Berthold XI. from Wintzingerode

Berthold XI. von Wintzingerode (* 1505 ; † September 22, 1575 in Mainz ) was the landlord of the Bodenstein lordship on the northeastern border of the Eichsfeld and an officer in changing services. His parents were Heinrich von Wintzingerode (1460–1520) and Anna von Oldershausen .

Peasants' War 1525

After Berthold's father fell in the Hildesheim collegiate feud in 1520 , his mother Anna von Oldershausen administered his share in the lordship of Bodenstein and Scharfenstein as well as the other property of the family. In 1525 the Eichsfeld became one of the focal points of the Mühlhausen peasant uprising under the leadership of Thomas Müntzer and Heinrich Pfeiffer . This was a monk who had escaped from the monastery of Reifenstein and who had worked as a chaplain at Scharfenstein Castle in Wintzingen. A platoon of rebels organized by Müntzer and Pfeiffer turned to the Eichsfeld, whose castles, towns and monasteries they overran within a week. The castles Bodenstein and Scharfenstein were devastated.

In the years after the Peasants' War, Anna von Wintzingerode vigorously pushed ahead with the reconstruction of the Bodenstein and the five associated court villages. Large parts of today's castle can be traced back to their construction activities, such as the castle bridge with the gate and the massive parts of the south wing. The fortification of the outer bailey was only restored in a very reduced form and access to the main bailey was simplified. At the same time her brother-in-law, the Duderstadt city ​​governor Friedrich von Wintzingerode, restored the Scharfenstein.

Military career

In 1534 Berthold joined the army of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse (1504–1567), who reinstated Duke Ulrich von Württemberg (1487–1550) in his rulership rights. In 1542 he fought on the imperial side against King Francis I of France. However, his participation in the Schmalkaldic War in 1546 and 1547 on the Lutheran side shaped his further path . The head of the Schmalkaldic League , Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous of Saxony (1503–1554) was captured after the lost battle at Mühlberg . Berthold escaped together with Prince Elector Johann Friedrich the Middle (1529–1595). He initially continued the struggle as the leader of a group of irregulars, so he no longer saw it as a mere exercise, but as a religious struggle. In October he returned to Bodenstein to protect the rule against the pillaging troops of the Catholic Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1489–1568) and the incursions of the lords of Bültzingslöwen . From 1550 to 1552 Berthold was in the service of Margrave Albrecht Alkibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1522–1557), who devastated the Rhine-Main area with his army.

The Albertine Elector August von Sachsen (1526, 1553–86) suspected Berthold of rebellion in favor of the Ernestine line when he took part in the nobility uprising in 1563 that Wilhelm von Grumbach (1503–1567) led against the Würzburg Bishop Melchior Zobel von Giebelstadt , who had confiscated his goods. When the emperor then imposed the imperial ban on Grumbach, the latter tried to trigger a general revolt of the knighthood against the growing princely power. Although Berthold refused to participate, he was placed against his will on the pay lists of the insurgents, whose head was the Ernestine Duke Johann Friedrich the Middle of Saxony. Although Berthold's own interests coincided with those of the “arch-rulers”, he did not join their adventure.

In 1569 Berthold took part in a last campaign as a lieutenant colonel, this time with the German-Dutch auxiliary troops on the side of the Huguenots under the Prince of Condé . When Berthold learned in Metz that the war was to take place on German soil in order to keep the devastation away from France, however, he considered it his "honor surfing" to protest against it, especially since this project contradicted the conditions of his appointment "stretched". After Count Ludwig von Nassau-Dillenburg, as colonel of the German auxiliary troops, refused to respond to Berthold's demands, Berthold decided to refuse to command and brought his entire contingent behind him in this mutiny. He unilaterally terminated his service obligation and returned to Bodenstein.

Conflict over the rule of Bodenstein

Since the 1940s there had been repeated violent disputes between Berthold and the neighboring lords of Bültzingslöwen , with his Scharfenstein cousins ​​Bertram and Hans, and with Count Volkmar Wolf von Honstein . The Bültzingslöwen tried again and again to appropriate the eastern fringes of the rule, whereby both sides used the methods of the law of the thumb . The cousins ​​made demands on Berthold, which concerned his previous custodial administration of their share of the family property. The cousins ​​and Volkmar Wolf made unsuccessful attempts in 1559, 1568 and 1572 to take the Bodenstein militarily and to take Berthold's place. In the dispute with Honstein it was about the exercise of various sovereign rights, such as 1555–1572 about the right of patronage in Wehnde . Because of his attacks on the castle, Berthold terminated the feudal bond with Honstein and from then on regarded the rule as free property. The Lords of Wintzingerode had acquired the castle from 1337 as Allodium, but later assigned it to the Count of Honstein again as a fief without affecting their personal noble status.

The Archbishop of Mainz and Elector Daniel Brendel von Homburg began at the same time to actively push back the Reformation on the Eichsfeld, whereby the court of Bodenstein, which was under foreign rule, and its influential, convinced Protestant landlord was an obstacle. Mainz therefore offered Count Volkmar Wolf to expel Berthold from Bodenstein against the transfer of the overlordship and to install his more docile cousins ​​there instead. Honstein accepted and concluded a corresponding contract with Mainz on November 24, 1573 in Bleicherode . The transfer of the upper ownership to Mainz was neither accepted by Berthold nor by the Welfs , who claimed sovereignty over the rule as an old household property of the Liudolfingian dukes of Saxony as well as over the Duderstadt Golden Mark pledged to Mainz . As a result, Berthold began to prepare his defense against an attack in Mainz, relying on the support of the Dukes of Braunschweig.

