Bartensleben (noble family)

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Coat of arms of those of Bartensleben

The von Bartensleben family was a German aristocratic family that ruled the area around Wolfsburg with the area of Vorsfelder Werder and the patch of Vorsfelde from the 13th century until 1742 . It can be traced back to the 12th century and comes from the Bartensleben moated castle in the village of Bartensleben . The male line died out in 1742 with the death of the last male representative.

origin

The former moated castle Bartensleben in Groß Bartensleben, east of Helmstedt in the district of Börde , is likely to be the eponymous place and ancestral seat of the family . First mention of the family with Hermann von Bartensleben, son of Ludolph von Peine , in 1188 in a deed of donation from Count von Woldenberg ( Herrmannus Miles dictus de Bartensleve filius Lundolfi ). The progenitor of the von Peine family is Berthold von Peine, who in 1130 was a witness in a document of the later Emperor Lothar III. appears as a witness. His son Ludolf is mentioned in 1154 in a document from Henry the Lion . Gunzelin von Wolfenbüttel , who founded the settlement near Peine Castle (today's city) around 1220, is one of the descendants of the Lords of Peine .

In 1212 a Dominus Herbertus de Bardesleve is mentioned as a witness in a document from the Count of Dannenberg . In today's Wolfsburg area, the von Bartensleben first appeared in 1288 by Günther von Bartensleben , who is documented as Burgmann in Vorsfelde .

Ascension and Dominion

As a ministerial and thus belonging to the lower nobility , the family received fiefs for administration from various sovereigns from the 13th century and thus came into the status of the knightly upper class. Around 1300 they built Wolfsburg . The gender shaped the region for centuries.

In 1389 the brothers Werner, Busso and Günzel von Bartensleben received the patch of Vorsfelde including the Vorsfeld Werder as a fief from Duke Friedrich of Brunswick , where they built the Altes Haus castle in Vorsfelde (which can no longer be localized today) . Furthermore, they belonged to the later desolate fallen Turmhügelburg Rothehof in today Wolfsburg forest. The Rothehofer Line probably also operated a farm yard ( Vorwerk ) there, the Rothehof . It is mentioned in a document in 1304 as an "aristocratic free court capable of parliament". As early as 1463, the knight Huner von Bartensleben sold the farm to his cousins ​​at Wolfsburg. In 1532 the Rothehofer line, which also sat at Neuhaus Castle, had expired.

The rulership of the Lords of Bartensleben lay in a triangle between the territories of the Margrave of Brandenburg , the Duke of Brunswick and the Archbishop of Magdeburg . With skillful devotion to these liege lords and neutrality in the event of war, they created a compact sphere of power around Wolfsburg . This also included the Calvörde Castle in Calvörde as a pledge .

The Neuhaus castle at Wolfsburg in 1372 by the Duke of Brunswick Magnus the younger with the help of the city of Braunschweig as a counter to the castle Wolfsburg and the old house built in Vorsfelde. The occasion was a breach of loyalty by von Bartensleben, his feudal people, by entering into a feudal contract with an eastern sovereign. During the War of the Lüneburg Succession (1370-1388), Duke Magnus the Younger declared war on those of Bartensleben and sent a strong garrison to Neuhaus Castle. On June 24, 1372 there was an open field battle near Heßlingen between troops of the Braunschweig and the Bartensleben units of Wolfsburg, which ended in a draw. In 1374, a separate peace ended the armed conflict in the region. In 1423 Neuhaus Castle came to the Rothehofer line of the von Bartensleben family. They operated under the name Bartensleben zum Newenhauß . In 1464 there were renewed acts of war against the castle when Duke Otto von Lüneburg undertook a campaign of revenge against Duke Heinrich II , the peacemaker of Brunswick . Neuhaus Castle and Wolfsburg withstood the attacks; the Vorsfeld castle Altes Haus was completely destroyed. After a siege in 1552, Neuhaus Castle became the ducal office of Brunswick.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the von Bartensleben family, along with the Alvensleben , Bismarck , Jagow , von dem Knesebeck , Platen , Schenck (von Flechtingen and Dönstedt ) and von der Schulenburg belonged to the eight families of the Altmark who lived in a castle and who were directly under the governor and were given the title noble by the emperor and the margrave as belonging to the army .

Important representatives

Günther von Bartensleben (1558-1597) as a stone relief in the Vorsfelder St. Peter's Church

Only a few members of the von Bartensleben came out, many were too busy managing their extensive fiefdoms. Initially, the brothers Burchard , Günzel, Günther and Werner were of certain importance, as they began building the Wolfsburg around 1300.

The most important representative, however, was Hans von Bartensleben (1512–1583), known as Hans the Rich . He began with the conversion of Wolfsburg from a castle to a palace, advocated tolerance of faith during the Reformation and donated his fortune to the poor.

