Bonaventure Cotta

House of the Cotta family in Eisenach. Today's Luther House, 2006

Bonaventura Cotta (* Milan or Eisenach around 1370 , † 1430 in Eisenach), is considered the founder of the Central German line of the Cotta family. In Eisenach he had civil rights, was Imperial Councilor and is said to have owned the Cottendorf , Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Cotta near Dresden estates .

origin

Emperor Sigismund (woodcut, 1536)

The Eisenach scholar Christian Franz Paullini wrote in his dissertation from 1694 about the alleged Roman descent of the Cottas. Via Milan, where they resided as aristocrats in the Middle Ages, they then reached Central German regions. Bonaventure became a citizen of Eisenach and a local mayor in Cottendorf. Because of their loyalty to the emperor and their bravery in the battles against the enemies of the empire at the time, King Sigismund is said to have given the Cottas a letter of nobility on Bartholomew's Night in 1420 in Prague . However, these statements are doubted. There are several indications that the nobility letter was a forgery by Paullini and that his dissertation was commissioned.

Family environment

Luther singing as a student in front of Mrs. Cotta, painting by Prof. Weiß

Bonaventura's father is said to have been a Burchard (* around 1340), who, according to Paullini, also came from Milan and who acquired citizenship in Eisenach. Bonaventura married in Eisenach around 1400. He had the children Kunz (* 1396), Heinrich (* 1400) and Hans. From this time on, the Cottas stayed in Eisenach. Heinrich was married to a Helene and had their son Conrad, who married the famous benefactress of Martin Luther , Ursula Schalbe . She came from a respected family with councilors and mayors , and generations to come followed this tradition. A descendant of the Eisenacher Cottas is the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803).

Research today

Early speculations assumed that the Eisenacher Cottas and the Swabian publishing family of the same name had the same origin. New studies have shown that the Tübingen line comes from Saxony, while the proportion of the Eisenach line has not yet been clearly clarified. An extensive relationship through a secondary branch or common ancestors is certainly possible, but has yet to be proven. The letter of nobility mentioned in Paullini's dissertation is said to have been destroyed in a fire in Ilmenau in 1752. The exact origins of the cottas are therefore in the dark. We know from the aforementioned Cottendorf and Cotta near Dresden that they are older than the first mentioned members of the family. Another variant may be that Cotta was simply a Central German designation of origin .

literature

Hans Eberhard Matthes: The Eisenacher Lutherhaus, with an appendix The Cotta family . Hense, Eisenach 1939, DNB 573860505 .

Siegfried Grotefend: Grotefend and Diederichs from Lower Saxony: Ancestral lists of the married couple Siegfried Grotefend and Ilse Grotefend born. Diederichs . Heinz Reise Verlag, Göttingen 1968, DNB 456823727 .

Otto Keil: Ancestors of the Keil siblings . Self-published, Graefenhainichen, Kr.Bitterfeld 1950, DNB 740778935 .

Ralf-Roland Schmidt-Cotta: Wait a minute: a Sauerland man on the trail of his childhood and ancestors; six families, six centuries, six landscapes; in two parts . Akamedon Verlag, Pfaffenhofen 2010, ISBN 978-3-940072-04-7 .

Cotta. Overview of the origins of the Barons von Cotta family from the times of the Middle Ages to ours. Printed as a manuscript. The sex of the cotta . Hormayr's Archive, Vienna 1821, No. 94.

Martin Kessler: The ancestors of Ursula Schweicker geb. Cotta in Eisenach. A critical investigation into the problems of the Cotta genealogy . In: Genealogy, German journal for family history . Volume 7, Vol. 13, Issue 3, Degener 1964, pp. 113-120.

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer : Regesta Imperii XI: The documents of Emperor Sigmund 1410-1437. Vol. 1 (Regest 4240), Innsbruck 1896 (Reprint Hildesheim 1968)
Ernst Christian Wilhelm Wattenbach´ : Germany's historical sources in the Middle Ages. 7th edition. JG Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachhaben, Stuttgart and Berlin 1904, p. 15.

personal data
SURNAME	Cotta, Bonaventure
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Forefather of the Cotta family
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1370
DATE OF DEATH	1430
Place of death	Eisenach

[1] Johann Friedrich Böhmer : Regesta Imperii XI: The documents of Emperor Sigmund 1410-1437. Vol. 1 (Regest 4240), Innsbruck 1896 (Reprint Hildesheim 1968)
Ernst Christian Wilhelm Wattenbach´ : Germany's historical sources in the Middle Ages. 7th edition. JG Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachhaben, Stuttgart and Berlin 1904, p. 15.