The collection comprises the documents (files and official books) from the city of Lemgo before the formation of the administrative district of Lemgo in 1932 and the encirclement of Lemgo in 1934. Until then, Lemgo was a free city, i.e. it was directly subordinated to the sovereign government without an intermediate instance. In the Late Middle Ages, the constitution of the city of Lemgo was laid down in three documents, which subsequently documented the traditional constitutional reality: the so-called "Kerbschnittbrief" (mid 14th century, U 86), the so-called Regimentsnottel I (mid 15th century, U 763) and the Regimentsnottel II (1491, U 764). The political bodies were therefore organised in so-called four heaps. The New or Jury Council (12 members), the Old or Resting Council (12 members), the Meinheit (24 members) and the Dechen of the nine "councilable" offices (= guilds, guilds). Each of the two councils consisted of six councillors (without functional assignment), two chamberlains, an assessor, a council sealant and two mayors. The Old and New Councils alternated annually in the context of the Council change on 6 January. New members were selected on the basis of the co-optation principle, i.e. the "outgoing" Council elected the "dormant" Council again. Only when a councillor retired (due to death or other reasons) was a new councillor elected. Meinheit and Dechen had a say in this; they could reject a candidate. The members of the Meinheit were composed of the elected representatives of the six Lemgo building communities according to the principle of residence. In addition, there were six farmer masters who carried out police duties in the city quarters and six red masters, i.e. the former farmer masters who carried out the tax assessment in the residential districts. The two councils were responsible for the day-to-day political and legal business of the city. The other two piles represented the municipal community and were supposed to exercise a limited control function over the council bodies. In 1843, a uniform legal basis was created for the first time with the Lippe city order and the four-heap constitution in Lemgo, which had been valid until then, was abolished. The municipal bodies were now the magistrate and the city council. The magistrate headed the municipal administration and consisted of the mayor and other members of the magistrate. The city councillors were elected by the entire citizenry, i.e. those who also possessed citizenship. The City Council elected the Magistrate and exercised a control and oversight function over the Magistrate (with the exception of police matters). With the city order, a separation between administration and justice took place for the first time. The municipal jurisdiction was finally abolished only with the formation of the district courts in 1879. With the Lippe city order of 1886, the acquisition of citizenship was solved from house and land ownership, exercise of a trade and secure income. Every man who had lived in the city for more than two years and paid taxes was now a citizen. The election was conducted in accordance with the three-class system. The City Council and the Magistrate had to make their decisions separately in matters of self-government. In matters of statutes and budget, the magistrate could not decide without the city council. The provisional municipal constitution of 1919 granted the right to vote to women and men over the age of 20 who had lived in the municipality for more than three months. This was the first time that a universal and equal right to vote had been created at municipal level. In 1928 the separation between official municipalities and city municipalities was abolished (see also H-existing stocks). The magistrate or city council now needed the confidence of the city council. Stock A originally also included the documents after 1932/34, which were only later renumbered stock B. The documents were then transferred to stock A. The documents were then stored in the museum. The town archivist August Schacht ordered the files for the first time. He concentrated mainly on the trial records of the various Lemgo dishes. There was no separation by provenance here. In short: all files, which originated before 1932/34 in Lemgo, form the stock A. The classification is oriented after subject matter (pertinence principle), whereby the current classification represents a revision of the original classification. The current classification attempts to make the original provenances and contexts of origin more visible again. Nevertheless, many court acts are no longer filed under the respective court instance, but can be found under other classification points (e.g. under guild matters) according to the subject matter of the dispute or the parties to the dispute. This also applies to other classification points or archive materials. In the case of files from the A inventory which do not expire until after 1934, they are assigned to the B inventory (see there). In the opposite case, files with B signatures are included in the A inventory if their terms expire before 1934. The respective signatures are always retained. The court files of the two councils or the magistrate and the other court instances are summarized in the holdings 01.02.01 - 01.02.11 and 01.03.01 to 01.03.05. The witch trials can also be found there. The so-called Audience Protocols of inventory A 01.01.01 also contain court hearings, primarily in civil law. Court files of the Lemgo City Court (= magistrate of justice, as successor to the sovereign judge) are also found in the L 88 Lemgo holdings in the NRW State Archive, Detmold, OWL Department. The tradition of the schools (Gymnasium, Bürgerschule, Lyzeum, Technikum, Fortbildungsschule...) is also in the inventory A 01.01.01, independent of the formation of the independent school communities independent of the political communities 1849 (until 1937). This is mainly the tradition of the school boards, which were mostly composed of the local pastors and the mayor. Supplementary material can also be found in the T (school) holdings. The records of the Lemgo registry office (established throughout the Reich in 1876) in the form of birth, marriage and death certificates can be found in the holdings F 1 to F 3. In addition to the A holdings, personal documents / personal data can also be found in the holdings J - personal files. The old archive signatures (such as Gw 1, Gy 1, Ki 1...) have been retained and are searchable, so that a concordance is given when sources from literature are cited.
