Geleitrecht

The escort was a law accompanied by passengers or goods which granted the right holder ( escort Mr. ) within a certain territory or for certain distances.

Molding

There is a difference

• Safe-conduct was accompanied by a traveler, especially of merchants, to prevent robbery. This conduct is also referred to as a customs escort.
• Guard of honor was an escort that served high-ranking personalities of the ceremony or support, and more representative.
• Safe Conduct is the assurance and support of persons against whom would proceed legally or militarily in the normal case, in which the will but did not happen due to a specific situation ( of truce, witness ).
• Conduct process assures all participants of a process for the safe arrival and departure.
• Army convoy was used to secure the walkover of foreign troops through an area.
• Market conduct is a special form, since a general protection for all the market and departure ends was without the protection was in fact always backed by prominent military or a tax would have been payable.
• Numerous individual and special forms that people in certain situations that they threatened with arrest or punishment should be given the freedom to act.

While escort usually persons was given, but it could also apply to certain items, such as for the transfer of the German imperial regalia of its storage in Nuremberg at the coronation places Aachen ( to 1531 ), later: Frankfurt am Main, and back.

Function

The convoy was right in the pre-state relations in the Middle Ages and early modern period, before the emergence of the state monopoly on violence, a means to create legal certainty for travelers. The convoy was granted by the owner of the escort laws against payment of a convoy money. It was thus a popular source of income for the territorial lords. They were able to use their originary military prowess and "sell" and we were given the highly coveted hard cash, in a late medieval and early modern, still based primarily on exchange items and natural economy. The boundaries between the areas of the individual escort gentlemen were labeled by convoy crosses or blocks.

Initially, dealers were, enslaved by escort riders or teams accompanied, later, the convoy escort Mr. letters, which could buy the traveler. In these letters, the road owner obligated to pay damages if the merchant suffered damage from raids - so granted a kind of " insurance ". Merchants were obliged by the road forced to use escort paths or roads. However, this constraint did not apply to all the goods and not for other travelers.

Often they were in the territories actually the customs authorities, who were responsible for the actual implementation of safe conduct, with fees for the convoy was independently addition to the actual customs duties and any additional toll yet due.

In feuds of the late Middle Ages convoys of the enemy were a popular target for raids because so a big splash and a significant facial and loss of prestige of the attacked was always connected. Opponents could be set as politically and economically under pressure.

Legal derivation

In the high Middle Ages was escorted right Regalie, but this was taken in the late Middle Ages, more and more of the forming territorial sovereignty claim, and partly by transfer - eg perceived or in its own right - as a fief. By Statutum in favorem principum escorted right was granted in 1231 by the King, the Prince in your own territory as a right. Nevertheless, it always came back to argue who is entitled for a specific conduct law. With the farewell of 1548 Reichstag escort law was definitively transferred to the territorial lords, but they also committed to ensuring security in its territory.

With increasing nationalization of the original function of the escort, the convoy was lost and legal transformed more and more into a travel tax and naked sovereign source of income. Still in Reichsdeputationshauptschluss the city of Frankfurt am Main, left free for their merchants from all conduct money, which was empowered to levy any kingdom stand. The last convoy funds were only abolished on the grounds of the German Customs Union 1833/1834 as a trade -inhibiting special tax.

Famous cases

• Round trip of the electors for royal elections, represented by Licet juris ( 1338 ) and The Golden Bull ( 1375 )
• Travel by Jan Hus at the Council of Constance 1414., The committed by King Sigismund safe conduct was not met.
• Travel Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms