Amya (family)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coat of arms of the Amya, Amyan, Amian family

Amya ( Amyan; Amian ) is the name of a copper master family who moved from Dinant to Aachen around 1466 , where they built up a flourishing brass industry and campaigned for the establishment of their own guild of copper hunters.

chronology

The origins of the family are largely in the dark. While some sources (including the "ADB" and "Macco") assume that the ancestors of the family come from the area around Amiens in Picardy , it is demonstrably more accurate that it is a family from the Dinant area, the Headquarters of the Walloon brass industry, where it was already active and known in the craft of copper hammers. When Charles the Bold as part of his battles against King Ludwig XI. Dinant conquered and plundered by France in 1466, shortly before that the Amya families, but also Momma, Byda and others left the city and moved to the Free Imperial City of Aachen.

Here a Johann Amya, called the Elder († before 1490), and his son of the same name were assigned the " Pletschmühle " in the area of ​​the confluence of the Johannisbach and the Paunell , and later other mills mainly in front of the Kölntor . In the decades that followed, the Amya family played a major role in the initial rise of copper production in Aachen and, thanks to their services to the brass industry, achieved considerable wealth and reputation. They also joined forces with other local copper bats to found a copper club, which was recognized as a guild in the context of the second Aachen gaff letter in 1513. This gave them the right to elect councilors from among their ranks.

Another person named Amya, Karl Amya the Elder, who was first mentioned in Aachen in 1537, seems to have immigrated to Aachen only at that time, since according to Macco his son Karl Amya the Younger was born in Rouen on October 12, 1536 be. Whether this branch is related to the Amyas from Dinant has not been conclusively clarified anywhere. However, should it be so, the relative local proximity of the cities of Rouen and Amiens could substantiate the claim that the ancestors of the family could actually come from Picardy.

This line also joined the Kupferambacht and in 1586 took over the Bodenhof estate , which was a fief of the provost of the Aachen Cathedral Church , by the city builder Michael Amya (1563–1613), son of the younger Karl Amya . This was sold after the death of Hermann Amya (1657–1700), who had worked as a merchant in Amsterdam . His son Jakob Amya (1694–1730) became a lawyer in The Hague , with his son Jan (1723–1806) being the last detectable male descendant this line is considered to have been extinct.

After some branches of the Amya family had joined the Reformation from the middle of the 16th century , they suffered considerable disadvantages in the context of the Aachen religious unrest, whereupon they preferred to move to those areas where they could freely practice their faith without economic restrictions. Descendants of the Amya family settled in Burtscheid , Stolberg , Lübeck , Strasbourg , Sweden and in the county of Holland . A descendant of the Dutch branch, Gilles (Egidius) Amya, was as consul of the States-General on 5 November 1686 by Emperor I. Leopold in the baron charged.

By flight from Adelaide Wijlremann (1537-1617), the widow of Johann Amya, a great grandson of the acquirer " Pletsch mill " before the imperial ban in 1598, for example, this mill had to be abandoned. Her son Emanuel Amya from the branch of the family that then moved to Burtscheid finally acquired a mill at the " Warmen Weiher " in 1610 , roughly on the area of ​​today's district building on Zollernstrasse, which was later called " Amyamühle ". His father Johann had inherited shares in Gut Hasselholz in Aachen via Adelheid Wijlreman (1537-1615) , which at that time consisted of the individual estates Altenhof, Blockhaus and Berghof and where Emanuel had the Neuenhof built in 1618. This made Gut Hasselholz the family seat for many years. After Emanuel's son Johann (* 1606) had been named mayor of Kinzweiler , among other things , his children were forced to sell the Amyamühle to the Abraham and Heinrich Werden family as early as 1652 due to the lack of further descendants in this line. For the same reason, the various parts of the Hasselholz estate were later mostly passed on to sons-in-law. This branch of the family is also considered extinct today.

Due to the massive departure of numerous Protestant copper club families from Aachen, the massive competition especially from Stolberg, where most of these families had settled, and especially after the great city ​​fire of Aachen in 1656, the Aachen brass industry gradually declined. The members of the Amya family who remained in Aachen and had not changed to the Protestant faith were unable to do anything about this. Nevertheless, members of this family continued to play a significant role in the Aachen copper club guild and as lay judges and councilors in the city of Aachen. A Johann Christoph Amya († 1726) appeared as a councilor and broadcast alderman, a Jakob Amya was Greve (head) of the copper club guild in 1786 and a Johann Jakob Bruno Amya (1734–1797) was an important political representative of the “ newcomers ” Party ”during the riots in the course of the Aachen complaint .

This branch of the family, which still exists today, found its main residence in Kornelimünster near Aachen at the beginning of the 18th century and, according to Macco, has already changed the spelling of its name to Amyan or Amian since the 17th century, in some cases perhaps even later, as it did among others can be detected in the archives of Aachen and Kornelimünster. These descendants still use the family coat of arms designed in 1590 by a certain Peter Amya the Younger (* 1524), son of the councilor and copper master Peter Amya the Elder (1480–1564).

In Aachen today the " Amyastraße " commemorates this family and an epitaph in St. Adalbert reminds of Peter Amya, the elder.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the inscription catalog Aachen, DI 32, City of Aachen, number 70 + (Helga Giersiepen)