( Reifenberg , Kronberg , Falkenstein , Lindheim , Dorheim , Staden ), z. T. identical to the aforementioned group and
  • the Wetterauer Grafenverein , initially also at least partially including the families already organized in the inheritance and castle teams.

history

Beginnings

The Wetterauer Grafenverein was founded in 1422 as the successor organization to the Landvogtei and the Peace Convictions. The trigger was probably a conflict, triggered by attempts to expand by the Landgraviate of Hesse against the Counts of Katzenelnbogen and other lords and counts of the region. At the beginning they belonged to the Wetterau count association

Although this was the first time that all counts and lords in the area between the Rhine and Vogelsberg , Main and Rothaargebirge attempted to create a common political organization, its peripheral areas - both territorially and with regard to responsibilities - remained blurred. Neither the constitutional status of the merger nor the boundaries of the individual domains were precisely defined.

When Katzenelnbogen went out in 1479 and the territory fell to the Landgraviate of Hesse, Nassau took over the management of the Wetterau Counts Association. In 1495 the confederation of Nassau, Solms and Hanau (which had also had the title of count since 1429) was renewed and strengthened by the accession of the Reifenberg, Kronberg, Falkenstein, Lindheim, Dorheim and Staden inheritance. However, the families from the inheritance soon left the association and organized themselves independently in the Central Rhine canton of the Imperial Knighthood . Also in 1495 the Wetterau Association of Counts received at the Diet of Worms , the imperial estate shaft and a Kuriatstimme in the Imperial Council . From 1512 he regularly sent a representative to the Reichstag .

Second phase: 1525–1575

Inner organization

By 1525 at the latest, a largely closed region of count territories emerged in Wetterau and Westerwald . All members achieved the status of imperial immediacy . In 1540 permanent management was established, and in 1565 the federal government was renewed

Inside, the counts, who had been striving to expand their territories to more statehood since the middle of the 16th century, reached the limits of what was politically feasible everywhere. The small size of their own domains, escort and customs rights of neighboring princes , feudal dependencies and the lower class status in comparison to princes represented insurmountable thresholds in order to form full-fledged states out of the counts' domains . Since the count's territorial state remained such an unfulfilled dream, the Wetterau Counts Association was supposed to compensate for the deficits by acting together. It enabled internal disputes to be settled quickly and a coordinated action against foreign interventions by third parties directed against the count's authorities. The association donated and received a uniform police , coin , economic and legal area ( Solmser Landrecht ). The ordinances issued by the Count's Association for this purpose were promulgated by the counts in their counties in their own names (as were the regulations adopted at counts, imperial or district assemblies). This was an important expression of the sovereign rights of the individual count in their own territory, because peacekeeping was an indication of sovereign power.

The Wetterau Grafenverein asserted itself in the 16th century as the most important force in the Wetterau, given the territorial formation of the Landgraves of Hesse. Initially, this was done in close association with the Habsburgs (including all denominational differences that occurred after 1517).

reformation

During the Reformation, the counts first used the Reformation approach to tax clergy . It was not until the 1930s that the emerging regional churches were restructured with the help of individual church regulations . And it was only immediately before the Schmalkaldic War that the Wetterau Counts' Association gave up its non-denominational course in favor of a clear commitment to the Augsburg denomination .

Emperor Charles V's preparations for war forced the counts to join the supposedly stronger evangelical group, at least verbally, because Landgrave Philipp von Hessen , the real opponent of the emperor, was their immediate neighbor. During the war, the counts remained neutral and hesitated for a long time in 1547 before deciding to support the victorious emperor. They rejected its federal plans and implemented the Augsburg Interim - like almost all Protestant estates - only formally and prevented its implementation in practice.

Third phase: between 1576 and the Thirty Years War

Inner organization

In 1576 the organization of the Wetterau Counts' Association was fundamentally reformed. A correspondence contract stipulated that the counts elected one of their own, changing annually, to be the "tenderer" who assumed the function of a spokesman and representative of the association. He set the date and place of the meetings and set the agenda. In this way, he essentially determined decisions, because delegates of the counts could only be instructed on the points previously communicated by the advertiser.

Second Reformation

For the successors of Charles V, who concentrated on defending against the Turks in the east, the Wetterau counts no longer played a major political role. From the Reichstag in Augsburg of 1566 onwards, the counts oriented themselves more and more towards a regional supremacy, the Electoral Palatinate , in order to continue to guarantee the counterweight against Hesse. This also applied to religious policy. The Palatinate was reformed , and so were the counts in the following years - especially since their leading figures held top positions at the Heidelberg court. As a result, they regained importance because they openly questioned the Augsburg religious peace , which only considered Lutherans and Roman Catholics . Domestically, this Second Reformation was interesting for the counts because the new, reformed clergy, in contrast to the Lutheran pastors, had no support from the population and was therefore completely dependent on the sovereign. Nevertheless, the change of denomination of the subjects on the principle of " cuius regio, eius religio " could be enforced relatively easily.

