Affenstein (noble family)

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Coat of arms of the Palatinate Affensteiner from Siebmacher's book of arms, around 1600

From the Middle Ages to the early modern period, one of the von Affenstein families was part of the lower nobility of the northeastern Vorderpfalz , which today belongs to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . Representatives are mentioned in the region's registers of nobility as being located in Dirmstein and Ellerstadt . In both localities, which were about 16 km or three hours' walk apart in a north-south direction on the paths at that time, there was an Affenstein castle .

It is possible that there were family ties to the Flersheim family , who came from Niederflörsheim, now in Rhine-Hesse, 10 km north of Dirmstein. There is no evidence of a relationship to the postulated namesake of Affenstein Castle in the town of Bad Kreuznach an der Nahe , about 45 km north-west .

A street and a restaurant in Dirmstein are named after the Affensteiners.

Family of Affenstein

Name and coat of arms

  • Affensteiner coat of arms on the epitaph of Wolf Leyser von Lambsheim and von Affenstein

  • Lambsheim , Hinterstraße 11, former Leyserhof , Wappenstein Leyser von Lambsheim and von Affenstein

  • Ellerstadt coat of arms with the court seal of 1567 of the Ellerstadt Affensteiner on the right

  • Coat of arms of another family from Affenstein: Zurich coat of arms roll (around 1335/1345)

The family name does not come from the mammal group of monkeys , but is derived from an old Palatine name for the field elm , which was called Effer , Affer or Apper depending on the area .

The coat of arms of the Palatinate Affensteiner is blue and divided diagonally by a silver wave bar. It appears in this form on the epitaph of the Dirmsteinerin Maria von Affenstein († 1556) and her husband Jakob von Helmstatt in Lambsheim , which is kept in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer . An identical depiction in stone shows the epitaph of Wolf Leyser von Lambsheim and von Affenstein († 1587), which is on the outer wall of the Catholic parish church of St. Ulrich in Deidesheim . According to the court seal of 1567, the Affensteiner in Ellerstadt led a minor form.

Another family who also called themselves Affenstein and provided their coat of arms with a monkey sitting on a stone and drinking wine from a goblet - s. Illustration in the Zurich coat of arms , which was created around 1335/1345 - apparently has nothing to do with the Palatinate Affensteiners.

origin

There is much to suggest that the Palatinate family had its origins in Dirmstein and that it was named here after the first residence . This name was then transferred to the second residence. Its presumed location ( ⊙ ) was east of the Laurentiuskirche and to the left of the Eckbach , which flowed through the middle of the village until the 1920s. Beyond the Eckbach, a few dozen meters further southeast, there was a large population of old elms until the end of the 20th century, which then fell victim to the dying of the elm . The von Affenstein family could have lived there with the Appen or the monkeys , i.e. with the elms, before they bought the castle that was later named after them - in a "stone", as a stone house was called in Franconian usage. Since it was a neighboring property, it can be assumed that the Affensteiners acquired the castle for this reason.

In the nobility lists of the 13th and 14th centuries cited by the Dirmstein local nobleman and chronicler Caspar Lerch IV , the Affenstein family does not appear. In Dirmstein, although their Franconian name origin could certainly go back several centuries, they can only be documented from 1510 until they died out in 1649, and their castle survived until 1748. The street leading south from the Laurentius Church is called Affenstein , as is one of the families restaurant on this street.

Possibly as early as 1500, but no later than 1548, a third of Ellerstadt also belonged to the Affensteiners; they also owned a castle here. In 1577 they were settled by the people of Flersheim , who had previously owned two thirds of the place. For the Affensteiners, the Ellerstadt era, which may have been based on an inheritance, seems to have been a rather short period of a century at most.

Name bearer

The following representatives, among others, dealt with in more detail in connection with the Affenstein castles can be identified :

Affenstein castles

Affenstein Castle Dirmstein

There are no remains of the Affenstein Castle Dirmstein, which was completely demolished in 1748. Only the approximate location in the village is known, namely “located at Dirmstein by the upper church”.

Affenstein Castle Ellerstadt

Nothing has survived from the Affenstein castle in Ellerstadt . The Niederungsburg was located on today's Speyerer Straße, which leads to Fußgönheim , in the east of the town center. The Schwanengraben flows there, the water of which was probably used to fill the moat. The castle was mentioned in documents in 1502. In the 17th century, either in the Thirty Years' War or in the Palatinate War of Succession , it was destroyed.

Other noble families in the region

literature

  • Jürgen Keddigkeit , Karl Scherer, Eckhard Braun, Alexander Thon, Rolf Übel (eds.): Palatinate Burgenlexikon . 2nd, improved edition. Volume I, A-E. Institute for Palatinate History and Folklore, Kaiserslautern 2003, ISBN 3-927754-48-X .
  • Michael Martin (ed.): Dirmstein - nobility, farmers and citizens . Chronicle of the Dirmstein community. Self-published by the Foundation for the Promotion of Palatinate Historical Research , Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 2005, ISBN 3-9808304-6-2 .
  • Johann Friedrich Gauhe : Of salvation. Rom. Reich's genealogical-historical nobility lexicon . Leipzig 1719, Sp. 4 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas Brian Deutscher: Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation . tape 1 . University of Toronto Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8020-8577-6 , pp. 10–12 (English, biography of Wolf von Affenstein in the Google book search).

References and comments

  1. ^ A b Johann Christoph Adelung : The elm . In: Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect . S. 791 f . (see also the localities of Appenthal in the Palatinate Forest or Appenhofen in the South Palatinate).
  2. ↑ Zurich coat of arms roll, No. 412 (around 1335/1345): Affenstein. Retrieved January 28, 2013 .
  3. ↑ a b document dated November 26, 1510.
  4. ↑ Analogous to the place name, s. Place article Dirmstein: place name .
  5. ↑ Michael Martin (ed.): Dirmstein - nobility, farmers and citizens . 2005, p. 46 f .
  6. ^ History. Ellerstadt parish, accessed on August 14, 2020 .
  7. ^ Genealogical page on Wolf von Affenstein. (No longer available online.) Martinszeller-verband.de, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved August 19, 2014 .
  8. ^ Rudolf Häpke: The government of Charles V and the European north . tape 1 . Georg Olms Verlag, ISBN 3-487-40543-1 , p. 289 ( digital scan of Wolf von Affenstein ).
  9. ↑ The predecessor of today's Laurentiuskirche was traditionally referred to as the Upper Church in the sense of Church in the Upper Village .
  10. ↑ The names Oberdorf and Niederdorf for the two settlement centers of the municipality are derived from the location above and below at the Eckbach , which flows through Dirmstein from west to east.