To the Frauenstein
The Company to Frauenstein is as patrician society an association of influential families in Frankfurt am Main , on the foundation in 1382 as a parlor society to Salt House - in competition with the older society to Romans (later Old Limpurg ) - back. Since the civil contract of May 23, 1613, she had seats on the city council; In the course of time the customary right of the Frauensteiners developed to always be represented with 6 members in the council (while the Limpurgern had 14 seats). The society's political privileges ended with the end of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt in 1806. However, it still exists today, including as administrator of the Dr. Beyer Foundation . After the company are Frauensteinplatz and Frauenstein street in Frankfurt's Nordend named.
Society's meeting places
The historical meeting place of the society was the salt house , part of the Römerzeile ; this house was also used by a second parlor company Zur Güldenen Schmiede between 1417 and 1423 , during which time both companies merged under the name of the latter. Two other companies - Zum Löwenstein and Zum Laderam - existed in Frankfurt at the beginning of the 15th century; these dissolved again by the end of the century; their members were accepted by the two remaining societies, if they had not already belonged to them, because membership in two or more societies was then still permissible and by no means unusual.
In 1423, the Zur Güldenen Schmiede company moved into a new establishment, namely the Frauenstein House, which is adjacent to the Salzhaus, and from then on called itself Zum Frauenstein ; she acquired the house in 1444 and had it completely rebuilt in 1484 in the late Gothic style; In 1694 she gave it up and moved to the Grosser Braunfels house on Liebfrauenberg .
The Großer Braunfels house was not only the meeting place of the society, but also the venue for the “weekly big concert” that has taken place every Thursday after Georg Philipp Telemann was appointed municipal music director since 1713 - a mixture of sociable music-making and concert performance by the Frauensteiners sponsored, student Collegium musicum . Here and in the nearby Barfüßerkirche , of which Telemann was Kapellmeister, the “bourgeois” concert system actually began for Germany (the first event was Telemann's Passion Oratorio on April 2, 1716 in the Barfüßerkirche), because for the first time entrance fees were charged for musical performances during Until then, music performances were reserved exclusively for church services or court events and were of course free of charge.
Members
Most of the 122 old Frankfurt families originally came together in the Alten-Limpurg Society . There were also 48 other sexes that did not belong to the Limpurgians; these were, if at all, united among the Frauensteiners. The people there were considerably more liberal and accepted strangers; In general, 'nouveau riche' families who grew up in trade or handicrafts only had a chance of social recognition and promotion to political office and dignity among the Frauensteiners.
The latter is shown drastically in the way the people of Frankfurt dealt with the question of how to deal with the reformed religious refugees who poured in from the Netherlands from 1580 onwards. While the Limpurgians refused to accept them, the Frauensteiners were not as strict in this regard as z. B. the membership of a Friedrich Wilhelm Philipp von Malapert called Neufville proves. Because both the Malapert and the Neufville belonged to the same Reformed families who, as rich merchants and bankers - like the Calvinists in Zurich who firmly believe in the doctrine of predestination, according to which man's chosen character is shown by his materially measurable success - Frankfurt to the stock exchange made as we still know him today.
The Frauensteiners, like the Limpurgers, had almost all been awarded the title of nobility over time, which was accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the coat of arms. The claim to nobility by birth was henceforth a kind of unwritten law, and when they called themselves “Adeliche Uralte Gesellschaft Frauenstein zu Frankfurt am Main” in a petition from 1816 to the Federal Assembly, the attribute 'noble' now has a very pragmatic meaning. The title burgrave denotes the chairman of the room society (room master), who is in office for one year, and is not a title of nobility, but an official title; Senior burgrave and for the deputy: younger burgrave . There is also the office of administrator , who is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the foundations . He is also known as a curator .
Typical of the closeness of these societies is their marriage policy. For example, marriages were often concluded between families that both belonged to the same society, so the Limpurgers and Frauensteiners remained largely among themselves.
Political influence
The societies Alten-Limpurg and Zum Frauenstein had a great influence on the city council until the end of the Free Imperial City in 1806. After the Fettmilch uprising , the civil contract dated May 23, 1613 stipulated that when filling the first two council benches, which were exclusively reserved for the patricians, the Frauensteiners and the lawyers were to be given special consideration, which ultimately led to a kind of parity of Limpurgers and Frauensteiners in the city regiment.
Web links
literature
- Rainer Koch : Basics of bourgeois rule. Constitutional and socio-historical studies on civil society in Frankfurt am Main (1612–1866) (= Frankfurt historical treatises. Vol. 27). Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-515-03858-2 (also: Frankfurt am Main, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1981).
- Hans Körner: Frankfurt patrician. Historical-genealogical handbook of the noble inheritance of the Alten-Limpurg house in Frankfurt am Main. Vögel, Munich 1971.
- Franz Lerner: The Frankfurt patrician society Alten-Limpurg and its foundations. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1952.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Website of the patrician society Zum Frauenstein (accessed on July 7, 2017)