Historic Countries Germany : Magdeburg Law

Lübbenau

Municipal Legal Development in Close Relationship to Town Rule

In the case of Lübbenau, from a large village in the Middle Ages, a market settlement emerged, which is mentioned for the first time in 1315 as oppidum (fortified settlement).[1] This reference is due to an extensive property transaction, which Bodo the Elder of Ileburg, as a seller of the castle Lübbenau to the knight Christian Lange the Elder, undertook.[2] The development of the settlement of Lübbenau, which was included in this divestment, was strongly dependent on the respective landlords and town lords who resided at the castle.[3] These changed quite frequently from the 14th to the 16th century and belonged to well-known noble families in Lower Lusatia such as the Köckeritz, Kracht, Polenz and von der Schulenburg.

Fig. 1: In the Middle Ages, a moated castle was located on the site of today’s Lübbenau Palace, which was rebuilt into a palace around 1600. The building received its present appearance between 1817 and 1820. The town lord of Lübbenau resided in the castle or palace.

Not least in legal terms, these landlords exerted an influence on the town’s constitution, as can be seen particularly clearly in an entry in the Lübben Schöffenbuch (Book of Aldermen). For the year 1490, it is stated here that judges and aldermen had to provide information about “was wir vor gerechtigkeit in dem stetchin L.[übben] hetten und das durch den gestrengen unßern lieben erbhern von Palenck und Peter von Polenck irwirben haben” (“what we had in justice in the small town of L.[üben] and that we had to obtain through the strictness of our dear patrons von Palenck and Peter von Polenck”).[4] Hereby, it becomes evident that the two Polenz had previously granted Lübben an extension of the town’s rights. It is unlikely that it was they from whom Lübben received the town charter per se. The granting of the town rights may rather have already been done by the family of Ileburg, which is indicated by three stars used in the oldest Lübben seal, which are also included in the coat of arms of this noble family. [5]

From a legal point of view, the citizenry of Lübbenau was far less able to make its mark than the towns directly subordinate to the sovereign, such as Luckau or Guben. Nevertheless, the Lübbenau council also strove to preserve its acquired rights and, if possible, to expand them. This could only be done in close coordination with the town authorities, as the above-mentioned negotiations about the Lübbenau city rights held in 1490 between the judge, the aldermen and the city government illustrate. As the Schöppenbuch states, in addition to the judge and aldermen, representatives from the citizenry, “poor and rich”, appeared before Hans von Drauschwitz as captain and deputy of the town lord to testify to the traditional rights of Lübbenau. This included the herding of pigs and cows granted by the lordship. Furthermore, the town owned a Rain, which probably meant a firmly defined area of land. The aldermen of the town were also allowed to judge minor offenses such as drawing knives, stealing or using wrong measurements without involving the lordship. In these cases, however, proportional amounts of the fines to be paid by the convicted persons had to be paid to the town lord.[6] With this, Lübbenau had the competence of the lower jurisdiction. The high jurisdiction, which also decided on life and limb, was reserved for the town lord.

Fig. 2: Church of St. Nicholas in Lübbenau. The present building dates back to the 18th century.

A mayor is first mentioned in the year 1483.[7] Only gradually was it possible to increase the importance of this office, so that in the course of the 16th century, the sequence “mayor, judge and aldermen” began to prevail in notarizations.[8] However, even this representative office was not spared the influence of the town lord, as can be observed in the case of Adam Bagge, who was appointed mayor of Lübbenau in 1660, after originally being the trumpeter of the town lord Johann Siegmund Graf von Lynar.[9] The aldermen were also usually appointed to their office by the town lord. There were usually close relations between the councilors and the aldermen so that sometimes the same persons were represented in both municipal institutions.[10] This mixing of offices was not infrequently viewed critically in other towns under Magdeburg law, so that, as in Jüterbog, councilors were forbidden to be aldermen or town officials at the same time.[11] Nevertheless, it is undisputed that Lübbenau followed the customs of Magdeburg, since entries in the Book of Aldermen prove that legal information was obtained from the aldermen of Magdeburg.[12] In addition, the Aldermen’s Court in Luckau, which was closer to Lübbenau, was called upon, as the Book of Aldermen preserved there illustrates with two entries from the 15th century.[13] In these cases, the customs adopted from Magdeburg were implemented in their adjusted form of the “Lugkowsche recht[s]” (“Luckau law”).

