Benedikt von Ahlefeldt (1678–1757)

Benedikt von Ahlefeld

Benedikt (Bendix) von Ahlefeldt (born November 11, 1678 in Seestermühe , † June 10, 1757 in Uetersen ) was a German nobleman . Von Ahlefeldt was the landlord of the Holstein estates of Jersbek and Stegen, temporarily patronage director of the Hamburg Opera, builder of the Jersbek baroque garden with garden house and the Jersbek ice cellar that still exists today, as well as the monastery provost of Uetersen. He achieved a high reputation in public life and held important offices (royal Danish district administrator and member of the joint Schleswig-Holstein district court; knight of the Dannebrog order ; privy councilor).

Life

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt was the firstborn of nine children of the first marriage of the Lord at Gut Seestermühe Hans Heinrich von Ahlefeldt with Dorothea von Ahlefeldt. On June 30, 1704 he married the widow Anna Margaretha (von) Rantzau, born in Hamburg. von Buchwaldt (born June 26, 1678; † September 5, 1730), the only and therefore heir daughter of Jasper von Buchwaldt zu Jersbek and Stegen. According to the marriage contract, Ahlefeldt brought 40,000 Reichstaler as dowry into the marriage, from which the four children Hans Hinrich (* 1707; † March 19, 1730 in Paris), Adolph Jasper (* August 29, 1712 in Hamburg; † December 3, 1761), Metta Henrietta (* around 1714; ⚭ 1733 with Georg Ludwig Baron von Oberg, Gut Schwicheldt near Peine) and Gerhard Bendix (* around 1715; † February 1755) emerged. On May 1, 1734, he married the 49-year-old and widowed Anna Christine (von) Blome, b. (von) Rantzau (* 1683; † February 9, 1739 in Kiel).

After the management of the property had become more and more difficult for Benedikt von Ahlefeldt, he handed over ownership of the property to his son Adolf Jasper von Ahlefeldt on October 1, 1754 while retaining the right of residence in Jersbek . On March 10, 1755, he renounced his right to live in Jersbek and finally moved to Uetersen, where he died on June 10, 1757. He was buried with a lot of ceremonial effort in a "large wooden double coffin" in the family hereditary burial in Sülfeld .

Offices, titles and honors

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt was the royal Danish district administrator (August 8, 1711) and a member of the Schleswig-Holstein district court (since 1731); he received the titles of Chamberlain (before 1708), Conference Council (before 1715) and Privy Council (since 1734); he was provost of the aristocratic monastery Uetersen (since 1732) and knight of the Dannebrogorden (since 1731). So he was ranked in the first of the nine rankings of the acceptable people.

Director of the Hamburg Opera

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt took over - as the main person in the management regiment - on May 22, 1722 with Friedrich Christian von Wedderkop and other "foreign envoys residing in Hamburg" retroactively from Easter 1722, initially for six years, the management and leasing of the Hamburg opera, which had previously been directed by Councilor Gumprecht am Gänsemarkt, which had a capacity of around 2000 spectators. The annual rent was 1200 Reichstaler. After the co-directors no longer fulfilled their financial obligations in 1723 and consequently left at Easter 1724, Benedikt von Ahlefeldt continued the opera as sole patronage director for two years with great costs and damage, and then on March 15, 1726 because of excessively high costs to buy out of the last two contract years for a considerable sum.

After the opera house was in a better structural condition from 1722, many new decorations (including by the well-known theater painter Giacomo (Jacob) Fabris) were painted and clothes were made, the opera in Hamburg enjoyed a European reputation at that time. During this time, the musical direction of the Hamburg Opera was Georg Philipp Telemann as “Director musices”. Operas by Georg Friedrich Händel , Telemann, Johann Mattheson and Reinhard Keizer , among others, were performed - but less and less over the years .

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt counts an "admirable" but unfortunately lost libretto collection of the Singspiele performed and printed in Hamburg from 1678 to 1744.

