Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim

Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim (born June 5, 1532 in Königshofen im Grabfeld , † October 7, 1604 in Walldorf ) was the only governor of the princes of Henneberg and, as a patron, among other things, he was the founder of the first Protestant free world that did not emerge from a medieval monastery or monastery Women's Foundation of Germany, the later Ducal Saxon Louisen-, Freiherrlich Marschalk'schen Women's Foundation Wasungen .

Life

Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim received a six-year training at the high school in Salerno , Italy , followed by a cavalier tour through Spain , France , the Netherlands and England . In the next few years he was hired as an officer in Charles V's army . In the meantime, however, his five brothers died, so that he was forced to return home.

As the only surviving son of his parents Hieronymus Marschalk von Ostheim , Würzburg councilor and magistrate, Maßfeld and Meiningen , and Brigitta, nee. from Leonrod , used. Truchseß , inherited Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim a. a. the Walldorf family estate near Wasungen.

Not least because of the extensive possessions in the Henneberg area, the convinced Lutheran finally entered the service of the counts of Henneberg and rose to the position of governor of his new sovereigns within a few years. Nobody wore this title before or after him. As the "first official of the ducal county of Henneberg" he supported Prince Georg Ernst significantly, u. a. when the Schleusinger grammar school was founded in 1577. When the prince died in 1583, the Henneberg family went out and the county fell to the Wettins . Nevertheless, the same continued to exist as an independent imperial territory and Bernhard Marschalk continued to be its governor.

Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim found his final resting place next to his wife in the Walldorf fortified church .

Wasungen women's pen

Wasungen women's pen

Since Bernhard Marschalk von Ostheim had no children from his marriage to Christine Brigitte von Buchenau in 1559 , he decided to transfer his legacy to numerous foundations, including a. for the poor, parishes, schools, family members and unserved nobles. The Walldorf Hospital or the alms legate there should be emphasized.

The most important of its foundations is the Wasunger Damenstift. For this he had the inherited Marschalkschen Adelshof in Wasungen, until then a defense and residential tower with a bower and garden on the city wall, rebuilt as a representative half-timbered building in the Renaissance style. Equipped with a foundation capital of 8,000 guilders, the foundation was initially supposed to house and support four single and needy daughters of noble families. In 1601 Anna Maria Trott moved in as the first canoness. The Wasunger Damenstift was probably the earliest permanent establishment of a free-world Protestant women's foundation in Germany, which did not emerge from a former medieval monastery or monastery during the Reformation.

After long-lasting supply problems for the abbey inmates, a noticeable improvement was not made until various private and sovereign donations from the 18th century, namely by the Duchess Louise Eleonore von Sachsen-Meiningen on the occasion of the anniversary of the Reformation in 1817. From then on, the abbey was named Herzoglich- Saxon Louisen-, Baron Marschalk'sches Damenstift Wasungen . At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, the Wasunger Konvent consisted of 13 regular, private and expectant positions for noble, but also for bourgeois canons. Only five of them lived in an apartment in the monastery house. The remaining conventual women only received a preamble and were allowed to wear the monastery order.

Since no further donations were made after the turn of the century and a contemporary adjustment of the prebends to the changed general currency and price conditions could not be guaranteed, the various positions were gradually no longer filled. The monastery dissolved with the death of the last resident and provost Emilie Karoline Ida von Stein in 1931. Today the former monastery house houses the Wasunger Stadtmuseum.

literature

• Wilhelm Ferdinand Germann: memorial sheets from three centuries of the Duke. S. Louisen- Frhrl. Marschalkschen Damenstifts Wasungen (New Contributions to the History of German Antiquity, Volume 8/2), Meinigen 1896, pp. 5–17.
• Maria Kästner, Birgit Jünger: Former women's foundation Wasungen. City Museum (Schnell Art Guide No. 2269), Regensburg 1996.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Ferdinand Germann: Memorial sheets from three centuries of the Duke. S. Louisen- Frhrl. Marschalkschen Damenstifts Wasungen (New Contributions to the History of German Antiquity, Volume 8/2), Meinigen 1896, p. 7