The economy of Lübbenau was characterized by trades such as linen weavers, shoemakers, bakers and blacksmiths. In addition, the citizens and other inhabitants were obliged to perform court services for the town lord and had to accompany him on military campaigns, which clearly shows Lübbenau’s status as a mediate town. This also included an effort of the town lord to observe and enforce the rights of Lübbenau against third parties. Particularly with the town of Lübben, there were sometimes fierce disputes in the 15th and 16th centuries about various rights of use in the Spree Forest, in the negotiation of which the town lord of Lübbenau acted as mediator. In this process, the inhabitants of the town of Lübbenau sometimes developed claims that went far beyond their municipal rights. For example, in February 1550, the Lübben council complained to the bailiff of Lower Lusatia that residents of Lübbenau, together with people from the villages of Ragow, Krimnitz, Zerkwitz, Radensdorf and Zauche in the Spree Forest, had cut wood in an area belonging to Lübben Castle and rafted it away from there. In return, the delinquents accused of robbery invoked the Spree Forest rights of Georg von der Schulenburg of Lübbenau, the exercise of which they also claimed for themselves as his subjects.[14]

Fig. 3: The Spreewald (Spree Forest) between Leipe and Lehde. Since the Middle Ages, there have always been legal disputes between Lübben and Lübbenau about the use of this important area.

Compromises brokered by the bailiff Albrecht Graf von Schlick did not endure so that further legal disputes followed. Under Joachim II von der Schulenburg, the situation escalated to such an extent that Lübben residents were seized in the Spree Forest by Lübbenau. In addition, the Lübben council complained that its inhabitants were beaten, captured and taken to Lübbenau Castle while working in the Spree Forest.[15] During these conflicts, which were often violently carried out, the citizens of Lübbenau were closely connected with their town lords and supported their position. Neither the Bohemian kings as rulers of Lower Lusatia nor their deputies were able to resolve this legal dispute over the Spree Forest permanently. The quarrels that grew in the late Middle Ages thus continued well into the 16th century.

Author: Sascha Bütow

Citation:

Sascha Bütow: Lübbenau. Municipal Legal Development in Close Relationship to Town Rule, 01.07.2022, https://magdeburg-law.com/historic-city/lubbenau/

Footnotes:

[1] Lehmann, Rudolf, Art. >Lübbenau<, in Handbuch der Historischen Stätten Deutschlands. Vol. 10: Berlin und Brandenburg, edited by Gerd Heinrich. Stuttgart. 3rd edition 1995, pp. 274-275, here p. 275.

[2] The document is printed in the Destinata Literaria et Fragmenta Lusatica. Vol. II. part. I, Lübben 1747, pp. 17–19.

[3] Czech, Vinzenz, Die Herrschaft Lübbenau, in Marksteine. Eine Entdeckungsreise durch Brandenburg-Preußen. Edited by Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte beim Museumsverband des Landes Brandenburg e.V., Berlin 2001, pp. 263-264.

[4] Cited after Lehmann, Rudolf, Das älteste Stadtbuch (Schöppenbuch) der Spreewaldstadt Lübbenau, in FS für Walter Schlesinger. Vol. 1, edited by Helmut Beumann. Cologne/Vienna 1973, pp. 382–405, here p. 385.

[5] Fahlisch, Paul, Geschichte der Spreewaldstadt Lübbenau, Berlin 1877, p. 42.

[6] The rights are published in translated form in ibid., p. 53.

[7] Lehmann, Rudolf, Das älteste Stadtbuch (same as note 4), p. 388.

[8] Fahlisch, Paul, Geschichte der Spreewaldstadt Lübbenau (same as note 5), p. 128.

[9] Bagge had saved his lord’s life at the Battle of Leipzig in 1642. Cf. Czech, Vinzenz, Die Herrschaft Lübbenau (same as note 2), p. 263.

