Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T07:27:58.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Capitalism and its Enemies: The Wörner Family and the Weavers of Nördlingen*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Christopher R. Friedrichs
Christopher R. Friedrichs
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, University of British Columbia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The long, slow decline of the handicraft industries in Western Europe was attended by protracted hardship and misery for the artisan classes, short-term exploitative opportunities for crass merchants to whom the old medieval communal values were outdated cant, and confusion and eventual rout for the town fathers who attempted to maintain such values in the face of ineluctable economic change. Professor Friedrichs draws these conclusions from his research on woolen cloth weavers in the German town of Nördlingen in the seventeenth century and shows how, once the old values were no longer useful, the state itself took the initiative in the eighteenth century in facilitating the conversion of handicraft industry to the modern wage-labor system.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1976 , pp. 265 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The conflict between the weavers of Nördlingen and the Wörners in 1698 has been briefly mentioned in two earlier works: Ebert, W. H. Konrad, Die Lodweberei in der Reichsstadt Nördlingen (Nördlingen, 1919), 40Google Scholar, and Zorn, Wolfgang, Handels- und Industriegeschichte Bayerisch-Schwabens, 1648–1870: Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte des schwäbischen Unternehmertums (Veröffentlichungen der schwäbischen Forschungsgemeinschaft bei der Kommission für bayerische Landesgeschichte, Reihe 1, Bd. 6, Augsburg, 1961), 100–103.Google Scholar This paper, however, not only examines the crisis of 1698 in much greater detail, but also places that conflict within the context of the entire development of the Wörners' activities in Nördlingen.

2 These figures are derived from the Nördlingen Steuerregister (StR) for 1652 and 1700. (Unless otherwise indicated, alt manuscript sources cited in this paper are in the Stadtarchiv Nördlingen.)

3 Kellenbenz, Hermann, “Die Wirtschaft der schwäbischen Reichsstädte zwischen 1648 und 1720,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte der oberdeutschen Reichsstädte, xi (1965), 128–165Google Scholar; Zorn, Wolfgang, “Zur Geschichte der schwäbischen Wirtschaft, 1368–1869,” in Zorn, Wolfgang & Hillenbrand, Leonhard, Sechs Jahrhunderte Schwäbische Wirtschaft: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wirtschaft im bayerischen Regierungsbezirk Schwaben (Augsburg, 1969), 44.Google Scholar

4 Ordnungsbuch (OB) 1641–1688, fols. 175a–176a. See also Ebert, Die Lodweberei in der Reichsstadt Nördlingen, 8–11.

5 For a general introduction to this subject, see Fridolin Furger, Zum Verlagssystem als Organisationsform des Frühkapitalismus im Textilgewerbe (Beihefte zur Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirschaftsgeschichte 11, 1927).

6 Endres, Rudolf, “Kapitalistische Organisationsformen im Ries in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung, xxii (1962), 89–99.Google Scholar

7 See the suggestive description of German small-town attitudes provided by Walker, Mack, German Home Towns: Community, State and General Estate 1648–1871 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), chapters 1–4.Google Scholar Although Nördlingen was too large to be considered a true “home town,” much of Walker's analysis is still applicable.

8 Ebert, Die Lodweberei, 8–11.

9 Under the constitution of 1552, the council of Nördlingen consisted of a self-perpetuating body of fifteen citizens. Until the early seventeenth century a number of seats were normally occupied by craftsmen, but this practice died out during the Thirty Years' War. From 1650 onward, the council consisted almost entirely of merchants, taverners, apothecaries and men trained for professional or administrative careers. For more detail on the composition of the magistracy, see Friedrichs, Christopher R., “Nördlingen, 1580–1700: Society, Government and the Impact of War” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1973), chapter 7.Google Scholar

