A Medieval Municipal Community of Magdeburg Character between Consensus and Conflict
In the context of the state historical tradition, the development of Stendal in terms of market law begins with a privilege granted by Albrecht the Bear around 1160, the interpretation of which ranges from a forgery to a copy compiled from two genuine copies.[1] With his document, Albrecht granted the citizens of Stendal unlimited freedom from customs duties in the towns of Brandenburg, Havelberg, Werben, Arneburg, Tangermünde, Osterburg, Salzwedel and all associated localities, which also belonged to him or were claimed by him. Albrecht exempted the Stendal market itself from any customs duties, which flowed to it for five years. Furthermore, Stendal was allowed to live according to the same legal customs as the citizens of Magdeburg did. In connection with this, in the event of a disagreement over questions of interpretation of the law adopted from Magdeburg, the citizens of Stendal were to turn to the aldermen there for judgments. With regard to the house sites in Stendal, Albrecht ordered an annual interest of four pfennigs for their owners. In return, these properties were to be left to them freely and hereditarily. The judicial relations were also regulated in the aforementioned document. A vassal of Albrecht named Otto acted as judge in Stendal and received one third of all court revenues. The remaining two-thirds went to the Brandenburg margrave himself. Another decree provided for the numerous new settlers coming to Stendal to have equal use of the communal possessions such as waters, pastures and woodlands.
Fig 1: Above a cordon of walls stands Albrecht the Bear (1123-1170) wearing a helmet, armor, sword and shield, with a domed tower on each side. The circumscription +BRANDEBURG refers to the place of minting. There are also speculations that the bracteate could have been minted in 1150 by Pribislav-Heinrich or Jacza von Köpenick.
On the basis of these rights, a municipality was subsequently established in Stendal that was constituted according to Magdeburg law with a council constitution documented in 1215, whose proof thus came earlier than in Magdeburg itself.[2] Against this background, various municipal institutions developed, which are lined up in a typical manner in a document of the year 1280: sovereign bailiff, aldermen, council and citizenry.[3] As in other towns, the importance of the bailiff gradually declined in Stendal, while that of the council grew steadily. However, this body, composed of representatives of the most distinguished trades, had to take into account the interests of the citizens, who, just as in Magdeburg, met regularly in the so-called Burding – a citizens’ assembly – and struggled there for a say in municipal matters. The importance of the Burding was reflected above all in the fact that the Stendal council had to consult it before setting new legal regulations, as a corresponding agreement of 1297 indicates.[4]
The aldermen also gained an important position by serving as a source of information for numerous towns that had adopted Magdeburg law via Stendal. The so-called Stendal law demonstrably reached Wusterhausen a. d. Dosse (1233), Prenzlau (1234/35), Kyritz (1237), Osterburg (1238), Stargard/Szczecinski (1243), Friedland (1244), Wittstock a. d. Dosse (1248) and Neuruppin (1256). Gardelegen and, since the late Middle Ages, Salzwedel also adopted Stendal legal customs, which were also transferred to Wilsnack via Wittstock in 1471.[5]
Fig. 2: Statue of Roland in Stendal in front of the town hall with the characteristic Gerichtslaube (court house). Today’s figure, created in 1974, is a faithful copy of the Roland of 1525. He is a symbol of the urban freedoms and rights of the citizens of Stendal.
A peculiarity of the Stendal law compared to the Magdeburg model was a change in the law of inheritance.[6] In Stendal, half of the inheritance was to go to the widow of the deceased and half to the joint children. The assets “Gerade” (“straight-line”) and “Heergewäte” (“set of military equipment”), which were important in Magdeburg law, were previously separated from the inheritance and left to the female and male heirs to be endowed with them. In contrast to Magdeburg, Stendal was thus subject to a right of half-division brought in by Flemish settlers, which was also passed on to the other municipalities already mentioned above and, moreover, was characteristic of towns throughout the Mark Brandenburg.[7]
In the context of the adoption of Magdeburg law, the Stendal council also oriented itself to the model of the city on the Elbe with regard to the trades. According to this, the two Brandenburg margraves Johann and Otto had decreed in 1231 that the garment cutters should follow the same legal customs as the garment cutters in Magdeburg. From Stendal, these rules were incorporated in 1245 in an exact wording in the statute of the garment cutters’ guild of the town of Kyritz. As in Stendal, this group formed the most distinguished trade in the town and sent its representatives to the council again and again over the centuries. Elected here, they pursued a policy focused on long-distance trade.[8] In addition to the actual transfer of town law, this reveals another component of the network of relationships between the towns of Magdeburg law with regard to the economic orientation of the townspeople. For it was especially the garment cutters who made high profits by selling their wares in areas outside Brandenburg. Within the town, therefore, the cloth cutters sought to severely restrict the rights of the cloth manufacturers to sell their wares. Over generations, the Stendal council, with its need to shape urban politics and maintain its own position, increasingly sealed itself off from other social groups within the citizenry.
Fig. 3: Atonement picture in the central buttress of the apse of St. Mary’s Church in Stendal. The sandstone sculpture, called the “Little Crucifixion,” is the work of four sons from four respected merchant families. In 1428, they had slain Albert Querstedt in a quarrel and were obliged to make atonement in addition to a considerable monetary payment. They were subsequently banished from Stendal. Thus, the atonement picture is an important monument of legal history.
In the long run, this power-political attitude led to internal conflicts, as the citizens who felt neglected, especially the poorer ones, rebelled against the council. The fundamental conflict between the poor and the rich was intermingled with political and lordly factions in the context of the conflict over the Altmark, which Margrave Ludwig of Brandenburg and Duke Otto of Brunswick fought out in war. The rebels had even managed to drive out of the town representatives of preying Stendal families who, like those of Jerichow, Schadewachten, Buch or Bismarck, took the margrave’s side.[9] A compromise between the conflicting parties was reached in 1345 with the participation of Margrave Ludwig von Brandenburg. The council’s constitution was changed in such a way that from then on, representatives from all the important trades were to move into one of the twelve offices available in the Stendal council according to a fixed distribution key. Furthermore, the council had to consult with the town’s guild masters before issuing new commandments and laws for the citizens. The latter, in turn, should first consult with their cronies. When unanimity was finally reached, the adopted commandments and regulations were to be announced at town meetings and in churches so that they would be known to all inhabitants.[10]
Margrave Ludwig supported the cause of his followers who had been expelled from the town and confirmed their rights, whereby this was to apply explicitly to their property in the town of Stendal. The court of the margravial bailiff in Tangermünde was established as a special instance of jurisdiction for the expellees, where hearings were to take place in the event of challenges regarding their property.[11] With this, Stendal is a striking example of a so-called civil struggle in the Middle Ages, whose characteristics consisted of a conflict between the poor and the rich paired with disputes over the town’s rights.[12] An internal town solution could not be found within the framework of the ruling conflict between the Wittelsbachs and the Guelphs, so that it was only through the mediation of the Brandenburg margrave that a reconstruction of the council constitution took place, which was to integrate larger parts of the citizenry and prevent hard-fought internal conflicts for the future.
Author: Sascha Bütow
(English translation: Uli Nickel)
Notes:
[1] The text of the document, as well as a translation of it, are printed at Partenheimer, Lutz, Die Entstehung der Mark Brandenburg. Mit einem lateinischen-deutschen Quellenanhang, Cologne/Vienna 2007. The comprehensive state of research is described by Partenheimer, Lutz, Albrecht der Bär, die Altmark und die erste Erwähnung Stendals, in 850 Jahre Hansestadt Stendal – das Stendaler Markt- und Stadtgründungsprivileg, edited by Hansestadt Stendal and the Altmärkisches Museum, Oschersleben 2015, pp. 7–64.
[2] Schich, Winfried, Die slawische Burgstadt und die frühe Ausbreitung des Magdeburger Rechts ostwärts der Elbe, in Wirtschaft und Kulturlandschaft. Gesammelte Beiträge 1977 bis 1999 zur Geschichte der Zisterzienser und der “Germania Slavica” (= Bibliothek der brandenburgischen und preußischen Geschichte 12), edted by Winfried Schich, Ralf Gebuhr and Peter Neumeister, Berlin 2007, pp. 223–261, here p. 258.
[3] Riedel, Adolph Friedrich (ed.), Codex Diplomaticus Brandenburgensis (in the following CDB), series A, vol. 15, Berlin 1858, no. 35, pp. 24–25.
[4] Ibid., no. 58, pp. 45–46.
[5] Ibid., vol. 2, Berlin 1842, no. 25, pp. 163–164.
[6] Enders, Lieselott, Die Altmark. Geschichte einer kurmärkischen Landschaft in der Frühneuzeit (Ende des 15. bis Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts). Berlin 22016, p. 799.
[7] Ebel, Friedrich, Brandenburg und das Magdeburger Recht, in Unseren fruntlichen grus zuvor. Deutsches Recht des Mittelalters im mittel- und osteuropäischen Raum. Kleine Schriften, edited by Friedrich Ebel et al., Cologne/Vienna 2004, pp. 237–252, here p. 249.
[8] Schulze, Hans K., Kaufmannsgilden und Stadtentstehung im mitteldeutschen Raum. Stendal, Halberstadt, Magdeburg, in Hans Kurt Schulze, Siedlung, Wirtschaft und Verfassung im Mittelalter. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands (= Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Sachsen-Anhalts 5), Cologne/Vienna 2006, pp. 133–176.
[9] On this, in detail, Götze, Ludwig, Urkundliche Geschichte der Stadt Stendal, Stendal 1873, pp. 137–142.
[10] CDB, series A, vol. 14, no. 168, pp. 124–126.
[11] CDB, series A, vol. 15, no. 175, pp. 132–133.
[12] Isenmann, Eberhard, Die deutsche Stadt im Mittelalter 1150–1550. Stadtgestalt, Recht, Verfassung, Stadtregiment, Kirche, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Cologne/Vienna 2012, p. 256.
Cite as:
Sascha Bütow, Stendal: A Medieval Municipal Community of Magdeburg Character between Consensus and Conflict, in: Magdeburg Law. A building block of modern Europe, 24/06/2024, https://magdeburg-law.com/historic-city/stendal/
Photo credit:
Fig. 1: Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg, Münzkabinett, inv. no. 162/1962.
Fig. 2: Magdeburg, Zentrum für Mittelalterausstellungen.
Fig. 3: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE), photo: Schiwago.