On the other hand, with the extinction of the Counts of Königstein and the Counts of Rieneck, their territories were largely lost to the Archdiocese of Mainz. Furthermore, a number of count houses were weakened by the fact that after the Reformation they were denied access to spiritual benefices and they had to divide the country to provide for after-born sons. This shook the social system of the count families and could only be partially offset by the fact that governor or military posts could be opened for later sons.

The attempts to turn the political system of the empire inside out, to remain evangelical and to regain spiritual benefices, were completely lacking. The counts suffered bitter defeats in their support of the Reformation attempt by the Archbishop of Cologne, Gebhard I von Waldburg , in the attempt to harness the States General for their political goals, and in the Strasbourg chapter dispute. On the other hand, the Wetterau Count Association was so consolidated that when in 1605 the territory of a third member of the Count Association threatened to fall to the Archdiocese of Mainz in the form of the County of Nassau-Wiesbaden , the threat of mobilizing the "Landesdefension" was sufficient to relieve the Archbishop of his attempt at annexation to hold.

The intensive efforts of the Nassau-Dillenburgers in the last quarter of the 16th century to persuade leading Calvinist nobles in the Lower Rhine duchies to take over the government failed. however, in conjunction with other Wetterau counts and Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel-Kassel, they made a significant contribution to the conversion of the Hohenzollern to Calvinism in 1610/13. Their inheritance claim to Jülich-Kleve-Berg, through which a Calvinist land bridge was to be created between the Wetterau counties and the United Netherlands, could only be partially enforced militarily against the Catholic powers.

Thirty Years' War

For the county, however, the closer connection to the Electoral Palatinate also meant that after the adventure of Elector Friedrich V as the winter king of Bohemia, they were immediately drawn into the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War . The count's territories were too small to be able to defend themselves effectively. The militia, made up of selected, appropriately equipped and armed subjects, was completely inferior to the now dominant mercenary armies. Military roads ran right through the Wetterau. In this way, the count's little lands received the full force of the war. At the end of the war they were so bled that even the two Wetterau ambassadors had to be withdrawn from Münster and Osnabrück due to lack of money at the peace congress . Nonetheless, the counts achieved their most important goals: All members of the Wetterau Counts Association largely received their property back and the Reformed Confession was recognized under imperial law. The Regensburg Reichstag could not initially be sent, which other counts used to usurp the Wetterau curiate vote.

Late period

The complexity of the rulership in the Wetterau was preserved - despite the loss of importance of the Count's Association in the 17th century - with some changes up to the mediatization at the end of the old empire. The Wetterau Count Association was formally renewed in 1652. From then on, it dealt mainly with representation in the Reichstag, but also continued to form a joint forum for legal, police and economic matters, which could not be implemented promisingly in the context of the individual small county.

With the newly reigned Nassauers, however, it lost its long-standing center, and the Westerwald counts fell out, as they were henceforth part of the newly formed Westphalian Counts Association .

The Wetterau curiate vote at the Reichstag could not be fully won back. Some Saxon and Protestant counts (such as the Schönburgers ) from other areas of the empire remained involved.

An important turning point was the entry of the Landgrave of Hesse, the original opponent, into the Count's Association when, after the death of the last Count from the House of Hanau , Johann Reinhard III. , Whose heir took over in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg in 1736.

After the Thirty Years' War, the Wetterau Count Association lost its regional identity. With the mediation at the end of the old empire, large parts of the Wetterau fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and later formed its province of Upper Hesse .

Constitution

In the Wetterauer Grafenverein around 20 count lines were represented in the course of its several hundred years of existence. In addition to the ones already mentioned, this included at times:

In the course of time the original character of the Grafentage as an assembly of the ruling counts diminished. The meetings were increasingly filled with competent councils, which professionalized the work. In particular, the external representation of the corporation became the domain of experienced lawyers. But they also played a central role in the internal decision-making and organization of the Count's Association since the middle of the 16th century.

Since an organizational reform in 1576, the chairmanship has changed annually between the members. To the count writing the tender . there was a committee of four other counts. Two councilors and a secretary from the staff of individual members took on the tasks of the central chancellery for a fixed salary. The attempt to set up such a law firm in Friedberg also anchored locally failed - like so many projects of the association - due to the members' lack of payment behavior. This could not be remedied either, since the corporation did not have any applicable and effective means of coercion in hand against its members. The amount of the contribution to be paid by the individual members for the business costs and for projects repeatedly led to disputes, probably also due to the extremely different layout and economic performance of the individual counties.

Most of the members belonged to the Upper Rhine , although some also belonged to the Westphalian district .