10 The earlier history of the Wörner family in Nördlingen is described in Friedrichs, “Nördlingen,” chapter 9.

11 The impact of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) on Nördlingen's population is evident both from the tax registers and from the parish registers. The number of citizen households, which stood at 1,713 before the war (in 1615), dropped to 844 in 1646, then rose slowly to 1,147 by 1700 (StR 1615, 1646, 1700). The parish registers show a similar trend in the average annual number of births and weddings among resident families: before the war (1581–1620), there were an average of 344 births, 77 marriages per year; in the 1640s, 208 births, 38 marriages; in 1681–1720, 267 births, 52 marriages. (Christopher R. Friedrichs, “Bevölkerungsstatistik und Bevölkerungsentwicklung der Reichsstadt Nördlingen 1579–1720,” forthcoming in Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins für Nördlingen und des Ries, xxvi [1976].) The financial burdens imposed on Nördlingen during the Thirty Years' War and after 1670 are summarized in Acta der Nördlingischen Matricular-beschwerden und die Untersuchung des Oekonomiestandes betreffend, B Num VII, 1: “Unverwerffliche Causales, Warum … Nördlingen … eine nahmaffte Moderation … zu suchen hat,” pp. 7–8; see also Lettenmeyer, Wilhelm Friedrich, Der Niedergang der reichsstädtischen Finanzwirtschaft Nördlingens und die Tätigkeit der kaiserlichen Subdelegationskomission (XVIII. Jahrhundert) (Dissertation, Munich, 1937), 58–76.Google Scholar For a general survey of trends in municipal finance and in the distribution of taxes and wealth in seventeenth-century Nördlingen, see Friedrichs, “Nördlingen,” chapters 3, 5.

12 See, for example, Lodweberakten: Loder C. Wörner, Supplicationes, Verhören, Berichte und Rhats-Bescheide (hereafter: Supplicationes), Nr. 1: “Bitt und King Schreiben … wegen der 2 Werner …,” 4. See also Wulz, Gustav, “Zurzacher Messe,” Der Daniel: heimatkundlich-kulturelle Zweimonatschrift für das Ries und Umgebung, vi (1970), Heft 2, 23–25.Google Scholar

13 For example, in 1615 the richest fifteen male citizens of Nördlingen included five merchants and only one municipal bureaucrat. (The rest were three craftsmen, two apothecaries, and one taverner, brewer, miller, and cloth-press operator.) By contrast, in 1690 the richest fifteen included only two merchants but four municipal bureaucrats, one former military secretary, and the church music director. (The rest were two apothecaries, three taverners, one brewer, and one miller.) Gustav Wulz, “Die reichsten Nördlinger, ausgezogen aus den Steuerbüchern des Stadtarchiv Nördlingen” (typescript in the Stadtarchiv Nördlingen, 1971); men whose occupations are not listed in this summary have been traced in earlier Steuerregistern.

14 This and all subsequent genealogical information about the Wörner family presented in this paper comes from the Tauf- und Eheregistern V–X ( 1644–1745 ) and the Sterberegistern II-IV (1645–1755) of the evangelischen Kirchengemeinde Nördlingen. I have deposited a detailed genealogy of the Wörner family in the Stadtarchiv Nördlingen.

15 This and all subsequent information concerning tax payments by members of the Wörner family is based on the Nördlingen Steuerregister for the period 1652 to 1746. (These tax registers record payments of the annual “citizen tax,” which was always set at one-half of one per cent of a citizen's assessed real and personal property. Other direct and indirect taxes — for example those levied during military occupations — were recorded elsewhere.)

16 See Ratsprotokolle (RP) 1660, fol. 185a/b and 1661, fol. 165b.

17 RP 26 March 1662.

18 RP 14 March 1666.

19 RP 30 March 1668: The council denied Daniel permission to be identified as a weaver and a merchant simultaneously, but it was sympathetic to his cautious request that if he failed as a merchant he be restored immediately to his full status as a weaver without the normal probationary period of five years.

