#历史开讲 #
The German mining industry has a long history, and more than 2,000 years ago, a thriving copper industry in the East Arse region of South Germany reached its climax in the middle and late Bronze Age and supplied copper from parts of Central and Southern Europe.
Background to the emergence of German mining enterprises in the Middle Ages
In the 7th century BC, the Iron Age was entered. With the development of the ironmaking and ironworking industries, its productivity has been further improved. During the Roman Empire, many iron-making sites were discovered in Styria, Karinthia, Jutland, Schleswig-Holstein and the Rhineland, so much so that Telicot believed that the reason for the decline of the Roman Empire was "the constant pressure from people with developed Iron Age traditions on a highly established civilization over a long period of time".
By the Middle Ages, German mining enterprises prospered under the influence of mining freedom and royal mining privileges. The right to freedom of mining originated from the usufruct rights of members of the Marc community to publicly owned land, flourished under the protection of royal mining privileges, inherited from the Roman mining tradition, grew up in the middle ages of internal disputes among the German ruling class, established in the hands of princes, and in modern times became an important basis for the German state government to control mines and "nationalize".
In the special political and economic background of medieval Dezhi, the right to free mining and the privilege of room mining complement each other and complement each other: the right to mining freedom is an important means for the royal mining privilege to play a role, and the royal mining privilege is the guarantee for the establishment of the right to mining freedom, which together constitute an important background for the birth and development of medieval German mining enterprises.
Freedom of mining in Germany
The free right to mining in Germany in the Middle Ages originated from the usufruct of public land during the period of the Marc group, and the usufruct right of public land was an important tradition of the Marc community. Members of the Marque community regard mountains, rivers, and meadows as the property of the community, i.e. Aliminda or commons, and enjoy universal usufruct rights over them.
Based on this general usufruct right over the commons, members of the group naturally also enjoy a general usufruct right to mineral deposits attached to the land. At this time, the right to freedom of mining had two main characteristics: First, the recipients of the early right to freedom of mining were limited to members of the Marc group. Chapter 45 of the Salic Code stipulates that persons outside the Marque community must meet the condition that no one objects within 12 months if they want to move into the commune.
Only then was he able to share all the relevant rights and obligations as an equal member of the commune. The Saxon Spiegel also stipulates that farmers outside the Marque community are not allowed to use the commons. Therefore, "free mining" is only for members of the Marque group, and only they have the right to mine freely and are not allowed to be interfered with by outsiders.
Second, members of the Marque community do not enjoy "freedom" in the absolute sense of the word when exercising the right to freedom of mining, but are bound by Marque's customary law. Li Xiuqing once mentioned that under the Marc group system, "if the treasure found underground is buried in a place that is too deep to reach, it belongs to the commune first, and the same is true for mining rights."
The early land system of the Marc community was a coexistence of private and public ownership, and the members of the group were free to mine minerals "deep as the ploughshare", while the right to use and mine minerals "deep as the ploughshare" belonged to the commune, and the members of the commune could only mine them after consultation. Therefore, the right to freedom of mining at this time is not an absolute freedom.
During the feudal period, the right to use the communal land of the members of the Marque group was renewed, and their right to freedom of mining was also retained. In the Middle Ages, feudal lords included mining in the scope of the manor economy, in the form of self-operated mining enterprises. But the cultural traditions of Marc, its deep-seated code of life, which were deeply rooted in the entire life of the Germanic people, the Marque community did not completely disappear, it only existed in the form of an enslaved commune, and the communal ownership economy still existed, and was a necessary part of the rural economy at that time.
Some of its primitive democratic and equal customs are also manifested in different degrees and forms in various places. In the case of the usufruct of communal land: these lands are owned by the countryside and all the military and civilians have a right, whether they are non-free or free persons, or even lords, whose rights are equal.
These communal properties belonged to the villages, and the inhabitants of the lords' lands had usufruct rights, even when the public resources of the Germanic tribal settlements were already under the feudal jurisdiction of the king or the nobility, and the free use of underground mines was the right of every member.
Thus, it was on the basis of the continuation of the right to use the commons that the members of the Marque community were able to retain the usufruct rights attached to the mineral deposits attached to the commons in the early Middle Ages, i.e. the right to freedom of mining. The right to freedom of mining was fully reflected in mining law in the early Middle Ages. Traces of the right to freedom of mining have been found in mining regulations in the Eifel region, as well as in West Grant.
