Adam II of Neuhaus

Adam II of Neuhaus

Adam II. Von Neuhaus (also Adam II. Von Hradec , Czech Adam II. Z Hradce ; * 1546 ; † November 24, 1596 in Prague ) was Chancellor Colonel of Bohemia from 1585–1593 and from 1593 Colonel Burgrave of Prague . He came from the Telsch line of the Lords of Neuhaus .

Life

His parents were Joachim von Neuhaus and Anna von Rosenberg . He was educated at the Viennese court and after the death of his father in 1565 took over the management of the inherited estates together with his mother. In 1567 he took part in the Turkish Wars in Hungary . From 1569–1573 he was chamberlain to the Archdukes Rudolf II and Ernst , with whom he went on educational trips to Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Through the mediation of the Viennese court, Adam married 15-year-old Katharina von Montfort in 1571 , whom he only brought to his court in Neuhaus in 1574 . In that year he took over the independent regency after his mother had withdrawn from co-managing the property. Adam resided in the Prague Palace and at the Jindřichův Hradec Castle , where he gave large dinners, tournaments and other invitations that strained his finances and contributed to the over-indebtedness of his possessions. In Neuhaus alone he had well over 100 court officials and servants around 1575, to which there were over 40 servants of the manorial brewery, the mill, the enclosure and the estate. In the late 1570s the debt was ten times the annual income. In 1578 Adam fled Prague to escape his creditors. Subsequently, the administrator of the estate, Stephan Wratislaw von Mitrowitz ( Štěpán Vratislav z Mitrovic ) and the Neuhaus captain Johann Zelendar von Prošovice tried to consolidate the property through economic reforms on the associated estates. Zelendar's son-in-law, dike builder Jakob Krčín from Jelčany, enlarged the existing ponds and created new ones. In 1581 a grand brewery was built, which is said to have been the largest in all of Bohemia.

Emperor Rudolf II brought about a further improvement in the financial situation by appointing the politically inexperienced Adam as Chancellor Colonel of Bohemia in 1585. The high position prompted Adam to make large investments, which in turn caused him to run into debt. He had Neuhaus Castle, which had already been redesigned by Antonio Ericer during the reign of his father , rebuilt in a representative way. The renovation was led by the Italian architect Baldassare Maggi , who also redesigned the Hluboká Castle in the 1580s . The Prague palace was probably rebuilt under the direction of the imperial architect Ulrico Aostalli .

According to a contract that had been concluded in 1550 between Adam's father Joachim and his brother Zacharias, Adam came in February 1589 to the inheritance of his uncle Zacharias von Neuhaus , who died without male descendants. He is said to have been the richest magnate of Moravia during his lifetime and left Adam with three towns, five Městys and 112 villages as well as his treasury and hard cash in addition to the Telč Castle and the associated lordship . Together with his previous possessions, Adam became the second richest magnate in Bohemia after Wilhelm von Rosenberg . He now owned seven dominions, five cities, eleven Městys and 263 villages with 6,325 subordinates. In addition, he wrongly appropriated the lordships of Polná and Přibyslav , which, according to the decree of his uncle Zacharias, should get his daughter Katharina. After a trial in the district court, Adam was sentenced to pay a large sum of money to his cousin Katharina, which put him back into debt. Presumably for this reason, on June 16, 1593, Emperor Rudolf II appointed him Count Colonel of Prague.

Although Adam was on the side of the Catholic nobility, he chose his servants regardless of their denomination and regardless of their nationality. While the dominion administrators Stephan / Štěpan and Georg / Jiří Vratislav von Mitrovic were faithful Catholics, the Neuhauser captain Zelendar professed his Utraquism . Adam's wife, Katharina, was an ardent Catholic and maintained close relationships with the Prague Jesuits and the Counter-Reformation group around Polyxena von Pernstein . Presumably at the request of his wife, Adam signed a letter of foundation in January 1594, with which the Neuhauser Jesuit College was founded.

In order to financially help his uncle Peter Wok von Rosenberg , who had been fighting against economic bankruptcy after the death of his brother Wilhelm von Rosenberg since 1592, he bought half of Stráž from him in 1596 . Shortly afterwards he died in his Prague palace. He was - together with the body of his son Wilhelm Zacharias, who died in Prague in 1589 and was initially buried there - transferred to Neuhaus and buried there. Adam's daughter Catherine, who died ten days before Adam, was buried at the same time. Adam's son Joachim Ulrich von Neuhaus was heir and successor .

family

Adam II von Neuhaus was married to Katharina von Montfort († 1631). The children came from marriage:

• Wilhelm Zacharias ( Vílem Zachariaš ; 1575–1589)
• Bohunka (1576-1577)
• Anna Katharina (1578−1596)
• Joachim Ulrich (1579–1604), Burgrave of Karlstein; married to Maria Maximiliane von Hohenzollern
• Lucie Otilie (1582–1633), married to Wilhelm Slavata

literature

• František Teplý: Dějiny města Jindřichova Hradce. Dílu I, svazek 2: Dějiny města za vlády pánů z Hradce linie Telecké (1453–1604). Obec Hradecká, Jindřichův Hradec 1927 ( with master list from 1453 ).
• Václav Ledvinka: Na prahu raného novověku. Osobnost na rozhraní doby: Adam II. Z Hradce . In: Václav Bůžek: Poslední páni z Hradce . České Budějovice 1998, ISBN 80-7040-267-9 , pp. 18-26

Web links

• Páni z Hradce - linie Telecká (1453 - 1604) - Adam II. Z Hradce (* 1546 (9) - 1596) ( Memento from May 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive )