The origins of our family are shrouded in mystery. The oldest known bearer of our name is the patrician Gerhard Borries, who is mentioned several times between 1394 and 1432 as a councilman of the city of Minden. Between 1425 and 1473, Hermann Borries is mentioned as a councilman and in 1445 as mayor. His son Johann appears between 1460 and 1496 as a councilman and for a period of five years as mayor. His eldest son Johann was a councilman from 1514 until his death in 1541, and his second son Hermann was also a councilman and mayor for five years. This tradition continued until the end of the Thirty Years’ War, when the city of Minden lost its independence in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and was annexed to the Electorate of Brandenburg. During the peace negotiations, councilor and later mayor Heinrich Borries had to represent the interests of the city. Despite extensive research, it has not been possible to find out more about the ancestors of the oldest bearer of the name, Gerhard Borries. This is surprising, because as a patrician and councilor, he must have come from a well-known family, otherwise he would not have been able to hold public office in Minden.
As early as 1300, the city had a council election college consisting of 40 men from the merchants’ guild and the three most respected guilds. Only wholesalers were allowed to call themselves merchants. Of the guilds, only shoemakers, bakers, and butchers were involved in the council elections. These 40 men chose 12 councilors from among themselves each year, who were responsible for the administration of the city and chose the mayor from their circle.
The councilors performed their magistrate duties on a voluntary basis, but enjoyed certain rights such as fishing, hunting, and others. They had to be wealthy citizens who could sacrifice time and money. Those elected to the council for the first time had to pay the considerable sum of 200 gold marks (converted), which was used to fortify the city. If a master of the three guilds was elected, he had to give up his craft and join the merchants’ guild, which required considerable wealth. The council was therefore composed of wealthy citizens who had been known in the city for generations.
Against this backdrop, it is surprising that we know nothing about the ancestors of patrician and councilman Gerhard Borries. Did he perhaps come from a different social class? What social classes existed in Minden during the Middle Ages? The city chronicle reports the following: Minden was founded by Charlemagne after the subjugation of the Saxons around 800 as the seat of a bishopric and endowed with extensive land holdings. Its bishops were thus not only ecclesiastical dignitaries, but also sovereigns. The bishopric grew through further donations from kings and bequests from the nobility, and eventually stretched from Osnabrück to Hanover. The land holdings included the so-called “serfs” who cultivated the land. Initially, the bishop had only private law powers over them. Jurisdiction over these serfs was vested in a count appointed directly by the king. It was not until 977 that the bishops of Minden were granted the sovereign rights they lacked: in addition to jurisdiction, they also received the right to mint coins, levy customs duties, and hold markets. These secular affairs were now conducted by bailiffs appointed by the bishop, most of whom came from Saxon noble families. Over time, the most important bailiff’s office became a hereditary fiefdom of its holders. As compensation for their services, they were enfeoffed with land belonging to the diocese. This feudal property, which was inherited from generation to generation, gradually became alienated from the church. The feudal lords often neglected their obligations as bailiffs of the bishop and were more interested in their own properties and their expansion. Thus, the counties of Hoya, Ravensburg, and Schaumburg, for example, emerged from the original possessions of the Diocese of Minden. At the beginning of the 13th century, the political and economic heyday of the diocese had passed. The rise of the small territorial lords began. At the same time, the power and influence of the urban communities also grew.
During the 14th century, the citizens increasingly took over the duties of the mayor appointed by the bishop and transferred them to a council elected by themselves. This council was ultimately responsible for jurisdiction, taxation, trade, and defense. Finally, the council represented the city before the emperor and the empire, foreign princes, and other cities. As early as the mid-14th century, the council of Minden concluded treaties with the cities of Münster, Osnabrück, and Herford independently, i.e., without consulting the bishop. Shortly thereafter, the city joined the Rhenish League of Cities and became a member of the powerful Hanseatic League.
In the second half of the 14th century, the bishop’s rule extended mainly to land outside the city of Minden. The feuds he had to wage as a feudal lord with the up-and-coming vassals and neighboring princes, as well as his princely court, cost a lot of money. He therefore turned to the now wealthy city of Minden for help. The city took advantage of the bishop’s difficulties to wrest further rights from him.
The bishops usually came from princely houses and often aspired to the ideals of knightly warriors rather than those of pious clergymen. They pursued politics in the interests of their domestic power. Privately, they led a more secular than spiritual life. They sometimes received their ecclesiastical ordination under circumstances that seem hair-raising to us today. Previously, i.e., in their secular phase of life, they were interested in having many descendants because of the inheritance laws in force at the time. Many bishops remained faithful to this way of life even during their spiritual activities, although there is no inheritance law in the church; rather, clerics are required to remain celibate.
Perhaps these customs are the reason why absolutely nothing can be found out about Gerhard Borries’ ancestors. It could well have been intentional and not a coincidence, as we have assumed so far. However, we are still reliant on conjecture. What, for example, speaks against the theory that this Gerhard Borries belonged to the bishop’s power base and was perhaps his natural son? Let us assume that this was the case. Why would the bishop not try to use his descendant for his own interests? He could give him a new family name, the necessary rights and financial means, and then smuggle him into the council as a patrician in order to regain influence over city politics. That would at least explain how a previously unknown man could attain the influential position of a Minden councilor and pass this privilege on to his descendants. As adventurous as this version may seem at first glance, it has the advantage of being possible under the circumstances described and of being coherent in its entirety.
It is revealing in this context that in 1549 the Bishop of Minden enfeoffed several nobles and citizens from his diocese with estates. The patrician Gevekoth also sought an enfeoffment, but did not receive it because he falsely claimed to be a nobleman. However, Borries, who was also present, received an episcopal fief. Why was the patrician Borries given preference over the patrician Gevekoth in such an offensive manner, and why did Gevekoth not object? Obviously, the connections between the bishop and the Borries family were very close.
The choice of our family name would also make sense in this context, as names in the Middle Ages were often given according to geographical features or the occupations of the persons concerned. Neither of these conditions applied in our case. When the bishop was looking for a new family name, it was uncontroversial and did not conflict with other interests if he chose it from the ecclesiastical sphere, namely after Saint Liborius, whose relics rest in the neighboring cathedral in Paderborn.
Perhaps this “bishop hypothesis” is causally related to the unusual passage in our letter of nobility renewal from 1733 by Emperor Charles VI. It states that “…our ancestors lived in the noble class several hundred years ago, but suffered great damage due to external misfortunes and had to conceal their noble status for a time. …” This could be an elegant way of describing the above-mentioned origins of our family, which were still known through oral tradition in the 18th century: the noble origins are confirmed, but the actual ancestry is obscured. Since the Borries family had meanwhile converted to the Protestant faith, in which the marriage of clergy is permitted, concerns on the Catholic side were no longer an issue. This may have facilitated the confirmation of nobility in our case. In the case of a Catholic family, stricter standards would have been applied in Vienna.
September 1987 Götz von Borries (O81) 1925-2006