The customary law of the Marque community, "Article 275 of the Book of Uhes", states: "Every farmer, that is, every member of the community, has the right to go to the commons to mine ore." Where a farmer digs with his tools, no one else is allowed to dig there for a year. ”
Although the freedom of mining rights of the members of the Marque group continued, it was premised on paying taxes to the feudal lords. According to relevant sources, serfs in the 9th and 11th centuries were required to pay iron ore taxes to feudal lords. This iron ore tax can also be understood as a kind of rent, and members of the Marque group have the right to mine minerals on publicly owned land under the condition of paying rent, and even after paying production rent, they can mine minerals from the feudal lord's own camp, and there are also information that the subjects can use the feudal lord's smelting furnace to smelt iron ore found on the lord's land after paying a certain rent.
In the 13th century, with the establishment of royal mining privileges, the recipients of mining freedom under the guarantee of royal mining privileges broke the previous restriction that they must be members of the Marc group, and the principle that everyone can mine was established and became one of the important contents of medieval German mining law, and the right to mine freedom became the right to freely hold and exercise the usufruct of mineral deposits without relying on the instructions of the landowner.
This not only led to the opportunity for everyone to mine independently, but also contributed to the prosperity of the German mining industry. It should be mentioned that the right to mining freedom at this time was like a double-edged sword: for the feudal lords, the mining freedom guaranteed by the royal mining privilege abolished the landlords' earlier ownership of minerals and gave the working miners the usufruct of the deposits: for the royal privilege owners, the right to mine freedom forced them to grant the discoverers of minerals the right to mine.
In this context, anyone, regardless of origin, who discovers minerals and reports them to the privileged holder or his representative may mine independently and autonomously under the conditions of the contract. For example, the Bishop of Trento, Albrecht, signed an agreement with miners from Saxony on the basis of the right to freedom of mining, enabling them to mine without fear of landlord objections, provided that they paid taxes. Also based on the existence of the right to freedom of mining, Jews, who were considered heretics in medieval Western Europe, were able to mine as partners.
Documents from 1230 mention a Jew named Tidhecus, a partner in a salt works, which also confirms the existence of a Jew named Heinemann in 1271. The mining laws of the main mines in medieval Germany enshrined the right to freedom of mining: the Schmnitz Mining Act, the Trento Mining Agreement, the Igerau Mining Act, the Freiberg Mining Act, and the Reivenberg Gold Mining Act all gave any stranger the right to mine, that is, anyone could mine anywhere, after obtaining permission from the royal mining privileged monarch.
In addition, feudal lords could not prevent miners who had obtained permission from holders of royal privileges from entering their territories to mine minerals, but even provided assistance such as accommodation, smelters, and foundries when necessary. In contrast, mining rights in other parts of Europe are owned by only a subset of privileged organizations or individuals.
For example, organizations with exclusive mining rights in France are also very common in the iron industry, and in the mountainous countryside around Allencon, upstream of Perches and Norman falls, a group of local mineral owners, secular and ecclesiastical lords, known as mineral kings, are the only ones who have the power to mine iron ore and establish iron foundries.
The labor of charcoal and iron is effectively controlled by the companies of the mine owners. Only the sons or sons-in-law of its members have mining rights. In the Eastern Pyrenees, no one is allowed to seek or mine iron ore on the Lancee Hills unless he is a resident of the Vicdessos Gorge. In England, however, it was stipulated that only persons born in the division of St. Bariavilles and who had worked there with pickaxes for a year and one day were allowed to mine iron or coal from the King's Dean Forest.
In the late Middle Ages, the centralization of the princely governments began to increase, and mining was gradually controlled by the princely governments. "The real command structure is no longer individual enterprises, but the administrative apparatus of the rulers, and many rulers see these enterprises as their own property" and private capital is gradually excluded from mining.
After the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the German princely governments became de jure and de facto political entities with independent diplomacy. The so-called right to freedom of mining, although legally enforced until the Prussian mining law of the late 19th century, was in fact abolished, and the already powerful centralized government began to operate more of its own mines. Feudal lords occupied mines in the early Middle Ages, mining them in the form of self-operated mining enterprises.