Wittgenstein land law

The Wittgensteiner Landrecht is a more than 450 year old collection of laws of the County of Sayn-Wittgenstein , some of which were only overridden with the introduction of the Civil Code .

Authorship

Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht according to the original codex from 1579.

The Wittgensteiner Landrecht was enacted in the last third of the 16th century by Count Ludwig I. zu Sayn-Wittgenstein . The only remaining copy bears the title: Ordnungs des Herr Ludwig von Seyn, Grave zu Witgenstein, Herr zu Homburg etc. 1579. Even then, the subtitle was chosen as the name under which the collection of laws became known: Wittgensteiner Landrecht .

Its scope essentially comprised the original county of Wittgenstein. After the division of the county in 1603, the code of law continued to apply in the counties of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg with the Berleburg residence and Sayn-Wittgenstein-Wittgenstein with the residence at Wittgenstein Castle near Laasphe .

In the court order, three sub-courts , which were also called regional courts, were installed with headquarters in Berleburg , Laasphe and Richstein .

Within their validity, the laws were not published in the familiar letterpress, but were handwritten for the courts. A single handwritten copy is still available, which is in the possession of the Bad Berleburg District Court . The legal collection was copied by the Girkhausen pastor Johann Guden (* around 1535 - † July 2, 1587) in at least two years of work and completed in 1579. Guden (often also Latinized : Gudenus ), who had already dealt with the transcription of the first Berleburg Chronicle , wrote in Gothic print. The code he reproduced consists of twelve chapters on 432 pages and is bound in leather. It is unclear whether this carefully crafted unique specimen is the copy of the then ruling regent Ludwig I and his successors, which was presented to the Prussian judicial authorities when Wittgenstein was later transferred to Prussia . At least the Princely Archives in Berleburg Castle does not have any other copies of the code.

Structure and resilience

Three chapters ( judicial Polizey- and Holtz-order in the rule Homburg) are specifically related to the centuries to the house Sayn-Wittgenstein imperial rule Homburg dedicated. With the Polizey Order (1573), Schreiberey Order (1579), Reformationis Ecclesiasticae repetitio (1563), Church Order (1565), Marriage Order (1579), House Order (1579), Holtz Order (1579) , Halß-ordinance (missing), court order in the Graffschaff Wittgenstein (1569), legal orders were issued in eight chapters that were valid for more than two hundred years in Wittgenstein. There are no explanations about the Halß-Ordinance chapter , but the Embarrassing Neck Court Regulations , the Emperor Karl V , also applied to the territories of that time . had enacted in 1532. In it, substantive criminal law , but essentially criminal procedural law, was regulated in a binding manner.

Table of contents of the Wittgenstein land law from 1579

The orders of Count Ludwig the Elder were gradually replaced by other laws in the first half of the 19th century, after the Wittgenstein Counts, who had recently been raised to the rank of prince, lost their sovereignty. In place of the Wittgensteiner Landrecht came because of the takeover by the Grand Duchy of Hesse (1806-1816) first Hessian, then Prussian law, whereby the existing laws in Wittgenstein were generally retained as particular rights for a longer period of time due to the new legislation .

In this respect, the general land law (ALR) was introduced as the legal basis in most parts of Westphalia , while in the Duchy of Westphalia and the two Wittgenstein counties, the old legal traditions largely remained until the legislature introduced the civil code with effect from January 1, 1900.

The former director of the Bad Berleburg District Court, Erwin Seiffert (1928-2016) described in an article on the history of the Siegen District Court the Wittgenstein land law as a prime example of German territorial legislation.

publication

The collection of laws was presented to a broader public through a publication by the Wittgensteiner Heimatverein in 1960, after the then editor Wilhelm Hartnack had transcribed the laws over many years and published it as supplement 1 of the association's own magazine.

This was the first publication after almost 400 years, which was made possible with financial help from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Finance Minister Dr. A. Sträter , Education Minister W. Schütz ).

literature

Particular law of the counties of Wittgenstein . Reprint from the drafts of the Westphalian Provincial Law Books. Berlin 1837, p. 15
GWF Rintelen: The provincial law of the Duchy of Westphalia and the counties of Wittgenstein . Part II, Appendix, Paderborn 1837, pp. 365-369
Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht . In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, year 47, vol. 23, no. 4, Laasphe 1959, pp. 183-191.

Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht according to the original codex from 1579 , In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, supplement 1, Laasphe 1960.
Erwin Seiffert: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht. In: Law in southern Westphalia. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Siegen Regional Court , Vorländer printing company, Siegen 1983.
Timo Holzborn: The history of legal publication: especially from the beginnings of book printing around 1450 to the introduction of legal gazettes in the 19th century. Legal series Tenea, Vol. 39, Tenea Verlag, Berlin 2003.
Wolfgang Leiser: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht according to the original codex from 1579, edited and edited by Wilhelm Hartnack. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History: German Department, Volume 78, Issue 1, pp. 412–415, Böhlau-Verlag Cologne 2013.

Web links

http://drqerg.de/RHN/quellen/wittgenstein-landrecht-1569/

https://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/portal/Internet/finde/langDatsatz.php?urlID=687&url_tabelle=tab_texte

Individual evidence

^ Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht. In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, year 47, vol. 23, no. 4, Laasphe 1959, p. 183.
↑ In the “Revised draft of the particular rights of the territorial lords belonging to the Westphalian province” it says :… Since the middle of the 16th century, especially during the reign of Count Ludwig, Count Wittgenstein's legislation was one of the most developed whose smaller German territories had to enjoy . In particular, Count Ludwig's court order from 1569, which is also known under the name of Wittgenstein's land law, stands out in this legislation.

↑ Erwin Seiffert: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht. In: Law in southern Westphalia. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Siegen Regional Court , Vorländer printing company, Siegen 1983, p. 168.

^ Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht according to the original codex from 1579, In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, supplement 1, Laasphe 1960, p. 5.

[1] Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht. In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, year 47, vol. 23, no. 4, Laasphe 1959, p. 183.

[2] In the “Revised draft of the particular rights of the territorial lords belonging to the Westphalian province” it says :… Since the middle of the 16th century, especially during the reign of Count Ludwig, Count Wittgenstein's legislation was one of the most developed whose smaller German territories had to enjoy . In particular, Count Ludwig's court order from 1569, which is also known under the name of Wittgenstein's land law, stands out in this legislation.

[3] Erwin Seiffert: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht. In: Law in southern Westphalia. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Siegen Regional Court , Vorländer printing company, Siegen 1983, p. 168.

[4] Wilhelm Hartnack: The Wittgensteiner Landrecht according to the original codex from 1579, In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein eV, supplement 1, Laasphe 1960, p. 5.