Politics inside

The corporation of the counts concentrated internally on the preservation of peace, according to today's terminology: on the maintenance of security and order and on common legal and economic policy.

The operational area for the military state contingent, later the "state defense troops", was always the entire area of ​​the count's association.

Imperial and foreign policy

The corporation of the counts was also important in order to eliminate foreign interference in their sphere of influence, if necessary also by the military defense against attacks.

In all joint actions as part of the external representation of the Wetterau counts, it was important that their status as individual authorities in their own territory should be impaired as little as possible. However, only jointly perceptible positions in the imperial corporate bodies turned out to be a unifying moment between the corporation members. The Reichstag was by far the most important forum for expressing ideas and goals to the other powers, even if the direct influence on decision-making remained small, although the Wetterau Counts' Association in the Reichsfürstenrat of the Reichstag gained a curiate vote and as a corporation obtained the status of the Reich. But the mere presence of the counts at the Reichstag ensured them a minimum of information and made it possible to counter unpleasant developments at an early stage. In addition, her vote as a curate at the Reichstag documented her claim to principle of equality with the princes. The early integration of the Wetterau counts as a corporation in the forming Reichstag as the central forum of the increasingly territorially organized empire was therefore the greatest barrier to the princely attempts to mediate.

While the vote in the Reichstag - the Wetterauische Grafenbank # 96 held the order of the Reichsfürstenrat - was undisputed, the counts did not succeed in participating in the deputation days or in the presentation of the assessors of the Reich Chamber of Commerce. Even on the district assemblies, in which each count had his own vote, the influence of the Wetterau Counts Association remained small.

rating

The hybrid position of the Wetterau Count Association between the corporation and the interests of the individual members has led in the scientific discussion to even evaluate it as a "cooperatively organized state". But that is probably exaggerated. The attributes that make up a state were not strong enough. However, the association was strong enough externally to create sufficient freedom internally - there, however, at the level of the individual counties - to consolidate these according to the princely model and to secure intensified early state interventions in the freedoms of the subjects, because the counts had to do this expect very strong resistance inside. But if they renounced this adaptation to the developing territorial structure of the empire, they would fall hopelessly behind the princes and increase the risk of being mediated by them. The count's association had to be “state” to the outside world, but could not and was not allowed to develop further in this direction because that would have impaired the rights of its members.

Quote

The deeper we get into the colorful Roman Empire, the more flowery the statistics become, so that, from a political point of view, we really no longer know where we are and what the spot we are walking on belongs to. Darmstadt, Hanau, Solms, Burggrafschaft, Kurmainz and Pütter- knows-how-many governments are playing blind man's buff here in such a mess that one would believe that this part of Germany would have broken down once and was hastily pasted back together for good luck. I thank heaven that this trip of mine is not statistical and that I do not have to worry about whether Peter or Paul have something to say here. What suffers most are our cars and our shoes; for the roads seem to know just as little as we do who should maintain them, and in this uncertainty they get worse and worse.

The members of the Wetterau Empire Counts College 1792

composition

coat of arms

  • Hanau

  • Nassau

  • Solms

  • Isenburg

  • Stolberg

  • Sayn

  • Wild and Rhine Counts

  • Leiningen

  • Reuss from Plauen

  • Schönburg

  • Ortenburg

  • Kriechingen

  • Waldeck

  • Koenigstein (Eppstein)

  • Kolb von Wartenberg

The dissolution of the Wetterau Empire Counts College

The Peace of Lunéville on February 9, 1801 and the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France already meant considerable losses for the Wetterau Empire Counts College:

  • The area of ​​Hanau-Lichtenberg on the left bank of the Rhine had already been occupied by French troops in 1797 and was now also ceded to France ( Département Bas-Rhin ) under international law ,
  • Nassau-Saarbrücken, Wild- and Rheingraf zu Grumbach and Rheingrafenstein came to the Département de la Sarre ,
  • Leiningen-Hardenburg, Leiningen-Heidesheim, Leiningen-Guntersblum, Wartenberg came to the Département du Mont-Tonnerre
  • Kriechingen came to the Moselle department .

In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of February 25, 1803, the compensation for the deposed Reich counts was regulated. Received:

The final end of the Wetterau Empire Counts College was decided with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Fundamental changes were made with the Rhine Confederation Act of July 12, 1806. Some princes joined the Rhine Confederation, while the other states were mediated in favor of France or the Rhine Confederation states:

