Bonifacius Colyn

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bonifacius Colyn (* 1533 in Aachen ; † October 3, 1608 ibid) was a German lay judge and mayor of the imperial city of Aachen and a champion of Protestantism in Aachen at the time of the Aachen religious unrest .

Live and act

Even the father of Bonifacius Colyn, Melchior Colyn (1500–1559), who was elected mayor of Aachen for a year more than ten times between 1532 and 1558 , stood up to the religious changes brought about by the Reformation movement in Germany, which began in the mid-16th century Century was to gain increasing influence in Aachen for a limited time, tolerant of it and sat down with a petition to the Roman-German king and later Emperor Ferdinand I in the context of the negotiations on the Augsburg religious peace in 1555 for the granting of a free Religious practice a. Particularly influential Aachen craftsmen and traders families from the Wollenambacht (cloth makers' guild) and the Kupferschlägerambacht switched to what they believed to be a more tolerant religion.

Despite a temporary ban by Ferdinand I in March 1560, the Reformed between 1574 and 1581 managed to use clever electoral strategies to form a majority in the city council of the Free Imperial City of Aachen. This led to massive and almost civil war-like unrest within the citizenship and also in the city council itself and ultimately the Reformed forcibly seized the Aachen town hall . Ferdinand's grandson, Emperor Rudolf II , then decreed in 1581 that the councilors had to profess the Catholic doctrine, that the evangelicals should be removed from the council and that the effects of the destruction should be eliminated.

Bonifacius Colyn, who had meanwhile been appointed Meier von Burtscheid since 1580 , had remained faithful to Catholic doctrine throughout his life, but, like his father, showed tolerance towards people of different faiths and was asked by the evangelical fellow citizens, as their envoy, to advertise to the emperor for a lessening of these punitive measures . Nevertheless, it was not possible for him to prevent the siege of Aachen by Spanish troops loyal to the emperor under the direction of the Bishop of Liège, Duke Ernst of Bavaria . After Colyn's negotiations with the emperor and the Catholic councilors who, after the revolution, had partially evaded to Jülich , a phase of relative calm followed and the imperial troops withdrew six months later. This occupation and the associated economic disadvantages also meant that many reformed craftsman and trader families such as Pastor , Peltzer , Schleicher , Lynen or Prym left Aachen. Even a delegation in 1582 under the leadership of the former Aachen mayor Matthias Peltzer to the Reichstag in Augsburg , where the Aachen problem was on the agenda, could not change the disadvantaged situation for the Reformed.

Bonifatius Colyn was elected mayor of Aachen for the first time in 1582, an office which he held nine times every two years until 1598. In addition, in 1588 he was elected Obervogt von Vaals-Vijlen . During his tenure, it was largely thanks to Colyn that the public practice of the religion was tolerated in the following years according to the Augsburg regulations. Further legations to the city days in Ulm , Speyer and Heilbronn , where Colyn repeatedly campaigned for the interests of the Protestant fellow citizens, followed.

The Catholic Colyn was supported by Simon Engelbrecht, a Protestant mayor from the guild camp, as well as his equally liberal Catholic mayor colleague Anastasius von Segraedt , who cooperated with the Protestant mayors Peter von Zevel and Dietrich Vercken . Colyn was able to alternate with this mayor couple from year to year in his terms of office, so that there was a certain degree of constancy in the government of the city of Aachen over a longer period of time, whereby the interests of the evangelical citizens could be temporarily strengthened.

But the concessions to the Reformed went too far for the Catholic population and around the beginning of the 1590s there were again violent unrest and conditions in the city became more and more confused. In 1593 imposed Emperor Rudolf II. Already in 1591 threatened outlawry , but let this not be enforced, but first demanded by decree that the state of the year was to restore 1560 and declared all previously carried out by the Reformed changes invalid. After Colyn and the aforementioned officials, despite diligent efforts to mediate, failed to comply with this imperial decree in the following years, the unrest escalated. After it happened in 1597 that with von Segraedt, Vercken and Matthäus Peltzer three mayors were elected by the Protestant majority of the city council and with Egidius Valenzyn and Wilhelm von Wylre at the same time two Catholic officials, a year later all Protestant or den Officials close to Protestants as well as many respected businessmen on June 30, 1598 occupied with the enforcement of the imperial ban, the declaration of which was posted at the Church of St. Foillan and whose implementation was again entrusted to the troops of Duke Ernst of Bavaria.

Bonifacius Colyn and his family were then forced to give up all of Aachen's possessions and, with the exception of his daughter, to leave the city. He moved to his estate at Burg Linzenich near Zülpich . Although he was classified as a dangerous person by the newly installed, entirely Catholic city council, especially because of his “betrayal” to his Catholic fellow believers, Colyn tried to evade exile by paying fines in order to be able to move freely again. According to the decision of the electoral Cologne commission of April 16, 1602, he was finally asked to pay a fine of 7,000 Reichstaler and was then allowed to visit his daughter in Aachen via Burtscheid. Here he was carefully monitored and he was forbidden to have any intercourse with influential citizens. Without further opportunities to intervene again in political events, Bonifacius Colyn finally died on October 3, 1608 and was buried in front of the high altar of St. Jacob in Aachen.

Bonifacius Colyn in Aachen is still reminiscent of his former property Colynshof near Burtscheid in what was then Aachener Heide, as well as the street of the same name and the youth hostel there .

family

Bonifacius Colyn was married to Barbara von Bree (n. 1534-1609), daughter of the mill owner Johann von Bree. Together they had a daughter and a son, Bonifacius the Younger. He was married to Adelheid von Siegen and was also the last owner of Linzenich Castle , which had been in the family since 1472.

literature

  • Luise Freiin von Coels von der Brügghen : The lay judges of the Royal See of Aachen from the earliest times until the final repeal of the imperial city constitution in 1798 . In: Journal of the Aachen History Association . tape 50 , 1928, ISSN  0065-0137 , pp. 303-310 (No. 245) ( online on rootsweb ).
  • Karl Franz Meyer : Achensche histories , Aachen, 1781
  • Friedrich Haagen : History of Aachen , Part 2, Aachen, 1874
  • Walter Schmitz: Possibilities and limits of tolerance in the late 16th century, Bonifacius Colin as Catholic mayor in the Protestant council of the imperial city of Aachen (1582–1598) , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein 1990/91 , pp. 149–164.

Web links and sources

personal data
SURNAME Colyn, Bonifacius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Colin, Bonifacius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mayor and aldermen of Aachen
DATE OF BIRTH 1533
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 1608
Place of death Aachen