Guild of the Key (Basel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EE guild to the key
purpose guild
Chair: Alexander Sarasin (master)
Number of members: ~ 200
Seat : Basel
Website: http://www.zuenfte-basel.ch/de/schluessel.php
Freie Strasse 25, seat of the EE Zunft zum Schlüssel since the beginning of the 15th century

EE Zunft zum Schlüssel is a public corporation of the civil parish of the city of Basel, to which it is subject. As the first of the so-called four gentlemen's guilds, it heads the Basel guilds and corporations. It is the historical association of wholesale merchants and cloth shearers, later of silk ribbon manufacturers and chemical industrialists, and is now open to the descendants of the guild brothers and representatives of other professions who have Basel citizenship. The guild brothers cultivate the connection with the city and keep its traditions alive. The guild's coat of arms is an upright blue key on a silver background.

history

The beginnings of the Zunft zum Schlüssel, the merchants' guild of the city of Basel, can be traced back to an association of mercatores , the long-distance merchants, as early as late Roman or early medieval times, so that it was independent of a corresponding privilege of the bishop before the emergence of each Guilds confirmed by a guild letter from the bishop. The guild has been the determining force among the Basel guilds since the middle of the 14th century, albeit with a certain distinction from the more politically progressive craft guilds. It united the cloth merchants or wading men who imported valuable foreign fabrics and had a monopoly on the retail trade carried out with them. As a craft, the cloth shearers were also part of the guild. Even before the Reformation (1529), the key guild had a prominent position in society. This also explains why the guild of merchants since the middle of the 15th century - just like the societies, the "Hohen Stuben" to the mosquito and to sigh, in which the nobles and the patrician people of Achtburg met - after their guild house, House at the key on Freie Strasse, named. In 1529, with the Reformation in Basel, the guilds became the bearers of the republican constitution. Basel was known as a "guild democracy": Political rights could only be exercised through membership in a guild. The Small Council, the actual government, was formed as a body of guild masters and one councilor from each guild. The Grand Council was an assembly of the other guild board members, the six. With the Reformation, the election of guild boards, and thus indirectly also of the small and large councils, was introduced through the individual guild assemblies. In the course of the 16th century, instead of this general election, the guild boards were de facto co-opted by themselves, which remained the system until the end of the old Confederation and the guild democracy in fact assimilated the patrician aristocracy. The guild to the key was of outstanding importance as the first guild in the Basel guild regiment of the Ancien Régime. It provided an above-average number of "heads" of the city: Mayors and chief guild masters: From the Reformation (1529) to the fall of the Old Confederation (1798), 13 councilors were usually first chief guild master and then mayor; 20 chief guild masters of that time came from the key guild. Among these magistrates there are also formative figures for the city's history such as Andreas Ospernell, chief guild master at the time of the St. Jakob War in 1444, Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, the first mayor elected from the guilds in 1516, immortalized on Holbein's Darmstätter Madonna, Bernhard Meyer zum Pfeil (Mayor 1549), Emanuel Socin (chief guild master and mayor from 1683–1717), Peter Ochs (1752–1821), chief guild master (1796–1798), later director of the Helvetic Republic and after the Restoration member of the canton's government.

As early as the 16th and 17th centuries, the circle of professionals expanded, so that they included the carriers of Basel's economic development, in the 18th and 19th centuries the tape manufacturers, and then the founders of the chemical industry who emerged from the tape industry. Furthermore, members of the guild board and other guild brothers were and are repeatedly represented in the canton's political authorities.

With the fall of the old Swiss Confederation in 1798, the guilds lost their defining position in the establishment of the state. They were restored in the course of the Mediation Constitution in 1803 and were also given back a number of their commercial police powers. These were, however, of little importance for the key guild, since the large merchants, bankers and industrialists belonging to it were interested in an opening of the economic constitution in contrast to the traders of the craft guilds. The guilds retained a limited political function as so-called electoral guilds until the cantonal constitution of 1875. They retained their responsibility as guardianship authorities for their members and their families until the Guardianship Act of 1880 was passed. Since then, the guilds have no more political or sovereign functions, but rather are referred to the management of their property and the maintenance of the guild and urban traditions.

present

The guilds are under the supervision of the Citizens' Council of the City of Basel. This audits the guild's asset accounts annually. For the elections to the guild board and its powers, the regulations for the guilds and societies issued by the citizens' council apply. The guild board, consisting of ten members, including one of the masters of the guild, is elected by the guild assembly for a term of six years, with half of the board being elected every three years. Besides the master, who is elected by the assembly, the board constitutes itself. Other batches are the governor, the bag master, the clerk, the builder, the banner master, the land master and the witness master.

The main task of the guild at the key today is the maintenance of the house at the key on Freie Strasse, which it has owned since the middle of the 15th century. The guild regards it as its duty not only to preserve this house as a historically important monument, but also to put the inn, which has been open to the public since 1883, in the service of the entire population. The guild collects a substantial part of the funds required for the major periodic renovations of the house from its fellow guilds. The guild also makes donations for charitable purposes from the investment income remaining after the required maintenance of the guild house. The social life of the guild concentrates on the traditional events, the most important of which is the guild meal that takes place on Ash Wednesday in the guild hall of the guild house. In addition, the guild takes part in the historic festivals of the canton and the city. Occasionally other internal events such as a guild ball, guild excursions, lectures, guided tours or visits to exhibitions are held.

A uniformed guild game by drummers and whistlers accompanies the guild banner and the procession of the guild brothers in public corridors.

Guild house

Door in the large guild hall

The house at the key on Freie Strasse was first mentioned in 1308, when during the riots following the murder of King Albrecht I, the royalists tried to escape over the roofs and jumped from the house to the Steblin across the alley to the roof of the house to the key . The name of the house suggests that there was originally a connection to St.

In 1404 the "Gesellschaft der Stube zum Schlüssel", a group of distinguished merchants closely associated with the guild, acquired the right of lien to the Haus zum Schlüssel for 325 gold guilders. A few years later, the guild entered the feudal contract. In 1445 Hans Strübin, guild master of the Society of Merchants to the Key, bought the inheritance interest for 28 Rhenish gold guilders from the lords of the hereditary interest. The guild has been the unrestricted owner of the property since then. She initially rented a part of the ground floor for shops, while the guild room was on the upper floor. The guild servant lived in the rear building. The house has gone through many changes throughout its history. Striking evidence of the late medieval condition is the arched frieze visible in the top part of the street-side facade by Ruman Faesch, who rebuilt the front building for the guild and built the rear building on the Schlüsselberg (1486). In 1768–1770 the facade was given a new design with enlarged windows in a late Baroque style. The interior construction underwent a significant change in 1883–1885 by the architects Eduard Vischer and Eduard Fueter with the conversion of the guild hall, which was completely redesigned in the historicist Renaissance style with a significantly higher ceiling. A far-reaching reconstruction in 1955/56, which went far beyond a renovation, led to the relocation of the stairs and the closure of the courtyard. This renovation was partially reversed in 1985, the courtyard was reopened and the stairs were relocated to the fire wall to the neighboring property. This wall was decorated with a wall fresco by Samuel Buri based on a facade design by Tobias Stimmers from the 16th century. The last renovation (2014) created the opening of the tavern opposite the courtyard, as it corresponds to the original structure with arcades facing the courtyard, and opened up the upper floor with a discreetly hidden lift. 

Guild silver

The sources of the guild archive show what a large inventory of magnificent goblets, drinking mugs, jugs, candlesticks and other extensive silver tableware the guild had acquired and hoarded as capital by the end of the 18th century. Most of this, however, had to be published by the guild during the revolutionary period 1798–1802. It was melted down and most of it went into the war coffers of the French liberators. Only the most prominent pieces of the guild treasure described below could be saved at that time. Remnants of table silver were replenished in the 19th century and continuously increased by donations from the guild brothers. Mention should be made of the large centerpiece with a replica of the Spalenbrunnen and the Susanna goblet cut from a green malachite by the Basel goldsmith Ulrich Sauter.

The three most prominent and, above all, historically significant objects in the guild treasure today are the silver-gilt cup in the form of a key with a cartilage-style handle, created in 1660 by the Basel goldsmith Johann Jakob Birmann I, as well as the book of arms dedicated to the guild by Mayor Emanuel Socin in 1690 its republican symbolism on the book cover, a work by the Basel silversmith Adam Fechter II, which contains the coats of arms of all guild supervisors from the Middle Ages to the present day on parchment sheets. In 1699 the guild received the master wreath created by the goldsmith Christian Bavier I. It has the shape of an actual crown and thus stands out from the other master wreaths that exist in other guilds in Basel. Despite its shape as a baroque bow crown in partly gilded silver, it wants to be a replica of the floral wreath that the guild masters and the heads of the city wore on the occasion of the annual oath ceremony on St. Peter's Square on St. John's Day. It was emblazoned - and still is - as decoration on the guild board and, as the relatively small diameter of the coronet shows, never served as a headdress.

particularities

A list of important people who belonged to the guild: mayors, chief guild masters, important members of the council in the ancien régime, politicians, councilors, grand council presidents, merchants and industrialists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

literature

  • Paul Koelner : The guild to the key in Basel, Basel 1953
  • Eduard His: The guild to the key. The historical development of the guild, list of guild masters since 1358, masters, superiors and guild brothers 1942, Basel 1942 (private print)
  • Traugott Geering : Life and goings-on in the Basel guilds in the Middle Ages (separate print from the history of trade and industry in the city of Basel ), Basel 1885
  • Martin Möhle, in: The art monuments of Switzerland. The Art Monuments of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, Volume VII: The Old Town of Grossbasel I., Profanbauten, Society for Swiss Art History GSK, Bern 2006, pp. 415–421
  • Andreas Heusler : Constitutional history of the city of Basel in the Middle Ages, Basel 1860
  • Historisches Museum Basel, Martin Alioth , Ulrich Barth, Dorothee Huber, Basler Stadtgeschichte 2, From building bridges in 1225 to the present, Basel 1981
  • René Teuteberg , Basler Geschichte, Basel 1986

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ EE stands for one honor