Capture, trial and execution

On the night of June 29th to 30th, 1574, the Mainz chief magistrate of the Eichsfeld, Lippold von Stralendorff , with 2000 men moved in front of the Bodenstein, captured it and brought Berthold and 16 of his mercenaries to the prison in Heiligenstadt . All of this was done in secret to use the surprise effect and not give Berthold's allies an opportunity to provide assistance. In order to prevent a violent liberation, Berthold was brought to the fortress Steinheim am Main , then to Mainz, where he was tried. However, he was not accused of breach of fidelity and rebellion against Honstein and Mainz, but an incident that occurred on February 3, 1573. The village of Wintzingerode was divided into parts of Berthold and one of his cousins. Their wood forester Arnold Geilhaus repeatedly served them as a tool to provoke Berthold. He had broken into the mill of Katharina von Wintzingerode, Berthold's wife, located under Bodenstein Castle, for whose property rights the cousins complained to the Imperial Court of Justice and had demanded the payment of interest. After Geilhaus had for the third time, on behalf of the Scharfensteiner, forcibly removed the overdue levies such as geese, flour and grain from the mill, Berthold von Wintzingerode shot him down immediately after the incident. His relatives as well as Bertram and Hans von Wintzingerode then brought a lawsuit against Bertold for murder, which was accepted by the Kurmainzer court after his capture.

Ordinarily, the Archbishopric would have treated Berthold as a prisoner of war who had been defeated in a feud and had to release him in return for a ransom and the promise of the original feud . Mainz, however, evidently saw Berthold as a dangerous opponent who could only be got rid of by physical elimination. The Geilhaus affair provided the pretext for this, even though it had previously been considered a killing after a popular feud, i.e. a permissible act of war. Berthold's opponents had also seen it that way. The importance attached to his person as the possible head of a Protestant uprising against Mainz was evident in his unknightly treatment. He was denied the usual easing of detention for noblemen and put in chains. The numerous interventions by his friends in response to his release, not to avert an execution that was not seen as possible, came to nothing. Berthold's 46 closest confidants from the Braunschweig aristocracy even offered to enter the service of the elector with their own person and their entourage, if Berthold was released. A large number of the north and central German princes, including all the dukes of Brunswick , the king of Denmark , the electors of Brandenburg and the Palatinate , the landgraves of Hesse , the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein , Lorraine and Bavaria , were personally related to each other his release. His defense lawyers tried to prove that Geilhaus had been shot by Berthold in defense of his property and in a popular feud against his cousins. Threats of torture and lures with wages and freedom could not bring Berthold's entourage prisoners to incriminate him. Even his hostile cousins ​​as plaintiffs confirmed that the act had taken place under martial law and asked for his life to be spared. However, the court sentenced him to death by the sword. A hasty petition for clemency, which the secret councilors of the Duke of Braunschweig and the nobleman Werner von Plesse, who appeared in Mainz to defend Berthold, submitted to the elector, was ignored.

The case sparked unrest among the princes and the nobility of central and northern Germany, which soon subsided and cleared the way for the recatholization of Eichsfeld, which Mainz also had to consider necessary for reasons of territorial power retention.

effect

Berthold von Wintzingerode has been rated by denominational historiography, depending on the direction of attack, either as a rebel, robber baron, murderer and oppressor, or as a martyr of the Protestant struggle for freedom of religion.

From 1900, a violent journalistic dispute developed about Berthold and the assessment of the Counter-Reformation on the Eichsfeld, the protagonists of which were the Heiligenstadt clergyman Philipp Knieb and the barons Levin von Wintzingeroda-Knorr and Wilhelm Clothar von Wintzingerode. In 1905, the President of the Evangelical Union , Wilko Levin Graf von Wintzingerode-Bodenstein , suggested the writer Paul Schreckenbach write his novel Die von Wintzingerode , which is about the last year of Berthold's life and was reprinted several times until 1930.

literature

• Philipp Knieb: History of the Reformation and Counter Reformation on the Echsfelde . 1st edition, Heiligenstadt 1900, 2nd, expanded edition, Heiligenstadt 1909.
• Inge Mager : Catholics and Protestants as minorities on the Eichsfeld, especially in Duderstadt. In: Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 13, Sigmaringen 1994.
• Levin Freiherr von Wintzingeroda-Knorr : The struggles and sufferings of the Evangelicals on the Eichsfeld for three centuries . Hall 1892/93.
• Wilhelm-Clothar Freiherr von Wintzingerode: Barthold von Wintzingerode, a culture and life image from the Reformation century . Gotha 1907.
• Heinrich Jobst Graf von Wintzingerode: Doing right always keeps its price. The story of the Wintzingerode family and Bodenstein Castle . Gallery in the castle, Großbodungen 2004. ISBN 3-00-013996-6
• Alexander Jendorff : The death of the tyrant. History and reception of the Barthold von Wintzingerode case. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70709-0 .
• Alexander Jendorff: nobility in court. Strategies, arguments and language of conflict resolution in the causa Barthold von Wintzingerode 1574/75. In: Mainzer Zeitschrift 106/107 (2011/12), pp. 217–232

Web links

• Paul Schreckenbach : The one from Wintzingerode in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A 37a, No. 76, Bl. 10