[10] Lehmann, Rudolf, Das älteste Stadtbuch (same as note 4), p. 392.

[11] Rohrlach, Peter P., Historisches Ortslexikon für Brandenburg. Part X: Jüterbog-Luckenwalde (= Veröffentlichungen des brandenburgischen Landeshauptarchivs 26). Weimar 1997, p. 226.

[12] Lehmann, Rudolf, Das älteste Stadtbuch (same as note 4), p. 393.

[13] Lehmann, Rudolf (reviser), Quellen zur Geschichte der Niederlausitz. Part II (= Mitteldeutsche Forschungen 68/II). Cologne/Weimar 1976, no. 38a, p. 64, and no. 43b, p. 71.

[14] Potsdam, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Rep. 8 Lübben 12/1, fol. 156r.

[15] Ibid., fol. 232r.

Images:

Fig. 1-2: Wikimedia Commons, photo: A. Savin

Fig. 3: Wikimedia Commons (Creative-Commons-Lizenz 3.0), photo: Rentner55

Penkun

Brandenburg (Havel)

Medieval Urbanization between Ecclesiastical and Secular Lords

If one takes a look at the urban development of Brandenburg an der Havel, the medieval settlement picture is characterized by a versatility that can hardly be found in any other municipality in the Mark Brandenburg region. This is not least due to the interests of various actors who tried to gain a foothold in Brandenburg in connection with the medieval land development east of the Elbe. For ecclesiastical and secular lords alike, the advancement of municipal development was an important instrument of lordly penetration of the space they claimed. The medieval urban development in Brandenburg an der Havel vividly reflects the intentions, planning and measures associated with this.

The foundation of Brandenburg was by no means from wild roots. Rather, the urban development was based on Slavic settlement structures, at the top of which was the later so-called Pribislav Castle, named after the last Slavic prince to reign here, which had its place on today’s Dominsel (Cathedral Island). When Pribislav died in 1150, he had already found his final resting place in a Christian chapel connected with the castle.

Fig. 1: The Rathenow Gate Tower, completed around 1320, is one of the medieval fortifications of Brandenburg’s old town.

Now the burgraves expressed their claims more and more offensively, intending to exercise lordly power over the Dominsel and beyond in the name of their lord – the Roman-German king. However, with the Ascanians, who from 1157 onwards rose to become margraves of Brandenburg, they encountered powerful competitors who pursued their own lordly ambitions in the vicinity of the Dominsel. In fact, older Slavic rights extended beyond the local castle, since four settlements were connected with the seat of power, which persisted through the Slavic period and around which the settlement pattern gradually changed. These are the small and large Domkietz (Cathedral Neighborhood) on the Dominsel, the altstädtischer (Old Town) or Wendkietz in the area of the Altstadt (Old Town) Brandenburg and the neustädtischer (New Town) Kietz in front of the Neustadt (New Town) on the Mühlendamm (Mill Dam). These designations trace back to settlement structures that developed with the influx of newcomers from the region of the Elbe and Saale rivers in the 12th century. The earliest settlement of the immigrants was Parduin (pronounced pardūn), which was established on royal territory around 1160 and later developed into the Altstadt of Brandenburg. The first traces of this settlement are documented in the surroundings of the church of St. Gotthard, where a group of Premonstratensians from Leitzkau had already settled around 1147.

Fig. 2: Town Hall of Brandenburg’s Old Town, with the 15th-century Roland statue in front of the building. The statue was moved here from Brandenburg’s New Town in 1946.

