Lübeck law
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Lübeck law (German: ) was from the 13th century in the Middle Ages the foundation for German town laws in many neighbouring cities on the Baltic Sea, named after the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, Germany.
An official Lübeck law transcript was never available or used until the revised edition of 1586 was printed by printer Johann Balhorn, but rather Lübeck was the a leader in German cities giving rights to town citizens and overturning aristocratic privilege. This was the basis for the Dortmund code in Westphalia, the Goslar code in Saxony and the Magdeburg rights in eastern European towns. References to 'German Law' in the Middle Ages are talking about laws sprung from the roots of Lübeck law.
Main principle
The Lübeck law provided that a city should be governed by a "Rat" (engl. council) having 20 "Ratsherrn" (council members). They were not elected by the citizens, but they would appoint a new member on their own from the city's merchant guilds, considering a key of representation of the guilds in the Rat of the city. The period of office was in principle 2 years, but the Rat could ask a Ratsherr to stay in office, which usually happened, so that the election was for life time. The Rat then elected up to four Bürgermeister (burgomaster, mayor) out of its own row, who shared the power of government. The first burgomaster, usually the eldest of them, acted as a primus inter pares. These rules were in force up to the middle of the 19th century. The burgomasters stayed in office as long as they could, but there are quite a few examples from the Middle Ages in which burgomasters of Hanseatic League city's were sentenced to death for unsuccessful politics.This model of a city government provided that only the most experienced, influential and personally most successful merchants - and a few lawyers, called Syndics - became member of the Rat. It was also a rule that never a father and his son or brothers could be members of the Rat at the same time, so that influential families could not get a larger influence on the city's politics.
Cities with Lübeck law
- Lübeck
- 1188 Hamburg
- 24 June 1218 Rostock
- 1226 Wittenburg
- 1234 Stralsund
- 1236 Plön
- 1238 Itzehoe
- 1242 Kiel
- 1243 Tondern
- 1246 Elbing (Elbląg)
- 1248 Reval (Tallinn)
- 14 May 1250 Greifswald
- 1253 Damgarten
- 1254 or 1258 Memel (Klaipėda)
- 1255 Kolberg (Kołobrzeg)
- before 1263 Gdańsk (Danzig)
- 1282 Wolgast
- 1282 Wilster
- 1 April 1284 Braunsberg (Braniewo)
- 12 June 1302 Wesenberg (Rakvere)
- 9 September 1310 Stolp (Słupsk)
- 1310 Neustettin (Szczecinek)
- 21 May 1312 Rügenwalde (Darłowo)
- 1313 Pollnow (Polanów)
- 22 May 1317 Schlawe (Sławno)
- 1343 Zanow (Sianów)
- 1613 Bergen auf Rügen
- Hapsal (Haapsalu)
- Narva
- Velikiy Novgorod
- Wismar
References
- Dollinger, Phillipe. The German Hansa. Translated and Edited by D. S. Ault and S. H. Steinberg. Stanford University Press, 1970.
- Wilhelm Ebel: Lübisches Recht. 1. Band, Lübeck 1971 ISBN 3795000300
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