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Kunstmeisters (builders of water extraction equipment and water channels)
Konrád, Heinrich, Hans Rothermel
Category: Kunstmeisters (builders of water extraction equipment and water channels)
The Old Mountain Raceway (Starohorský náhon) in Jihlava was in its time a state-of-the-art technical work that required a capable and educated builder. Experience was then passed on from master to apprentice, who was often a relative of the master. Thus, the families of technicians became the carriers of expertise. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Rothermel family reigned supreme in the construction of water channels and water extraction equipment. Master Conrad Rothermel built the Urgraben, the first and longest mining water channel of the Middle Ages, around 1284. It ran for an impressive 22 kilometres along the steep slopes above the foot of the Kandel in the Black Forest and powered the oldest documented water extraction equipment.
Another well-known member of the family was Heinrich Rothermel. In 1315, he was approached by Jihlava’s miners asking him to service their dysfunctional water extraction equipment and to provide them with a reliable source of driving water. The result of his activities was the Old Mountain Miner's Raceway (Starohorský hornický náhon). For his work, he, or his heir, was to receive 98 groschen a week for as long as his work was in operation.
The name of the third master of this family, Hans Rothermel, was immortalised in two contract documents. In 1341, he is mentioned as a witness to a land exchange at Weingarten Abbey in Bavaria, which we know thanks to the Stiller Bach system of water channels built over centuries. For the second time, he is mentioned in 1351 in St. Leonhard in Carinthia, where he had probably arrived with an expedition from Kutná Hora to drain the local gold mines. If he had previously worked in Kutná Hora, he could have contributed to the construction of the Hořejší Pách channel.
The example of the Rothermel family nicely illustrates the way in which advanced technologies were transferred in medieval times.
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Selection of further buildings
The Old Mountain Raceway (Starohorský hornický náhon), location Staré Hory, Heinrich Rothermel, 1315
Urgraben, Suggental and Glottertal locations, the Black Forest, Germany, Konrad Rothermel, around 1284
Stiller Bach, location Weingarten, Germany, Hans Rothermel, 1341
Water extraction system at the gold mines, Sankt Leonhard, Carinthia, Austria, Hans Rothermel, 1351
Urgraben, Suggental and Glottertal locations, the Black Forest, Germany, Konrad Rothermel, around 1284
Stiller Bach, location Weingarten, Germany, Hans Rothermel, 1341
Water extraction system at the gold mines, Sankt Leonhard, Carinthia, Austria, Hans Rothermel, 1351
Literature and other sources
Literatura
Josef Chytil – Jiří Chlumecký, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Moraviae 6. 1307–1333, Brünn 1854, s. 65–66.
Andreas Haasis-Berner, Wasserkünste, Hangkanäle und Staudämme im Mittelalter: Eine archäologisch-historische Untersuchung zum Wasserbau am Beispiel des Urgrabens am Kandel im mittleren Schwarzwald, Rahden 2001, s. 53, 38–39, 54.