The reform-oriented monks were intensively engaged in Christian missionary work and pastoral care, far beyond Parduin. Especially the new settlers working as merchants moved to their vicinity, and St. Gotthard served them as a parish church. Soon the Bishop of Brandenburg, Wilmar, appointed the convent of the Premonstratensians to cathedral chapter. Their relocation to the Dominsel followed in 1161. Four years later, the construction of the cathedral began, which was to replace an older cathedral church located near the castle. St. Gotthard developed into the parish church of the settlement Parduin. Its name comes from an old branch of the Havel of the same name, which can be translated into Dutch as “strong mooring rope”, and refers to the important role of water in the local urban development. The Havel, namely, marked the lordly border between the royal territory belonging to Havelland, on which the settlement of Parduin was located, and the Zauche, which belonged to the Ascanian estate. Around 1170, a new settlement was established here on the other bank of the Havel on parts of the Stutzdorf/Deutschendorf district, which was first mentioned in documents under the name Neustadt Brandenburg in 1197. This first municipality, founded east of the Elbe by the margraves of Brandenburg, began to outstrip the Altstadt, as it was called from then on, in economic terms through targeted promotion. This was achieved not least with the help of a systematic expansion of urban infrastructure, which can still be seen today in the town’s layout. As in other municipalities in the Mark Brandenburg, a Mühlendamm was raised during the first half of the 13th century, which connected the Neustadt with the Dominsel. This structure dammed the Havel River to be able to drive water mills. In addition, the Mühlendamm was an important transport route that bridged several Havel islands and reached solid land at Krakau, a district that is now incorporated into the town. A large part of the land transport between Magdeburg and Berlin (Spandau) or further in the direction of Posen and Silesia, which was directed to the Neustadt of Brandenburg with the help of the Mühlendamm, passed through here. The medieval layout of the town is characterized by a conspicuous crossroads, which converged from four directions directly at the Neustadt market. Thus, the main street offered a connection to the Altstadt in extension over the Lange Brücke (today’s Jahrtausendbrücke, Millennium Bridge), which probably dates back to the 10th century, and from there on to Rathenow.

Fig. 3: Brandenburg an der Havel with the Millennium Bridge, an important landmark of the city. Inaugurated in 1929 to commemorate the city’s millennium, it stands on the site of the Lange Brücke, a bridge whose history dates back to the Middle Ages (photo: 2015).

The Sankt-Annen-Strasse, for its part, conveyed traffic into the Zauche, while the Steinstrasse received the country road leading from the Elbe and Magdeburg. The layout of the Neustadt clearly shows the pattern of a town laid out according to plan in the Middle Ages, with a concentration on trade and commerce. The citizens of Neustadt had their own parish church, St. Catherine. From 1286, St. Paul’s Church was built on the site of a margravial farm, which belonged to the monastery of the Dominicans who had moved to the town shortly before. Not least, the existence of this mendicant order marked the economic success of the Neustadt, whereupon the town foundation planned by the Archbishop of Magdeburg in Wusterwitz stagnated. The development of the Altstadt of Brandenburg was also outstripped by the Neustadt. Only when it was able to eliminate the influence of the competing burgraves in the 1240s did the Brandenburg margraves begin to specifically promote the Altstadt by allowing a planned expansion of the Altstadt area. This was followed in 1249 by a transfer of the villages of Luckenberg, Blosendorf and Kallenberg to the Altstadt, with the population living there being declared citizens of the town. During the expansion of the town, the settlement house of the Franciscans, who had been living there since 1234, and their St. John’s Church, which was under construction, were also integrated into the Altstadt. The incorporation of Brielow and Wendkietz followed in 1290 and 1308, respectively. With the support of the Ascanians, the Altstadt, with its parish land, had extended itself as far as Lake Quenz. The Neustadt, which initially did not have a parish land, was also able to extend its influence to the surrounding area and take possession of the villages of Planow, Stenow, Kietz Woltitz, Krug Krakow, Gröben, Schmölln, Wendgräben and Duster-Reckahne.

Fig. 4: The Steintor Tower in Brandenburg’s New Town, built in the first half of the 15th century.

The fortification of both towns, which began in the first half of the 14th century, with its buildings that still characterize the townscape today, such as the Steintorturm (Stone Gate Tower) and the Mühlentorturm (Mill Gate Tower) in the Neustadt and the Rathenower Torturm and Plauer Torturm in the Altstadt, visibly marked for every medieval contemporary the narrower boundaries of municipal law, which was exercised in Brandenburg according to the Magdeburg model. Even more, they illustrated the defensive character of both town councils, which had separately meeting town councils and town halls built on the respective market squares. For shared interests, however, a common town hall existed, similar to that in the twin city of Berlin-Cölln, which was first mentioned in 1360 and stood on the Lange Brücke. The Neustadt, however, remained the more important of the two municipalities. This can be seen not least in the fact that under Margrave Johann it was appointed the highest thing town in his dominions in questions of interpretation of the town law. In the course of the 14th century, this resulted in a claim to validity for the entire Brandenburg Margraviate, which was intended to prevent Magdeburg’s aldermen from giving information and passing judgment.

The aforementioned water mills between the Altstadt and Neustadt Brandenburg were indispensable for the trade of both towns. Ultimately, shipping on the Havel also had a lasting impact on Brandenburg’s urban development. Already with the construction of the Mühlendamm, the building of a flood channel began, which directed the shipping traffic in a generous curve around the Neustadt. Here, customs duty had to be paid, a procedure that can be found in the documents with the paraphrase “etwas zu verrönnen” (“something to channel through”). The shipping route, which still exists today with the Jakobsgraben (Jacob’s Ditch), only gradually lost its importance in the middle of the 16th century with a new expansion of the Havel and the construction of the Kammerschleuse (Town Lock). The developments of the medieval city of Brandenburg, which are only mentioned here in broad outline, can still be found today during attentive walks through the historic town center.

The article is a slightly revised version of the essay by Sascha Bütow, Urbanisierung zwischen geistlichen und weltlichen Herren – zur Entwicklung der Stadt Brandenburg an der Havel im Mittelalter, in Die Mark Brandenburg, no. 111 (2018), pp. 10–15.

Author: Sascha Bütow

Citation:

Sascha Bütow, Brandenburg an der Havel. Medieval Urbanization between Ecclesiastical and Secular Lords, 21.09.2020, https://magdeburg-law.com/historic-city/brandenburg-havel/

Gartz (Oder)

Luckau

Perleberg

Burg

Görlitz

Magdeburg

From market rights to a widespread municipal law:

The city of Magdeburg, famed well into the early modern period as the birthplace of the influential Magdeburg law whose reach extended deep into the eastern part of Europe, first finds mention in written sources in the year 805 CE, in the Capitulare of Diedenhofen (Thionville) issued by Charlemagne, who ruled from 768 to 814. Named as ‘magadoburg’, it was to serve as one of a number of checkpoints to be established along the rivers Elbe and Saale for the purpose of suppressing the trade in arms to the Slavic regions.

More than a century passed hereafter before Magdeburg next appeared in sources preserved for posterity; King Otto I (reigned 936–973) founded a Benedictine monastery there, dedicated to Saints Innocent, Peter and Maurice, on 21 September 937, and endowed it richly in the years that followed. As the medieval empire had no capital, the German Holy Roman Emperor effectively exercised a peripatetic dominion, constantly riding through its regions. Magdeburg, located at a ford across the midstream Elbe and therefore at an interface to the Slavic world, became Otto’s preferred base.

Written sources record the presence of a ‘palatium’ belonging to Otto in Magdeburg; the term signifies one or more representational buildings in which he conducted the affairs of his office – initially as king, from 962 onward as Holy Roman Emperor -, received deputations, issued privileges and pronounced judgement. This is indicative of architectural development at an early stage in Magdeburg’s existence. In the year 968, Otto succeeded in having the Pope elevate Magdeburg to an archbishopric, whose inaugural archbishop, Adalbert of Magdeburg (in office 968-981), ruled over the newly established suffragan bishoprics of Merseburg, Meissen and Zeitz, alongside those of Havelberg and Brandenburg. Among the areas covered by the new archdiocese were vast territories east of the Elbe, in many of which Christianity was yet to gain any foothold. Magdeburg was now of nominally equal rank to Trier, Mainz, Cologne, Salzburg and Hamburg-Bremen, the Empire’s traditional archdioceses.

