Blasius Alexander

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Handwritten entry (above) by Blasius Alexander in the registry book of the Bündner Synod

Blasius Alexander (also Blasius Alexander Blech , Romansh also Plasch Zonder or Plasch Lischonder ; * February 20, 1590 in Sent GR ; † December 23, 1622 in Innsbruck ) was a Swiss Reformed pastor during the Graubünden turmoil .

Life

Childhood, youth and education

Blasius Alexander was born in 1590 in Sent in the Lower Engadine in the Free State of the Three Leagues , today's Swiss canton of Graubünden , as the son of the farmer Balthasar Alexander. His father recognized the spiritual strength of his son and sent him to the Latin school in Chur . Blasius later applied for a scholarship from the Ramosch community to study at the University of Zurich . He continued his studies at the University of Basel and continued it after 1614 at the Paris University of Sorbonne . In order to be accepted into the Evangelical-Rhaetian Synod , he passed an examination at the Synod in Scuol in June 1615 . Since the same year he has been helping out the parish in his home town as a representative.

Predicant

In 1616 Alexander took up a position in Teglio in Valtellina as a Reformed pastor in a minority community in a predominantly Catholic area. He belonged to a group of radical Reformed " predicants " who defended the Reformed minority communities in the predominantly Catholic Graubünden subject areas against the Counter-Reformation promoted by the Bishop of Como and the Spanish-ruled Duchy of Milan . In the same year in which he was also involved in the Thusner criminal court , which among other things tortured Nicolò Rusca , the leader of the Counter Reformation in Valtellina, to death, he married Magdalena Catanea. His role in the Thusis criminal court brought him enemies: a year later, the Spanish party tried to bring Alexander to the Chur criminal court, to which he did not appear. As a result, he was for outlaws declared as a "thief, incest, child spoiler and traitors condemned" and suddenly even the Hispanismus suspected. Before the criminal court in Davos, however, he was able to argue against it and escaped punishment.

In the time of the turmoil in Grisons

After the Valtellina murder , in which numerous Protestants were killed in the Valtellina, Blasius Alexander fled. Soon afterwards, during the Graubünden turmoil, he raised a force of around 300 men in his homeland to defend his hometown of Sent in the Lower Engadine against the advancing troops of Archduke Leopold V of Austria-Tyrol . The project failed; Sent was devastated, like many other Engadine villages. Together with Jörg Jenatsch , Alexander now planned the assassination of the predicants' main enemy, Pompejus Planta . The plan worked, and Planta was murdered on February 25, 1621 in Rietberg Castle .

Imprisonment and execution

When Austria had conquered large parts of Bündens, Alexander tried to flee to the canton of Glarus together with other Reformed pastors. However, they were captured by Catholic peasants and handed over to the Austrian commander, Alois Baldiron, for a reward . They were first brought to Disentis , later to a prison in Innsbruck , the royal seat of Leopold V. Three other Graubünden refugees were also imprisoned there: Johannes a Porta , Kaspar Alexius and Jakob Ruinelli . After the Chur bishop and the cathedral chapter stood up for them, they were released in November 1622.

The Austrians, however, refused to dismiss Blasius Alexander as well. Presumably Rudolf von Planta , the brother of the killed Pompejus Planta, had spoken out against a release. In December 1622, the death sentence was announced to Blasius Alexander and one day before Christmas Eve he was executed in Innsbruck on December 23, 1622 after his right hand had first been cut off.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blasius Alexander Blech . In: Fögl d'Engiadina. of June 4, 11 and 18, 1858
  2. ↑ Biography of Plasch Zonder / Blasius Alexander on the website of the community of Sent
  3. ↑ Bündner Kirchengeschichte Vol. 3, p. 74
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, Blasius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss reformed pastor during the Graubünden turmoil
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1590
PLACE OF BIRTH Sent GR
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1622
Place of death innsbruck