20 RP 24 December 1672.

21 RP 1676, fol. 19a; 1677, fols. 36b, 42b, 48a, 49a, 59b. The Jews had been banished from Nördlingen in 1507, but in the seventeenth century a few Jews were granted special permission to live in the town or to commute to the town from nearby villages. Most of the Jews were petty traders or retailers. Müller, L., “Aus fünf Jahrhunderten. Beiträge zur Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinden im Reiss,” Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Schwaben und Neuberg, xxv (1898), 75–77, 115–120.Google Scholar

22 RP 3 August 1663.

23 RP 26 November 1680.

24 OB 1641–1688, fols. 383a–384a (10 August 1681).

25 RP 6 November 1682.

26 Ibid.

27 RP 2 September 1687. Wörner was also instructed not to evade the rule by shipping out woolens in his son's name.

28 The three richer citizens were non-merchants: the widow of Hans Christoph Frickhinger, a municipal bureaucrat who had become mayor of Nördlingen; Georg Friedrich Weng, the town counsel; and the widow of Adam Rehlin, a brewer. See Gustav Wulz, “Die reichsten Nördlinger.”

29 Such treatment of suicides in Nördliiigen is recorded in “Johann Christoph Mötzels Chronik von Nördlingen” [written 1733–1734], published in Rieser Heimatbote 25–67 (December 1926-October 1930), passim.

30 RP 1 February 1688; 8, 10, & 29 March 1693.

31 RP 3 January 1693.

32 RP 30 April & 18 August 1697.

33 RP 14 December 1694; 4 & 18 March, 26 April 1695.

34 RP 22 & 31 January 1696; 22 February & 21 April 1697; 12 May & 30 July 1700.

35 Both Ebert, Die Lodweberei, 39, and Zorn, Industriegeschichte, 100, draw attention to this technique. See also the discussion below of the weavers' complaints in 1698.

36 RP 24, 27, 28, & 31 January, 1 & 11 February, 1698; 14 February, 3, 7 & 20 March 1699. Another of Daniel Wörner's sons, Simon, had also acquired an unsavory reputation before he died in 1692. In 1688, he was haled before the council to apologize for insulting remarks he had made about the wool-weavers; the following year, he was punished both for tampering with boundary stones outside the town and for calling the plaintiff a whore and a witch. RP 1 February 1688; RP 1689, 268–269, 274–275, 280, 288.

37 An index of the prices of consumables (primarily foodstuffs) in the Swabian metropolis of Augsburg, some forty miles south of Nördlingen, shows a short-term increase in prices of 21 per cent between 1696 and 1698. Phelps Brown, E. H. and Hopkins, Sheila V., “Builders' Wage-rates, Prices and Population: Some Further Evidence,” Economica, N.S., xxiv (1959), 18–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Augsburg index is based on data from Elsas, M. J., Umriss einer Geschichte der Priese und Löhne in Deutschland, vol. I (Leiden, 1936).Google Scholar

38 Lodweberakten, Loder contra Daniel Wörner 1698 (Loder c. Wörner): Confrontations-Protocol 1, 9–10 & passim.

39 Ibid., 5 and passim; Ebert, Die Lodweberei, 33, 36, 38.

40 Loder c. Wörner: Austeilung der Wernerischen 4,000 fl. an die Loder wie auch dem Abzug von Schulden betreff.: Debts to the elder Daniel Wörner totalled, in his reckoning, 1,435 fl. 14 kr., and debts to his son Daniel came to over 500 fl.

41 Loder c. Wörner: Supplicationes, Nr. 1: “Bitt und Klag Schreiben … wegen der 2 Werner …”

42 StR 1694 & 1700. Only Schtoffel Blanek and H. Brach(?) cannot be traced.

43 RP 21 February 1698.

44 Loder c. Wörner: Supplicationes, Nr. 2: “Underthänig und Fuessfälligstes Clag Memoriale,” submitted by Hans Jörg Herpfer Mittel and Hans Jörg Hochstetter Jung, both Lodweber.