Hard on the heels of this meteoric rise came a long-drawn-out period of decline for Magdeburg, when, in the summer of 983, a Slavic rebellion reversed a great deal of the region’s achievements east of the Elbe; the bishoprics in Brandenburg and Havelberg were lost, as was dominion over the associated territories, which saw the young archdiocese suffer a painful contraction. The years that followed loosened Magdeburg’s royal association, and the late Ottonian period inflicted a further loss of eastern influence on Magdeburg in the shape of the establishment under Otto III (reigned 983-1002) of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. The conflictual policies towards Poland pursued by the subsequent Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (reigned 1002-1024) led to Merseburg replacing Magdeburg as the preferred royal base in eastern Saxony. The ascendancy of the Salian dynasty only made matters worse for Magdeburg, which now saw Goslar attain the position of Saxony’s premier city under the emperors Conrad II (reigned 1024–1039) and Henry III (reigned 1039–1056).

Beginning in the eleventh century’s second half, conflict between the emperors Henry IV (reigned 1056–1105) and V (reigned 1105–1125) and Saxony’s nobility strained royal relations with Magdeburg’s archbishops. The area around the Ore Mountains was frequently the site of the ensuing hostilities, with the effect that Magdeburg was often ‘close by’ the king, yet simultaneously, due to the involvement of the city and its archbishops in the troubles, distinctly removed from him. The consequence was further loss of influence, territory and favour for the church in Magdeburg. A brief rapprochement took place in the reign (1125–1137) of Lothar III, who arranged for the appointment of Norbert of Xanten as the city’s archbishop (an office he held from 1126 to 1134); yet Magdeburg’s difficulties resurfaced under Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (reigned 1138–1152) because the city had taken the side of the rival house of Welf. It was not until Wichmann of Seeburg, who had been transferred from Naumburg to Magdeburg at the instigation of Frederick Barbarossa (reigned 1152–1190), took the archbishop’s throne (1152/54-1192) that the conflicts abated and Magdeburg began to rise to renewed glory.

Magdeburg’s development from the eleventh century onward thus appears in a contradictory duality of ecclesiastical and imperial political decline and internal, architectural and urban progress. As early as the end of the tenth century, Magdeburg had acquired a mercantile settlement holding market rights, reaping the benefits of its favourable location on the eastern edge of the highly fertile Magdeburger Boerde plain on the banks of the Elbe, itself a key north-south transport route which brought the city lucrative trade from river shipping. Otto I had endowed St Maurice’s monastery in the city with the revenues from tolls and minting in the years 937 and 942, reconfirming its right to the income from this mercatus in 965 and thereby transferring to it his dominion over the market and its residents. These rights passed to the archbishop in 968, making him lord of the city; he additionally received the Königsbann (royal rights) over Magdeburg and the right of jurisdiction over the city’s Jews – in the first mention of this group in written sources – and the remaining resident merchants. Otto II confirmed and extended these endowments in the years 973, 975 and 979, additionally granting the merchants resident in Magdeburg relief from all civic dues and road, bridge and river tolls. The chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg (in office 1009–1018) record for the year 1016 optimi civitatis, that is, the existence of a privileged stratum within the city. Conrad II, renewing privileges of the city in 1025, emphasised that Magdeburg’s citizenry had permission to conduct trade in the Holy Roman Empire and in the barbaricis regionibus (barbarian regions)[1], a concession which exerted enduring uplift on Magdeburg’s civic and economic development. The sources of this period provide outlines of Magdeburg’s further urban and legal advancement, noting the existence in the eleventh century of the office of a monastic reeve who, in the context of the archbishop’s authority over the city, exercised jurisdiction in higher criminal matters, including capital cases, and held military command.