Baroque garden with summer house

Gut Jersbek around 1747, in the middle in the foreground the pleasure palace, on the roundabout in front of it the gatehouse and on the right the large manor house

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt had - like his father Hans Hinrich von Ahlefeldt on Seestermühe before - in the years after 1726 in Jersbek, next to the existing manor complex with manor house and farm buildings, an approximately 8.8 hectare large garden in the French style was laid out and probably completed in 1740. The basically symmetrical garden "in the classic three-part division of flower parterre, bosket (hedge garden) and forest area" contained flourishes with rare orangery plants, hedges, avenues, fountains, water basins, kitchen beds, orchards with all kinds of fruit, including even Figs, tree rondel , a summer house and many splendid sculptures. The garden was decorated with many statues and vases. Its continuation found “the complex in a four-row avenue of linden trees with a view of the endless expanse that the Baroque era loved.” The Jersbek garden in the French Baroque style was Jersbek's greatest attraction (“In August 1744 there was even a ruling German prince for a short time Guest in Jersbek. Elector Clemens August von Cologne , the youngest brother of the German emperor at the time, Karl VII. "- probably through the mediation of Georg Ludwig Baron von Oberg - had Benedikt von Ahlefeldt show him the famous Jersbek garden." And was next to them from Traventhal Castle (built around 1740–1750) and Seestermühe, the most beautiful in Schleswig-Holstein around the middle of the 18th century. Today only the tree-lined avenue and the main paths of the once magnificent complex are preserved, while the scroll beds and bosquets have been replaced by meadows or pastures.

In 1747 Benedikt von Ahlefeldt had a bird's-eye view of the garden drawn by the famous Hamburg builder Ernst Georg Sonnin and engraved in copper by Christian Fritzsch . A scale was attached to the edge of the drawing, "by means of which the length, width and size of each object can be measured." This engraving was subsequently modified two or three times.

The main axis of the garden, like the old manor axis, ran from a roundabout in front of the gatehouse lined with lime trees and hedges to the northeast and was aligned with a garden palace, the "Gartenn Hauß", which was probably built around 1739. The focus of court keeping in Jersbek, which was enjoyed by the composers Reinhard Keizer and Filippo Finazzi , the builder Sonnin (creator of the Hamburg Michaeliskirche) and the Hamburg poet Friedrich von Hagedorn , was certainly the garden house, in whose middle room operas and concerts were performed could be "for which an Italian musicians' band" was supposedly held or at least rented.

Provost to Uetersen

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt was elected provost of the noble monastery of Uetersen on February 23, 1732 by the prioress and the conventuals of the noble monastery . This was not a spiritual but a secular (administrative) office. His Excellency - the title of the monastery provost, who was thus automatically a member of the Perpetual Deputation of the Prelates and Knights - had to represent the affairs and rights of the monastery on behalf of the prioress (only externally) as a secular arm. He had not only had disputes with the prioress Anna Emerentia von Reventlow , who "had an exceptionally masculine and sedate character", but also with her successor Marie Antoinette Countess of Ahlefeldt zu Langeland and Rixingen since May 3, 1754, because these decisions were unsolicited met in the choice and appointment of various monastery servants, for whom the monastery provost had to be interviewed beforehand.

As the client, Benedikt von Ahlefeldt had the still existing Probsteig building (1733/34) and the new monastery church in Uetersen built by his architect Jasper Carstens . For the solemn inauguration of the church on Sunday, December 7th, 1749 (2nd Advent), probably ten musicians and eight singers from Hamburg came together with the composer, bandmaster and castrato singer Filippo Finazzi, who was presumably Benedikt von Ahlefeldt for the total of 147 Reichstalern had engaged.

