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Neuwied-Am-Rhein: Town Growth and Religious Toleration

A Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Walter Grossmann
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The very founding of the town Neuwied-am-Rhein was closely linked to policies and practices of religious toleration. It was the hope and intent of Count Friedrich of Wied (1618-1698) that a town, well planned and advantageously located, would bring economic relief and eventually prosperity to his small land, which had suffered particularly in the last years of the Thirty Years’ War. From the outset he saw that the best means of attracting residents would be to guarantee as large a degree of religious freedom as possible.

The Treaty of Westphalia provided a viable legal framework within which Protestants, adherents to the Augsburg Confession be they Lutherans or Reformed, and Roman Catholics could exercise their religion within the German Empire. The treaty basically defined three types of religious practice: the exercitium religionis publicum, which gave the members of the minority religion in any territorial unit full freedom to worship openly; the exercitium privatum, restricting the worship of the congregation to specific places; and finally the devotio domestica, which allowed the “individual exercise of religion by the common subject, practiced by him alone, without further ecclesiastical ceremony, ... within the walls of his own living quarters.” The treaty further offered the beneficium emigrandi, and specified the conditions under which forced or voluntary emigration was to take place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 28 , Issue 110 , June 1980 , pp. 20 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 The unusually rich archival material at the Fürstlich Wiedisches Archiv offers a very full record of religious life at Neuwied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I am grateful to the Archiv for permission to use its material, and to Dr. Coors-Warhem who has expertly guided me to its records and documents. Albert Meinhardt, City Librarian and historian of Neuwied, has generously provided me with much valuable information. The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Bad Godesberg, has given me great support and encourage ment for this study as it has done on past occasions.

2 Konrad Müller, ed., Instrumenta Pacis Westphalicae, Quellen zur neueren Geschichte, no. 12/3, Bern, 1975, Article V, paragraph 31.

3 Johann Christian Majer, Deutsches Geistliehes Staatsprecht, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1773, II, p. 82.

4 Müller, Instrumenta Article VII, paragraph 2.

5 E.G. Rupp, "La Tolérance religieuse et les hérésies à l'époque moderne (Introduction)," in XIIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques 1965 Rapports, Grands Thèmes, Vienna, 1965, p. 103.

6 Heinz Stoob, Forschungen zum Städtewesen in Europa, Cologne, 1970, p. 273.

7 Albert Meinhardt, "Seit wann hieß Langendorf Neuwied…" in Heimat kalender des Landkreises Neuwied, Neuwied, 1968, p. 89.

8 Ibid., 90/91.

9 Albert Meinhardt ed., 1653-1953, 300 Jahre Neuwied, Neuweid, 1953, p. 48.

10 Kayserliche und Gräffliche Wiedische Privilegia Den Orth und Platz Neuenwiedt Zu einer Statt zu machen und zu befestigen, Herborn (Typis Tobiae Jacobi) n.d. Copy in Fürstlich Wiedisches Archiv zu Neuwied. Future references will refer to FWA.

11 Hellmuth Gensicke, Landesgeschichte des Westerwaldes (Veröff, d. Histo rischen Kommission fur Nassau XIII) Wiesbaden 1958, pp. 334 and 448.

12 Hellmuth Gensicke, "Graf Friedrich von Wied, der Gründer Neuwieds" in Heimatkalender für den Kreis Neuwied, Neuwied, 1957, p. 104.

13 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, p. 69.

14 Copy in FWA.

15 Müller, Instrumenta, Article V, paragraph 31.

16 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, p. 70.

17 The higher jurisdiction the count claimed for himself. It is believed that at this time "customary laws" guided town affairs while in the second part of the eighteenth century the Nassau-Katzenelenbogische Gerichts- und Landes- Ordnung of 1616 was officially adopted. Its influence might predate such official adoption. (Kurt Becker, ed., Heimatchronik des Kreises Neuwied, Cologne, 1966, p. 95).

18 John Horsch, Mennonites in Europe (Mennoniae History, vol. I), Scottsdale, Pa., 1942, p. 109.

19 The original document of December 16, 1680 is in the Fürstlich Wiedisches Archiv, Urkunde IV, 8-7, Reg. Nr. 1492. Printed by Dirk Cattepoel, "Die Neuwieder Mennonitengemeinde" in Beiträge Zur Geschichte rheinischer Men noniten, Weierhof, Pfalz, 1939, 152/153. For the study of all religious groups at Neuwied the Relation oder Beytätig- und Erläuterung der Rechte und Privilegien der verschiedenen Glaubensverwandten zu Neuwied by Canzley-Direktor Fischer 1778, in manuscript, is indispensable. A photocopy is in the Harvard Divinity School Library. I am grateful to Mr. Albert Meinhardt for providing this copy.

20 Cattepoel, "Die Neuwieder," p. 153.

21 Ibid.

22 Stoob, Forschungen, p. 273.

23 Ibid.

24 Facsimile of Freyheiten und Begnandigungen welche… Friedrich Pfalzgraff bey Rhein… Den denjenigen welche sich in Ihrer Churf. Gnaden newen Stadt… Manheim häusslich niderzulassen gemeynt… bewilliget. Heydelberg… 1607. Re produced in Max Oeser, Geschichte der Stadt Mannheim, Mannheim, 1908, after p. XIV.

25 Heinrich Bolt, Griindung und Aufänge der Neustadt Hanau 1596-1620. Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen und Waldeck. Vol. 30, pt. 1, Marburg, 1970, pp. 432 and 441.

26 Bolt, op. cit., p. 341.

27 Ibid., p. 381.

28 Friedrich Walter, Geschichte Mannheims, Mannheim, 1907, p. 173.

29 Josef Beck (ed.), Die Geschichts-Biicher der Wiedertäufer in Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, II. Abt. 43, Vienna, 1883, p. 492.

30 Friedrich Walter, Mannheim, pp. 292-293.

31 "Urkunden und Zeugnisse zur rechtlichen Stellung der Mennoniten in Krefeld" in Beiträge zur Geschichte rheinischer Mennoniten (Schriftenreihe des Mennonitischen Geschichtsvereins 2), Weierhof, Pfalz, 1939, pp. 50-51.

32 Ibid., pp. 56-57.

33 Richard Ehrenberg "Die Anfänge Altonas" in R. Ehrenberg Altona unter Schauenburgischer Herrschaft, part I, p. 26.

34 Paul Piper, "Die Reformierten und die Mennoniten Altonas" in Ehrenberg Altona, part VI, p. 11.

35 B.C. Roosen, Geschichte der Mennoniten-Gemeinde Hamburg und Altona, Part I, Hamburg, 1886, p. 26.

36 R. Ehrenberg, "Gewerbefreiheit und Zunftzwang" in R. Ehrenberg Altona, Part IV, p. 25.

37 J. Krumm, "Eine Königstadt" in Heimatbuch des Kreises Steinburg in drei Bänden, Glückstadt, 1926, II, p. 200.

38 J. Krumm, "Die Privilegien der Königstadt" ibid., p. 213.

39 Hermann Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der Unteren Elbe. (Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftgeschichte, Beihefte 40), Wiesbaden, 1958, p. 30.

40 Robert Dollinger, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Schleswig-Holstein, Ham burg und Lübeck. (Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Schleswig-Holsteins vol. 17) (Neumünster i.H.), 1930, p. 124.

41 D. Detleffen, "Die städtische Entwicklung Glückstadts unter König Christian IV," Zeitschrift der Gesellscha f für Schleswig Holsteinische Geschichte, 36 (1906), p. 196.

42 Ibid., p. 199.

43 Ibid., p. 201.

44 Ibid., p. 225.

45 Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugense 1648, Articulus VII, p. 2.

46 FWA, Schrank 26, Gefach 10, Fasc 11.

47 FWA, Schrank 68, Gefach 8, Fasc. 9.

48 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, pp. 114-140.

49 Ludwig Molitor, Vollständige Geschichte der Residenzstadt Zweibrücken Zweibrücken, 1885, pp. 423-24.

50 FWA, Schrank 23, Gefach 6, Fasc 3, pp. 102-3.

51 The best accounts of the history of the Inspirierten are Max Goebel, Geschichte des christlichen Lebens, Vol. III, Coblenz, 1860, and Gottlieb Scheuner, Inspirations-Historie, Erster Theil, Amana, Iowa, 1884.

52 R.A. Knox, Enthusiasm, Oxford, 1950, p. 359.

53 Cf. Scheuner pp. 184-211 passim.

54 FWA, Schrank 65, Gefach 11, Fasc 13, pp. 93-96.

55 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, p. 96.

56 Fritz Voss, Bürgerwehr in Neuwied von 1648 bis 1856, Leipzig, 1936, pp. 38-40.

57 Carl Hinrichs, Preussentum und Pietismus, Göttingen, 1971, pp. 216-300.

58 Bertha M.H. Shambaugh, Amana, the Community of True Inspiration, Iowa City, 1908, p. 59.

59 FWA, Schrank 23, Gefach 6, Fasc 3, pp. 102-103.

60 Dagmar Reimers, "Sektenwesen und Herrnhuter-bewegung in der Grafschaft Ysenburg" in Kreis Biidingen, Büdingen, 1956, pp. 273-274.

61 Cf. Erich Beyreuther, Zinzendorf und die sich allhier beisammen finden, Marburg a.d., Lahn, 1959.

62 Simon, "Die Herrenhuter im Isenburgischen" Archiv für Hessische Ge schichte, vol. 9, Darmstadt, 1861, p. 64.

63 Dieter Krieg, "Das Behagelsche oder Herrnhuter Eckhaus an der Engerser Strasse," Heimatkalender des Landkreises Neuwied, 1965, pp. 82-84.

64 FWA, Schrank 68, Gefach 8, fasc 8.

65 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, p. 460.

66 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gedenkausgabe, Zürich, 1949, Vol. VIII, p. 399.

67 Meinhardt, 300 Jahre Neuwied, p. 512.

68 FWA, Schrank 66, Gefach 2, Fasc 7. For a detailed account based on the Edelmann Acta see my article "Edelmann in Neuwied," Glaube, Geist, Geschichte Festschrift für Ernst Benz, Leiden, 1967, pp. 207-216.