Cent Abtsteinach
The Zent Abtsteinach was an administrative and judicial district of Kurmainz and at times the Electoral Palatinate and probably only developed in the 14th or 15th century on the former area of the imperial monastery Lorsch . The seat of the court and administration were today's Ober- and later Unter-Abtsteinach in the Odenwald . In 1782 the center was subordinated to the Fürth office , which was part of the Starkenburg office . This went to Hessen in 1803. There the office of Fürth was dissolved as part of an administrative reform in 1821 and merged into the Lindenfels district . Jurisdiction, which was now independent of the administration for the first time, was transferred to the Fürth district court at the same time .
history
The function of the Zenten as an administrative unit was varied and changed over time. The center was always connected to a jurisdiction that was exercised by the center court . Usually, the Zentgraf acted as chairman at the negotiations , but the verdict was pronounced by lay judges. But other administrative tasks such as the recruitment of military units, the establishment and monitoring of units of measurement, the maintenance of execution places, the administration of the dominalia ( cellar ), the catering of officials and other things were imposed on the center and organized and monitored by the centre.
The first documentary mention of Abtsteinach can be found in 1012 in the Lorsch Codex as the property of the Lorsch Monastery. The Steinach river was mentioned as early as 744 in the description of the Heppenheimer Mark , which designated an administrative district of the Franconian Empire . In 773, Charlemagne gave the Heppenheim mark to the imperial monastery as a gift and thus strengthened its position against the neighboring bishoprics of Mainz and Worms. When, on May 12, 1012 in Bamberg, King Heinrich II. At the request of Lorsch Abbot Bobbo , granted the Lorsch monastery an eternal ban on forest and wilderness within the Mark Michelstadt and the Mark Heppenheim , this was primarily done with the aim of urbanizing the the front Odenwald, which at that time still largely consisted of primeval forest. The heyday of Lorsch Monastery was followed by its decline in the 11th and 12th centuries and in 1232 it was subordinated to the Archdiocese of Mainz .
With the pledging of the Electoral Mainz areas on Bergstrasse and in the Odenwald to Electoral Palatinate in 1461, as a result of the Mainz collegiate feud , the Zent became part of the Palatinate dominion in which the Reformation was introduced in 1556 and the Lorsch Monastery was dissolved in 1564. The Palatinate rule only lasted until the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), during which Spanish troops conquered the region and restored the rule of Kurmainz. As a result, the Protestant faith introduced by the Count Palatine was largely reversed and the population had to return to the Catholic faith. With the Peace of Westphalia , the return of the pledged areas to Kurmainz was finally set.
The extent of the cent was first described in 1590 and the appointment of a mayor by Archbishop Diether von Mainz has come down to us from 1459 . From 1648, it is known that the blood jurisdiction by the Absteinacher centering been exercised and 1,654 the centering Court shall sit in sub-Abtsteinach. However, this now only has the lower jurisdiction (half court) while the high and lower jurisdiction , as well as command and prohibition, were in Mainz.
In 1782, Kurmainz carried out an administrative reform in the district of the Kurmainzer Amtskellerei Heppenheim, with which an administrative bailiff was set up in Fürth , which also included the Abtsteinach district. As a result, the Zent had to largely surrender its powers. Although the central order with the central school remained formally in place, it could only carry out the orders of the higher authorities ( Oberamt Starkenburg , Unteramt Fürth). Zent invoices were still issued until 1826.
The Kurmainzer period ended in 1803, when the Holy Roman Empire (German Nation) fell with the Napoleonic Wars and the Oberamt Starkenburg fell to Hesse with the dissolution of Kurmainz. The Fürth office was continued in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt and from 1806 in the newly founded Grand Duchy of Hesse until it opened up in the Lindenfels district with the administrative reform of 1821/22 . As part of this reform, regional courts were also created, independent of the administration for the first time, whose districts coincided with the district council. Fürth was designated as the seat for the new regional court. The Oberhof and the Court of Appeals of the District Court Fürth was the Hofgericht in Darmstadt .
Circumference of cent
From the years 1590 and 1613 a description with the places of the Zent is known. Accordingly, the centers belonged to:
- Ober- and Unter-Abtsteinach
- Hartenrod
- Kocherbach
- Lützelbach (today called Litzelbach a district of Grasellenbach)
- Aschbach
- Waldgadern (today called Gadern a district of Wald-Michelbach)
- Dürr-Ellenbach
- Blades of light (only the ruins of the former pilgrimage church remain today)
- Löhrbach
- Junk
In 1654 the girth of the cent was described as:
- Abtsteinach
- Junk
- Löhrbach
- Hartenrod and associated villages (Hardenroder court)
- nine farms in Waldmichelbach
Another list comes from the historical-topographical-statistical description of the principality of Lorsch, or church history of the Upper Rhinegau from 1812:
- Ober- and Unter-Abtsteinach
- Trössel (Trösel)
- Flockenbach ; also Unterflockenbach
- Georgsheim or Gorxheim
- Kunzenbach; or Nieder- or Unter-Kunzenbach ( Kunzenbach is now a settlement in the Gorxheim district)
- Löhrbach
- Eichelberg (today Eichelberger Höfe in the Unter-Flockenbach district ),
- The Hardenroder Court; Schulzengericht with seven villages and 9 courtyards:
- Hartenrod
- Gadern
- Kocherbach
- Aschbach
- Dürr-Ellenbach
- Lützelbach (today called Litzelbach a district of Grasellenbach)
- Book blades
- nine farms in Waldmichelbach ("The Waldmicheibacher nine farms are part of the patch of Waldmichelbach, which were given by the monastery Lorsch or the archbishops of Mainz to the counts of Rirneck as fiefs , and from these to the lords of Weiler as afler fiefs. In the As a result, such came back to the Archbishopric of Mainz, but not without great contradictions from the Electors of the Palatinate, who pretended the Bailiwick of these courts. These disputes have now come to an end. Imagined courts are not together but more than an hour apart. «)
Centgraphs
From the time after 1650 the names of the counts have been passed down, who were no longer occupied by the nobility during this time.
- 1675 - Lenhart Jost
- 1676 - Conradt Weeber (Anwaldt, Centgraf)
- 1792 - Leonhart Schmitt (Centschultheiß)
literature
- Meinrad Schaab: The Zent in Franconia from the Carolingian era to the 19th century. Online [PDF; 1.6 MB] ( Memento from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- Eckhardt, Albrecht: On the history of the cents in the southern Odenwald in: Archive for Hessian history and antiquity, NF 35 (1977), pp. 305-312. Editor: Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt in connection with the Historical Association for Hesse
- Konrad Dahl: Historical-topographical-statistical description of the principality of Lorsch, or church history of the Upper Rhinegau. Darmstadt 1812. ( online at google books )
Web links
Law in the Middle Ages at regionalgeschichte.net