  • The Grand Duke of Hessen-Darmstadt, the Princes of Nassau-Usingen, Nassau-Weilburg and Isenburg-Birstein were signatory states to the Rhine Confederation Act. The princes of Reuss, older line to Greiz, younger line to Schleiz and younger line to Lobenstein joined the Rhine Confederation on April 18, 1807, as did the Kingdom of Westphalia on November 15, 1807. Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen were together with the On the right bank of the Rhine, the properties of Kurmainz and Kurtrier were combined to form the Duchy of Nassau in the Confederation of the Rhine.
  • The Grand Duke of Berg received the Lordship of Westerburg and Runkel on the right of the Lahn (Art. 24).
  • The Grand Duke of Baden received the Principality of Leiningen, the Vogteien Neudenau and Billigheim (Art. 24). The princes of Leiningen as well as the counts of Leiningen, line to Neudenau, and Leiningen, line to Billigheim became civil lords with extensive special rights in Baden.
  • The Grand Duke of Hessen-Darmstadt received Ilbenstadt and the parts of Königstein and Stolberg-Ortenberg owned by Stolberg-Gedern, the territories of the Counts of Solms (excluding Hohensolms, Braunfels and Greifenstein) , the Counties of Wittgenstein and Berleburg (Art. 24).
  • The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel was not accepted into the Rhine Confederation, his territory became the heartland of the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807.
  • The princes of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg received the remaining possessions of Wied-Runkel and Wied-Neuwied as well as Hohensolms, Braunfels and Greifenstein (Art. 24).
  • The Prince of Isenburg-Birstein received the possessions of Isenburg-Büdingen, -Wächtersbach and -Meerholz (Art. 24).
  • Stolberg-Wernigerode came to Saxony in 1806 and to the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. Stolberg-Stolberg fell to Prussia in 1806.
  • The Horstmar office, owned by the Rheingrafen, fell to the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1806 and to France ( Département Lippe ) in 1810 .
  • The county of Schönburg became part of Saxony in 1806.
  • In 1805, Count Joseph Karl von Ortenburg received the monastery office of Tambach (near Coburg), which until 1803 was under the sovereignty of the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, as a new county, in exchange and while maintaining all of his rights for his immediate imperial county in Lower Bavaria . However, this was only mediated by Bavaria a few months after the exchange in 1806.
  • In 1810 Hanau-Münzenberg came to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt .

literature

  • Ursula Braasch : The Wetterauer Grafenverein. In: Fred Schwind (Ed.): Historical Atlas of Hessen. Text tape. Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies, Marburg 1984, ISBN 3-921254-95-7 , pp. 145–148.
  • Karl E. Demandt : History of the State of Hesse. 2nd revised and expanded edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1972, ISBN 3-7618-0404-0 , pp. 474-480.
  • Angela Kuhlenkampf: Kuriatstimme and collegial constitution of the Wetterau counts from 1663–1806. A contribution to the imperial history of the less powerful estates. In: Journal for Historical Research . 20, 1993, pp. 485-504.
  • Georg Schmidt : The Wetterauer Count Association. Organization and politics of an imperial corporation between the Reformation and the Peace of Westphalia. Elwert, Marburg 1989, ISBN 3-7708-0928-9 ( Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 52), (At the same time: Tübingen, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1989).
  • Georg Schmidt: Wetterauer Grafenverein. In: Knights, Counts and Princes - secular dominions in the Hessian area approx. 900-1806. Marburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-942225-17-5 (= Handbook of Hessian History 3 = Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 63), pp. 326–346.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mostert, Rolf-Achim: Wirich von Daun Graf zu Falkenstein (1542–1598), A Reichsgraf and Bergischer Landstand in the tension between power politics and denomination. Diss. Phil. Düsseldorf 1996, Essen 1997.
  2. ^ Franz Josef Burghardt: Between Fundamentalism and Tolerance. Calvinist influences on Elector Johann Sigismund von Brandenburg before his conversion . Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-428-13797-8 , there in particular short biography p. 103.
  3. ↑ Jens Immanuel Baggesen : The labyrinth or journey through Germany to Switzerland 1789 . Leipzig 1985, p. 233.

Remarks

  1. ^ Offices on the right bank of the Rhine in Baden in 1803
  2. ↑ During the French Revolution, the Kolb von Wartenberg sold the county to the Counts of Sickingen, but the handover never took place.
  3. ↑ The associated county of Dagsburg (Comté de Dabo) had been under French sovereignty since 1680, came back to the empire in 1697 in the Peace of Rijswijk and in 1797 to France ( Moselle department ).
  4. ↑ 1806 Principality of Leiningen and the bailiwicks Billigheim and Neidenau left of the Main to Baden, right of the Main to the Prince-Primary States . In 1810 the Amorbach office with Miltenberg at Hessen-Darmstadt was secularized in favor of Leiningen, then Baden. As a result of the June 30, 1816 in Frankfurt a. M. between Austria, Prussia and Hessen-Darmstadt and after an agreement of July 7, 1816, Amorbach and Miltenberg became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria.
  5. ↑ 1806, with the dissolution of the empire, the imperial estate was lost, but until 1878 the Schönburgs had an autonomous jurisdiction and thus a special position within Saxony.