Sources mention the existence in Magdeburg in the year 1100 of a lower reeve of the civic court, later to become the sheriff (Schultheiß). It is at this time that we find the first written records relating to the citizenry, the cives urbis, who later served alongside the sheriff as lay judges known as Schöffen (‘Schöppen’). By this time at the latest, Magdeburg had an urban municipality with its own jurisdiction over lower matters, albeit dependent on the archbishop as possessor of supreme authority over the city. Sources bear witness to guilds for specific trades (tanners and shoemakers, tailors, ornamental painters known as Schilderer) in the twelfth century’s second half, indicating the emergence of an increasingly diverse range of trades and crafts in Magdeburg. In the first half of the thirteenth century, a city Council came into being which came to run the city’s internal affairs, liaising – on occasion conflictually – with the archbishops, who had retained nominal authority. Magdeburg had joined the Hanseatic League and the league of cities in Saxony towards the end of the thirteenth century. The city’s various attempts to attain the status of a Free Imperial City failed, despite the successive slackening of its ties to the archbishopric and the eventual departure, in the early sixteenth century, of the archbishop’s seat to the Moritzburg in the city of Halle.

Magdeburg’s rise from the twelfth century onward drew on the dual influence of the city’s trade with distant regions and the development of its law. In this period, social conditions had undergone a transformation from those dominant in the tenth century, in the wake of the grand process of change, sparked by climatic, political and social shifts, that had commenced in Europe in the eleventh century’s second half and encompassed numerous facets of contemporary life. Responding to these transformations and to local exigencies, Archbishop Wichmann presided over a series of improvements in the legal rights of Magdeburg’s merchants and citizens in order to bolster their position. A charter issued by him in 1188 bears witness to some of these reforms. It abolished the principle by which a formal error in a case before court automatically led to its being thrown out. Further, it released fathers from liability for unlawful acts committed by their sons, replacing the principle of guilt by association that had been in force until that point with the modern precept, valid to this day, of the individual criminal responsibility of each person. The charter also annulled the statute of limitations for serious crimes. Finally, and not least among these reforms, it restricted legal possibilities for unduly protracting court proceedings. The applicability of these favourable provisions to both locals and those from outside the city is testament to Wichmann’s visionary foresight in that it boosted Magdeburg’s appeal as a mercantile city. This ‘Magdeburg law’ or ‘Magdeburg rights’, as it was soon called, was very much a mercantile legal code, yet it subsequently developed into a new civic and municipal law, supplemented by provisions protecting assemblies of citizens and enabling these to take their place as instruments of civic political and legal decision-making.

Magdeburg law served as a model for numerous other towns and cities, particularly in the east of Central Europe, where many localities equated it with ‘German’ law per se. Magdeburg remained in contact with some of the municipalities endowed with its law – which totalled around one thousand – for a period of centuries. Where disputes arose around a case, it was common to turn to Magdeburg and ask for a legal opinion; this practice was known, roughly translated, as ‘taking the law to Magdeburg’ or, more literally, a ‘legal procession to Magdeburg’ (‘Rechtszug nach Magdeburg’). Magdeburg’s lay judges’ bench, as its law’s ‘upper court’ (Oberhof), thus retained interpretive authority and in this way an emphatic influence over the law’s evolution which endured for centuries.

The period following these developments brought Magdeburg a golden age which radiated across a wide region. Its urban area increased notably, numerous ecclesiastical and religious institutions came into being, and the city received its famous topography of sacred buildings. These included its cathedral, the first in medieval German lands to take Gothic forms, built from 1209 onward; the monastery of Our Lady, erected in the twelfth century; the market and Council church of St John; the parish church of St Peter; and further monasteries, including those of the Franciscans and Dominicans. The well-known statue of the ‘Magdeburg Rider’ joined the ensemble in 1240. By the late Middle Ages, a small settlement had blossomed into one of the contemporary German regions’ major cities.

By Stephan Freund

Note:

[1] Diploma issued by Conrad II, no. 18, of 4 February 1025, in Die Urkunden Konrads II. mit Nachträgen zu den Urkunden Heinrichs II., ed. Harry Breslau, with contributions from Hans Wibel and Alfred Hessel, Hanover/Leipzig 1909, p. 21.

Sources

Die Urkunden Konrads II. mit Nachtragen zu den Urkunden Heinrichs II., ed. Harry Breslau, with contributions from Hans Wibel and Alfred Hessel, Hanover/Leipzig 1909.

Magdeburg Law

A building block of modern Europe

Fürstenberg (Havel)