Also worth mentioning are his cousin Jacob von Bartensleben and his sons Günzel and Günther , who continued his work as castle builders. Günther (1558–1597) and his wife Sophie von Veltheim (1574–1613) had the south wing of the palace built with the knight's house. There is an artistic stone relief of the couple in the St. Petrus Church in Vorfeld .

Reformation time

Those of Bartensleben distinguished themselves, albeit late, for their tolerance of faith. In the year of the Augsburg Religious Peace in 1555, 38 years after the beginning of the Reformation through Luther 's proclamation of the theses in 1517, the family members concluded a “tolerance contract”. He assured adherents of the old, Catholic and the new, Protestant denomination that they would practice their religion unhindered. It also applied to the servants and subjects. According to the contract, the use of the church and church assets were divided. As the last of those from Bartensleben, Hans the Rich converted to the Protestant faith in 1580 .

Extinction of sex

The last male representative of those von Bartensleben, Gebhard Werner, (1675–1742)

With the death of Treasurer Gebhard Werner von Bartensleben in 1742, the male line of the von Bartensleben family died out. Because of his poor health, the duchy had secretly prepared from 1739 for a quick takeover of the fief. It was inspired by spies , including doctors, about Gebhard Werner's report health. At the end of 1741, Gebhard Werner von Bartensleben went to Hanover , the then royal seat of the Electorate of Hanover , to be cured by trustworthy doctors. He quartered himself in the London tavern , where he died on January 6, 1742.

He had seven children with his wife Elisabeth von Bodenhausen . The three sons died of smallpox as adolescents within two years , as did the daughters except for one. The sole heir was the daughter Anna Adelheid Catharina . Through her marriage to the Prussian Lieutenant General Adolf Friedrich von der Schulenburg (1685–1741), the Bartenslebischen estates and especially Wolfsburg in 1746/47 were transferred to the important noble family von der Schulenburg . The bearded life fiefdom over the Vorsfelder Werder suffered after 353 years the reversion to the Duke of Braunschweig and Wolfenbüttel as sovereigns, who formed the office of Vorsfelde from it . However, the husband of the Bartensleben heirloom had already died before he came into inheritance in 1741. The Wolfsburg branch of the von der Schulenburg family developed from the 15 children they shared.

coat of arms

The coat of arms shows in red a silver (or natural) wolf jumping left (or right) over two golden grain hobs . On the helmet with red-silver (also red-gold) helmet covers three or nine ostrich feathers , usually three each in silver, black and silver, the black also as heron feathers .

The coat of arms can be traced back to 1188, when the family still sat as minor ministerials in the village of Bartensleben . They later named the Wolfsburg they built after their heraldic animal. The city of Wolfsburg , which was created here in 1938, was again named after Wolfsburg , but was called the City of the KdF-Wagons in the Third Reich ; For a long time, the city coat of arms with the wolf was on every Volkswagen steering wheel. The same or very similar coats of arms were carried by the families of the Lords of Wolfenbüttel and Counts of Peine (presumably related in their tribe) . The lords of Asseburg , von Apenburg and von Berwinkel (or Bärwinkel) as well as those of Winterfeld , whose ancestry is also - partly documented - is traced back to that of Wolfenbüttel and Peine, belong to this coat of arms and probably also tribal community.

Burial places

The family vault Vorsfelder St. Peter's Church from 1658 to 1695

Since the 14th century, the Lords of Bartensleben had used a chapel in the Mariental Abbey near Helmstedt, not far from their home town of Bartensleben, as a burial place. They later buried their family members in the St. Marien church in what is now Alt-Wolfsburg, right next to Wolfsburg. Today there are nine coffins from the period between 1689 and 1742 in the crypt, including that of the last male representative, Gebhard Werner von Bartensleben. The resting place also houses 13 other coffins from the Schulenburg family, who later became lords of the castle. The Vorsfeld St. Petrus Church became the patronage church of the von Bartensleben family in 1475 . Eight of their relatives were buried in the floor of the nave in the 16th century, including Hans the Rich . After a family crypt was built, 14 of her family members (including three children) who died in the 17th century rest there in lavishly decorated wooden coffins. Many died of smallpox .

More family members

literature

  • Maria Schlelein: Under the Bartensleben yoke. - On the situation of the population in Vorsfelde and the Werder villages in the miserable times of the 17th century. Wolfsburg 2002.
  • Ingrid Eichstädt: The history of the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area. Gifhorn 1996.

Web links

Commons : Bartensleben  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ludwig Gustav von Winterfeld : History of the family of Winterfeld. Volume 1, self-published, Damerow 1858, OCLC 833415725 , p. 356.