Adam von Trott (Field Marshal)

Portrait of Adam von Trott in Martin Friedrich Seidel's picture collection

Adam von Trott (* in the Landgraviate of Hesse ; † 1564; also von Trotte and von Trotha ) was Field Marshal General of the Holy Roman Empire and Oberhofmarschall of the Elector of Brandenburg . He founded the Brandenburg branch of the Hessian noble family Trott zu Solz and owned the rulership of Badingen and Himmelpfort .

Life

Adam von Trott was born in the Landgraviate of Hesse as a scion of the Trott zu Solz family. His father Friedrich von Trott was the heir to Solz , Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire in Hungary and Court Marshal of the Landgrave of Hesse. A close relative of Adam von Trott, perhaps even his sister, was Eva von Trott , a mistress of Duke Heinrich II of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .

Badingen Castle around 1650

From at least 1536 to 1542 Adam von Trott served as court marshal to Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg . Together with Eustachius von Schlieben , Lampert Distelmeyer and Matthias von Saldern he was one of the elector's closest confidants. Through his services he managed to build a great fortune. In Badingen , which he had owned since 1537, Adam von Trott built a castle that was expensive for the time.

Adam von Trott was given in 1542 by Elector Joachim II. The basis of merit and after he had lent him money, the secularised monastery Zehdenick as a pledge possession for life and became the local office captain ordered. In 1551 the elector reclaimed the former monastery in order to use it for his court keeping and hunting. To compensate, Adam von Trott received the secularized Himmelpfort monastery further north , also as a lien for life and under his appointment as the local governor.

As the envoy of Elector Joachim II, Adam von Trott traveled to the court of the Roman-German Emperor and to the Diet . In 1552 he was the Brandenburg envoy when the Passau Treaty was signed . In 1557, the designated Emperor Ferdinand I appointed Adam von Trott Field Marshal General to fight the Turks in Hungary ( Turkish Wars ). However, since the imperial estates did not approve the necessary funds, the campaign was broken off. Adam von Trott then returned to the service of Elector Joachim II and from then on served him as Oberhofmarschall and electoral councilor. In 1562 he accompanied the elector to Frankfurt am Main for the election of Maximilian II as emperor-designate.

As early as 1557, Elector Joachim II had converted Adam von Trott's lien in the former Himmelpfort monastery into a hereditary fiefdom in the male line. This happened both because of Trott's merits and after he had lent further money to the elector. The wife of Adam von Trotts was Margaretha von Fronhöffern. With her he had three sons. The eldest son was named Adam († 1587) like his father and was therefore also called the younger . He continued the Brandenburg line of those from Trott zu Solz and also served the Elector of Brandenburg as court marshal. Adam von Trott the Elder died in 1564. His possessions remained in the family's possession as the rule of Badingen and Himmelpfort until the male line died out in 1727.

Web links

• Literature by and about Adam von Trott in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Adam von Trotte. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 45, Leipzig 1745, columns 1210-1212.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ingo Materna , Wolfgang Ribbe (ed.): Brandenburg history . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-002508-5 , pp. 283 f .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Ernst Daniel Martin Kirchner: The Cistercian monastery Himmelpforte . In: Association for the history of the Mark Brandenburg (Hrsg.): Märkische research . tape 6 . Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1858, p. 79–83 ( full text in the digital library of the Munich Digitization Center ).