45 Loder c. Wörner, Supplicationes, Nr. 1.

46 RP 9 February 1698.

47 OB 1688–1706, 241–245 (23 March 1698).

48 Loder c. Wörner: Confrontations Puncten, so den 17, Mai 1698 vorgenommen worden; and Confrontations-Protocoll.

49 Loder c. Wörner: Confrontations-Protocoll, 5, 11, 85ff., 139ff., and passim.

50 Ibid., 7.

51 Ibid., 5.

52 Ibid., 157.

53 Ibid., 160–161.

54 Ibid., 6; for the younger Daniel: 13ff.

55 Ibid., 12. Brandhofer was also a councillor of the duchy of Württemberg and administrator of mines in Königsbronn, about 25 km. southwest of Nördlingen: Zorn, Industriegeschichte, 100.

56 Loder c. Wörner: Confrontations-Protocolt, 157–158.

57 Ibid., 11.

58 Ibid., 18, 20.

59 Lodweberakten, Lodenhandel 1696–1715 (1759): “Unterth. Anzeig … die fortführung der Wörn. Lodenhandel betrf.,” 15 July 1698, 3–5. The names of four other weavers were subsequently added to this statement, but they insisted to the council that this had been done without their permission and demanded that their names be deleted. RP 5 August 1698.

60 RP 15 July and 3 August 1698.

61 OB 1688–1706, fols. 249a–250b (21 October 1698).

62 Loder c. Wörner: Austeilung der Wemerischen 4,000 fl.

63 RP 1 November 1698.

64 Lodweberakten, Lodenhandel 1696–1715 (1759): “Unterthänig gehorsamste dancksagung …,” 31 October 1698; and RP 31 October 1698.

65 Loder c. Wörner: Austeilung der Wernerischen 4,000 fl.

66 See the discussion in Friedrichs, Christopher R., “Capitalism, Mobility and Class Formation in the Early Modern German City,” Past and Present, LXIX (November 1975), 24–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Zorn, Industriegeschichte, 258, draws attention to the distinction between council policy in the larger cities and in Nördlingen.

67 Biographical information on members of the Nördlingen town council in this period will be found in Friedrichs, “Nördlingen,” Appendix VII.

68 RP 5 January 1699.

69 E.g. RP 1699, 218, 259, 493; RP 1700, 375, 521.

70 As shown by RP 18 October 1699.

71 RP 23 October 1699.

72 RP 27 October 1699.

73 Ibid., and RP 17, 20, & 29 November 1699.

74 27 August, 6 & 13 October 1700. The three men who charged the Wörners with discrimination were Matthias Schweyer, Hans Adelgoss and David Lemp, whose names appear particularly frequently among the accusers in the Confrontations-Protocoll.

75 Ebert, Die Lodweberei, 41.

76 Ibid., 42–44.

77 Up to 1717, the loans normally involved amounts up to a few hundred gulden but from 1718 to 1723, he sometimes lent sums of 1,000 fl. or more. E.g. Pfandbuch 53, fols. 99, 112, 147, 272, 323; Pfb. 54, fols. 118, 182, 184, 248, 423, 471, 476b; Pfb. 55, fols. 105, 186, 198. The last-cited entry involves a loan of 3,000 fl.

78 RP 5 February 1700. This gift was the only recorded charitable grant by a member of the Wörner family in Nördlingen prior to the nineteenth century, according to the extensive, if not absolutely complete, list of such grants prepared by Frickhinger, Hermann: “Die Stiftungen der Stadt Nördlingen (Schluss),” Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins für Nördlingen und Umgebung, xiii (1929), 43.Google Scholar

79 Leichenpredigte: David Wörner, 1741, p. 16: During his membership on the council, he was elected at various stages to the posts of Oberrichter, Kriegsamtverwalter, Hospitalpfleger and Consistorial-Rat.

80 Eidbuch IV (Jurament Buch), Rhatgeben Ayd.

81 Ibid., Bürgermeister Ayd & Rhatgeben Ayd.

82 Dannenbauer, Heinz, “Das Leinenweberhandwerk in der Reichsstadt Nördlingen,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte, iii (1930), 305–308.Google Scholar

83 Ibid., 309–312.

84 Ibid., 314.

85 Lettenmeyer, Der Niedergang der reichsstädischen Finanzwirtschaft, 114–115.