800th anniversary of the Reichstag in Gelnhausen - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1980 - 60 Pfennig

In April 1180, on the initiative of Emperor Frederick I in the then imperial city Gelnhausen, where there was also an Imperial Palatinate, a Reichstag took place, which was of great importance for the constitutional history as well as for the political development of the German Empire in the Middle Ages. The "Gelnhäuser deed" of 13 April 1180, recorded by this Reichstag, is the final document of a dispute between Kaiser Friedrich I (Barbarossa) and the most powerful prince of the Reich, Heinrich the Lion, conducted with the help of the then law. If the policy of Frederick I had initially been based on the lasting balance between Staufer and Welf, at least since the beginning of the year 1176 it was clear that Henry the Lion, for his own political aims, would also accept the break with the Kaiser. When, therefore, in the controversy of the duke with the archbishop of Cologne and the bishop of Halberstadt, a land lawsuit was instituted and Henry did not follow the imperial charge, in January 1179 a development began, which led to the feudal process. The repeated refusal to appear before the imperial court, was interpreted as a crime of majesty and was occasion for the denial of the imperial fief by a prince's prophecy in Würzburg early 1180th At the Reichstag in Gelnhausen in April 1180 then this prince's pronouncement was enforced by a Part of the Henry the Lion given fief has and against him the Reichsheerfahrt was decided. The famous Gelnhausen document, produced on the occasion of this Reichstag, is the protocol of the imperial chancellery on this Reichstag and the related process. The text, with its legal precision and the legal justification, points to a situation which has been clearly recognizable since the Concordat of 1122 in Worms: to a greater and greater degree the feudal law had become the organizing principle of the Reich constitution. In the case of Henry the Lion, Frederick I wanted to show the limits of vasallian freedom and secure monarchical power on a new basis, namely that of constitutional law. At the same time, the Gelnhausen decisions were an important step on the way to the territorial organization of Germany. The historical political significance of the Gelnhausen decisions lies in the fact that with the suppression of the influence of Henry the Lion, the policy of the early medieval German Reich no longer oriented to the north and especially to the east, but to the south, ie to Italy. This policy was then completed in the Hohenstaufen Frederick II, who tried to build a new empire from Sicily. (Text: The Hessian Minister of Federal Affairs, Bonn)