Thanks to his charm, Benedikt von Ahlefeldt managed to convince the arrogant prioress Anna Emerantia von Reventlow that his granddaughter Metta von Oberg (born November 10, 1737 - October 25, 1794 in Uetersen) was one of the "foreigners" "by the will of the convent" Klosterplatz and was registered on March 26th, 1743 after the payment of the registration money of 125 Reichstaler species. She was friends with the 15 years younger Uetersen conventual Countess Augusta Louise zu Stolberg-Stolberg , who became famous as "Goethe's Gustchen" through her correspondence with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

Debt at the time of death

Benedikt von Ahlefeldt received considerable inheritances and donations from his grandparents as well as from his parents, 40,000 of which were brought into the 1704 marriage as dowry.

After the death of the first wife in 1734, a settlement was reached, according to which the two sons let the father use the property for life despite a new marriage, received an annual allowance from the father and the father was obliged "that he should not incur any new debts, Rather, he wanted to use all his strength to ensure that his current debts, which he opened bona fide to his master sons and made known, are gradually paid off ”.

Shortly before his death, Benedikt von Ahlefeldt had left debts of only 10,002 Reichstaler twelve Schillings Courant after his “Status Creditorum on Michaelis Anno 1754”, so that the repeatedly rumored statement is wrong that he had “forced (seen) his entire life because of excessive indebtedness To pledge property to his son Adolf Jasper ”. It is correct that his son Adolph Jasper von Ahlefeldt and his grandson Bendix Wilhelm Georg Baron von Oberg drove the goods into ruin within just 20 years, so that they were sold to Paschen von Cossel in 1774 .

literature

• Louis Bobé : Slægten Ahlefeldt's history. 6 volumes, Copenhagen 1897–1912, volume 5, pp. 116 ff., 138–144, appendix on page 49, plate V.
• Danmarks Nobility Aarbog (DAA). Copenhagen, XLVI (1929) II 128, 133 and XC (1982-84) 676 (gender: von Ahlefeldt).
• Curt Davids: Chronicle of the old manor district Jersbek-Stegen. Hamburg 1954.
• Hermann Heitmann: The Jersbek and Stegen goods. Jersbek 1954 (reproduced Ms.).
• Burkhard von Hennigs: The Jersbek garden as reflected in engravings and drawings from the 18th century - a contribution to the history of the Jersbek baroque garden. Stormarner Hefte 11/1985, Neumünster 1985.
• Burkhard von Hennigs: The portal of the manor house to Jersbek. In: Yearbook for the Stormarn District 1985. Husum 1985, pp. 34–35.
• Burkhard von Hennigs: The ice cellar of the Jersbek estate. In: The home. 92. Vol. 6/7, Neumünster 1985, pp. 206-214.
• Burkhard von Hennigs: 400 years of the Jersbek estate and community 1588–1988. In: Yearbook for the Stormarn District 1989. Hamburg 1988, pp. 84-102, (continued in the 1990 yearbook, Hamburg 1989, pp. 13-26).
• Hannelies Ettrich: Chronicle Jersbek. Husum 1989.
• Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. 2nd edition, Munich 1994.
• Burkhard von Hennigs: In: Adrian von Buttlar, Margita Marion Meyer (Ed.): Historical gardens in Schleswig-Holstein. Heather i. H. 1996, pp. 328-337.
• Elsa Plath-Langheinrich: When Goethe wrote to Uetersen: The life of the Conventual Augusta Louise Countess zu Stolberg-Stolberg. ISBN 3-529-02695-6
• Hans and Doris Maresch: Schleswig-Holstein's castles, manors and palaces. Husum 2006.
• Axel Lohr: The history of the Jersbek estate from 1588 to the present. Diss. Phil. Hamburg 2007, Stormarner booklets No. 24, Neumünster 2007.
• Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburg biography , personal dictionary. Volume 4, Göttingen 2008.
• Deert Lafrenz: manors and manors in Schleswig-Holstein. 2nd edition Petersberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86568-971-9 , pp. 267-270.

predecessor	Office	successor
Heinrich von Reventlow	Probst of Uetersen Monastery 1732 - 1757	Henning von Qualen