|
|
|
Excerpts from
"Our Own World History"
A book that presents family history against the background of world history
by Raoul F. Middelmann
Our earliest known Forebears: 15th to 17th Century
The earliest records presently held by the family, and establishing with reasonable confidence our roots deep in the past, refer to the 15th century. The Staatsarchiv, Marburg, Germany, holds a document signed in 1458 at Waldeck, in the north of modern Hesse, Germany, according to which Johann Cliessen, Peter Niigescheffer and Cord Jagk vow publicly
eternal vengeance on the Count of Waldeck.
Eight years later, on 1 January 1466, the same Peter Niigescheffer now named Nigescheper, in company with thirteen others named, declared war on St Patrocli, Domkapitel of Soest. This second document is recorded in J. S. Seibertz' Urkundenbuch zur Landes- und Rechtsgeschichte des Herzogtums Westfalen, vol 3, ca 1821, though the whereabouts of the
original is today unknown.
Seibertz calls Peter a member of a Ministerial family of probably Westphalian (old Saxon) origin. As such, Peter's forebears were local providers of troops. They were compensated by the lord with the use for life of a larger farm (estate or Gutshof). Thus they were socially above Koetter (cottagers) and common (copy-hold) farmers.
In actual fact the large, and often even somewhat fortified, estates of Ministerialen were passed from one generation to the next, as were the duties of soldiering, local government and local courts, unless the 'lessee' had failed in his duties to the lord. Should the family die out, the farm then returned to the lord.
[…]
In 1961 the two oldest documents in the safe of Catholic St. Lambertus church at Castrop part of today's Castrop-Rauxel in Germany's Ruhr area, carried the date of 17 June 1412. They mention Hense and Arnd Myddelman as witnesses to the transfer of two pieces of land to the church. In a third document, of 1422, Hense Myddelman, as one of several, witnessed the exchange of land between the communities of Castrop and nearby Pepping.
Note the spelling of the name Middelman. It took close to another 400 years, in the wake of the French Revolution, that the second "n" become the standard form of writing the surname.
[…]
The third document mentioned, the one of 1422, was published by Nikolaus Kindlinger in Geschichte der Deutschen Hoerigkeit, inbesondere der sogenannten Leibeigenschaft, 1819. In the centuries prior to the French Revolution, Westphalian yeomen and their land were part of set communities. As hereditary but not inherited peasants, they enjoyed certain rights and were subject to certain obligations. Anyone wishing to leave the community needed to be discharged on the basis of an exchange of property or by other legal arrangements to ensure, ultimately, that the value of assets within the community remained constant. No community permitted movable assets, such as cattle, furniture, etc., to leave the community, even by way of inheritance, except by exchange.
Marriages between members of different communities required exchanges of people and assets, agreement of the people to be exchanged, agreement before a court that both communities agreed to the exchange and acceptance by both communities of their new members. Thus the third document, that of 1422.
[...]
|