Anton von Salm

Coat of arms of the Counts of Salm

Count Anton von Salm (* around 1530 , † before 1564 ) was a German count , last abbot of the monastery Hornbach , Chairman of the Reichskammergericht to Speyer and preserved the relics of St. Pirminius from destruction.

origin

He came from the Moselle aristocratic family of the von Salm family and was the son of Count Johann VI. von Salm-Badenweiler (1495–1548) and his wife Louise (Ludovika) Claude de Stainville (1500–1570). His grandfather's brother, Count Niklas Salm the Elder (1449–1530), had defended Vienna against the Turks in 1529 . His son Wolfgang von Salm (cousin of his father) officiated as Bishop of Passau . Another cousin of the father was Duke Georg I of Württemberg-Mömpelgard . Count Anton's niece Christina Katharina von Salm (1575–1627, daughter of his brother Paul) married Duke Franz II of Lorraine in 1597 .

Live and act

Not much is known about the life of Anton von Salm. From 1543 he appeared as abbot coadjutor of the Gengenbach monastery founded by Saint Pirminius . His role there is not entirely clear. Apparently, the Protestant Count Wilhelm von Fürstenberg had appointed him arbitrarily and without legal basis as coadjutor of the decidedly Catholic abbot in order to gain influence over the monastery or, if the opportunity arose, to secularize it. Count Fürstenberg - in the service of Duke Ulrich von Württemberg and Landgrave Philip I of Hesse , of whom the former was the half-brother and the latter the father-in-law of Anton von Salm's relative Georg I von Württemberg-Mömpelgard - was deposed in 1547 at the instigation of the emperor and died in 1549. Nonetheless, Anton von Salm still tried to enforce his claims as future head of the monastery, but in 1556 he was finally defeated by the new abbot Gisbert Agricola from Maursmünster .

Around the same time, Count von Salm tried to become the abbot of Hornbach Monastery , the grave and pilgrimage site of Saint Pirminius. The last abbot died in 1551 and had previously joined the Reformation camp. The also Protestant sovereign Wolfgang von Pfalz-Zweibrücken was about to seize the monastery and to abolish it. In this situation, Anton von Salm appeared in September 1554 with a papal bull confirming him as Hornbach abbot. The government of Pfalz-Zweibrücken tried to prevent his occupation of the abbey or to delay it if possible. In particular, they wanted to prevent the resurgence of Catholic services in Hornbach. On September 22, 1554, Count von Salm signed a contract with the Duke, but he was prevented from actually going to Hornbach until the next year. When he moved into the monastery in 1555, he immediately employed his former teacher Theobald Malleus, an Italian priest, who from then on again regularly performed Catholic services. From this it can also be seen that Anton von Salm was apparently not ordained a priest. One tried the abbot u. a. intimidate by capturing people around him. Independently of this, the Speyer bishop Rudolf von Frankenstein solemnly enfeoffed him with the Hornbach monastery on January 10, 1556. On January 12, 1556, Duke Wolfgang ordered the abbot to Zweibrücken and threatened him with incarceration at Lichtenberg Castle if he did not show himself to be compliant. On May 23 of that year, Anton von Salm was forced to sign a new contract that was less favorable for the monastery. In addition, he was placed under house arrest and unwanted visitors were not allowed to see him; every step he took was monitored. During this time he visited u. a. his widowed mother Ludovika in Hornbach.

The Duke wanted to set up a Protestant school in the monastery and use the buildings as he saw fit. Before that happened, Abbot Anton took the body of Saint Pirminius from his grave, which was in a shrine, and escaped secretly in 1557, taking with him silver church utensils and important archives. First he went to the courtyard of the monastery in Landau . Since the Duke of Zweibrücken insisted on the surrender of the church treasures and in 1558 sent a request for support to the local city administration, Anton von Salm fled again and at the end of the year brought everything to Speyer, where he placed it in the care of the bishop. The relics of St. Pirminius were included, which would most likely have been destroyed without Count Salm.

Anton von Salm had been president of the Imperial Court of Justice in Speyer since 1556, but resigned from this office on November 14, 1557 on the advice of the court because he was afflicted with "stupidity" or "stupidity", i.e. weakness or poor eyesight was.

Nothing concrete is known about his further life. Franz Xaver Remling writes in his documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rheinbaiern that Salm was already dead in 1564 when the plague raged in Hornbach , the new school was therefore abandoned and the Speyer bishop tried again to restore the monastery.

Historical meaning

Pirminius relic (front head), Pirmasens , parish church of St. Pirmin; saved by Anton von Salm

The Pirminius relics rescued by Abbot Salm stayed in Speyer for 17 years before Count Schweikhard von Helfenstein , one of his successors as President of the Supreme Court and imperial governor of Tyrol, brought them to his residence in Innsbruck in 1575 and left them there to the Jesuits. They are still there today in the Innsbruck Jesuit Church .

Through Count von Salm's courageous deed, the bones of Saint Pirminius have been preserved, without which his cult would have been extinguished; But as it was, he subsequently advanced to one of the Innsbruck city and Speyer diocese patrons . Later some of his relics were even able to return from Innsbruck to Hornbach, Pirmasens and Speyer. They are kept in the Catholic Church of St. Pirmin Hornbach , in the Catholic Parish Church of St. Pirminius zu Pirmasens (front part of the skull) and in the Speyer Cathedral . The historical importance of Anton von Salm lies mainly in the self-reliant and determined rescue of the Pirminius relics. In all other places in the Palatinate, such as the Zell Abbey or the Neustadt Abbey Church , the relics were lost during the Reformation.

literature

• Franz Xaver Remling: Documented history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria , Neustadt ad Haardt, 1836, Volume 1, pp. 79–85 ( Google Books ).
• Freiburg Diocesan Archive , year 1902, p. 339 ( excerpt ).
• B. Graf: Contribution to the history of the castle and the rule of Brandenburg , In the program of the Diekirch high school / Luxembourg at the end of the school year 1860/61 , Diekirch 1861, p. 24 ( Google Books, with detailed information on parents and siblings )

Web links

• Genealogical page of the Counts of Salm, with the naming of Anton von Salm as Abbot of Hornbach

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Genealogical website for the parents, although the son Anton is missing .
2. ↑ Website on the history of the city of Gengenbach, with multiple mentions of Anton von Salm ( memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
3. ^ Johann Georg Lehmann: Documented history of the former free imperial city and current federal fortress Landau in the Palatinate , Neustadt an der Haardt, 1851, p. 147 ( Google Books ).
4. ^ State Archives of the Kayserl. and H. Röm. Reichs Cammer -gericht , 1759, Volume 3, p. 92 ( Google Books )
5. ↑ Collected original letters on the extraordinari chamber court visitation and revision deputation , 1777, volume 2, p. 60 ( Google Books )
6. ^ Franz Xaver Remling: Documentary history of the former abbeys and monasteries in what is now Rhine Bavaria , Neustadt ad Haardt, 1836, Volume 1, p. 85.
7. ^ Franz Maier: The Holy Pirmin and his Memoria in the Palatinate , in: Klaus Herbers, Peter Rückert (Ed.): Pilgerheilige und seine Memoria , 2012, ISBN 382336684X , p. 158 ( Google Books )
8. ↑ Website with information on the Pirminius relics and mention of Counts Salm and Helfenstein .
9. ↑ Website of the Pirminius Church in Pirmasens with mention of the relic ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .