Agnes Pless

Agnes Pless , b. Strauss (* 1502 in Frankfurt am Main ; † March 4, 1547 ) was a Frankfurt butcher's daughter and, after the death of her husband, long-time mistress of the " Primate Germaniae ", Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg , whose indulgences sparked the Reformation.

Life

Pless was the daughter of the Frankfurt master butcher Hans Strauss (died 1519) and was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1502 . Her mother was Ottilie Strauss (née Semer), Hans Pless's second wife. His first wife, Agnes Pless, b. Kohler, died in 1495 and he married Ottilie in the same year. Agnes was probably named after this first woman.

Agnes Pless had a younger brother, Johannes Strauss, who became mayor of Arnheim in 1546 and a citizen of Hanau in 1556. He turned down his sister's inheritance. In 1521 Agnes Pless married the Frankfurt citizen Hans Pless, who died before 1527/28 and whose name she kept. In 1525 she and her husband sold the meat she had inherited. After the death of her husband, Agnes gave away her parents' house, located next to the Heilig-Geist-Hospital in Frankfurt, to the Frankfurt poor welfare organization, the so-called poor box. After that, their traces can no longer be found in Frankfurt. From 1527/8 she reappeared in Aschaffenburg on the side of Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg , the highest ranking of the Catholic Church in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and Martin Luther's main opponent in the dispute over indulgences and church reform, whom Luther wrote his 95 theses in 1517 Residenz had sent to Aschaffenburg, which ultimately triggered the Reformation .

Agnes Pless was Cardinal Albrecht's mistress until his death in 1545. She was very wealthy, had relatives and property in Frankfurt am Main, Mainz, Landau, and later Aschaffenburg and Halle ad Saale. Therefore, she was also able to offer the cardinal and other well-known supplicants, such as his court painter Simon Franck , a student of Lukas Cranach the Elder. Borrow larger amounts of money.

She probably had a very close relationship with Cardinal Albrecht, accompanied him to the Reichstag and also took care of his daughter Anna, the child from the previous liaison with Elisabeth, called "Leys" Schütz von Holzhausen. In her will she bequeathed a necklace with Anna's portrait to this daughter Anna. Anna later married the archiepiscopal secretary Joachim Kirchner and together with him had a son, Albrecht, who died at the age of three and was nevertheless given an epitaph in the Aschaffenburg collegiate church - very unusual for a small child, also a descendant of a bastard . In 1531/2 Agnes Pless accompanied Albrecht from Brandenburg to Halle an der Saale . There she bought a house on the “Alter Markt”, called “Zumgrün Hof”, for more than 2,000 guilders. Here she lived with her mother and held court in splendor. Her relationship with Albrecht was publicly known. For example, she also received gifts from several nobles, for example a precious pearl necklace from Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig Wolfenbüttel (1489–1568).

In 1541 she left Halle with Albrecht and her mother in the course of the Reformation victory. With the money from the sale of the Grüner Hof in Halle, she bought a house in Aschaffenburg on April 20, 1542 through the mediation of the Cardinal from the Aschaffenburg Abbey of St. Peter and Alexander, had it torn down and rebuilt very splendidly. Her mother died on May 25, 1543 and received an epitaph in the above. Aschaffenburg collegiate church. Agnes Pless was arrested on the cardinal's deathbed on September 24, 1545, because the diocese of Mainz was hoping to settle outstanding claims against the cardinal with her property.

However, her will suggests that her entire fortune could not be accessed because she died very wealthy despite the confiscations. The art historian Walther Karl Zülch describes in great detail what jewelery, clothing and spices were still to be bequeathed. In addition, she bequeathed Landgrave Philipp of Hesse , the “model protester”, 4,000 guilders for his hospitals, an enormous sum at the time.

Shortly before her death, in 1547, she went to Frankfurt am Main to a Florentine merchant named Lorenz Villani (1491–1559), who worked for the Florentine silk shop Petrus Saliti in Frankfurt and had also taken on orders for Cardinal Albrecht. There she wrote her will. She appointed Philipp von Hessen as executor of the will.

On February 17, 1547, she married the impoverished Hessian nobleman Raban von Holzheim at the age of 45 in Rommershausen , according to Zülch "broken by several months of imprisonment". Before that, she converted to Protestantism. Only 14 days after their wedding, she died on March 4, 1547 for unknown reasons. The widower then led a multi-year unsuccessful lawsuit with the silk merchant mentioned in Frankfurt for the surrender of his wife's money.

idea

Memorial plaque to the Schöntal ruin in Aschaffenburg, which indicates that there was a beginning settlement here.

While there are several illustrations of Albrecht's previous mistress, Elisabeth, called Leys, Schütz von Holzhausen, there is not a single image of Agnes Pless that demonstrably depicts her. A copy of her will has been preserved for this (the original was probably burned in World War II) as well as the report of her expropriation, which she gave to the ambassadors from Magdeburg and Halberstadt, who also wanted to assert claims. Before his death, Albrecht appointed his lover to be the beguin mother of the Beguine Convent in the Aschaffenburg Treibgasse. However, research has shown that the planned initial branch in the Aschaffenburg zoo (today's Schöntal ) was probably never built for lack of money. So the reference on the memorial plaque there (see photo "Memorial plaque ruin Schöntal) is a bit misleading.

In fact, the current ruins are only the Holy Sepulcher Church, which Albrecht von Brandenburg rededicated to his memorial church after fleeing Halle, which was only in operation for one year, from 1544 to 1545, after his death to be looted at Mainz and burned out a year later in the Schmalkaldic War . For years it was suspected by research that the position of a beguin mother was supposed to protect Agnes Pless from economic hardship after Albrecht's death. The more recent specialist literature has shown that in view of the prosperity of Agnes Pless documented in the will, the (futile) attempt was made to give her protection from church persecution through a socially recognized position. Even before his death, the cardinal had recommended his partner to go to Halle, to Johann Albrecht von Brandenburg , his nephew and successor, for help. But that didn't happen.

Web links

• Bernd Hofestädt: Margaretha Schöpperitz (around 1540-1600), the wife of the Green Court. In: Ekkehard. Family and regional historical research. Hall adS NF 23 (2016). Issue 3 u. 4 and issue 1, 2017.

literature

• Ludwig A. Mayer: The Schöntal ruin in Aschaffenburg. A walk through its almost 500 year history. Aschaffenburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-87965-109-2 .
• Kerstin Merkel: Albrecht and Ursula. A walk through literature and the making of legends. In: Andreas Tacke (Ed.): "... we want to give space to love". Cohabiting ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500 (= series of publications by the Moritzburg Foundation, Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. 3). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0052-0 , pp. 157-187.
• Andreas Tacke: The Aschaffenburg Holy Grave Church of the Beguines. In: Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 1992, pp. 195-239.
• Andreas Tacke (Ed.): We want to give space to love. Cohabiting ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500 (= series of publications by the Moritzburg Foundation. 3). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0052-0 .
• Andreas Tacke: Albrecht von Brandenburg and Agens Pless. In: Archives for cultural history. Volume 72, H. 2, 1990, pp. 347-365.
• Walter Karl Zülch: The historical Grünewald. Mathis Gothard-Neithardt. 2nd, change Edition. Munich 1949.

Fiction

• Ruth Elsholz: “O man, bedenck the end!” From the memoirs of Cardinal Albrechts von Brandenburg's partner, written down by herself. 2., revised. Edition. Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-938969-56-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ s. City archive Frankfurt, trial files "S" 1445-48, Raban von Holzheim against Lorenz Villani, near Zülch