Botho zu Stolberg

Count Botho zu Stolberg

Botho Graf zu Stolberg and Herr zu Wernigerode, called the blissful , (born January 4, 1467 in Stolberg (Harz) , † June 22, 1538 ibid) was a German regent. He ruled over the County of Stolberg , the County of Wernigerode and the County of Hohnstein .

Life

He was the son of Count Heinrich the Elder of Stolberg and his first wife Mechthild, the daughter of Count Volrad von Mansfeld. His twin brother Heinrich the Younger was born at the same time .

Botho spent part of his earliest youth in southern Germany, where he was brought up at the court of Count, then Duke Eberhard von Württemberg , his stepmother's brother. From April 16, 1493 to February 9, 1494, at the age of 26, he took part in a trip to Jerusalem and, in his younger years, served several princes as knights. He developed into a skillful diplomat. Already around the year 1491/92 he experienced an extraordinary change of administration due to the debt system by Stolbergian rentmasters, who insisted on a uniform management of the finances and let studied civil servants come to the fore. Because of his ability as an economist and negotiator, he was also used to an extraordinary degree by the emperor and the empire, and to a far greater extent by his feudal lords and larger estates, both through loans and the transfer of offices and businesses. This was first done by Duke George of Saxony , whom he served as captain in Coburg from 1501 to 1505 , but who, expanding his demands as a liege lord further than was usual up to now, also called him to the state parliaments and some special business. But it is not in this and not in the many individual services that the busy man rendered to this or that prince that the Count's historical significance lies, but primarily in the relationship he has with the greatest prelate in the empire, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz and Cardinal Albrecht , took. From 1515 until the end of his life he was the cardinal's counselor or court master for the Magdeburg and Halberstadt monasteries , that is, he was his representative or administrator in the many and important matters entrusted to the cardinal. During the Reformation , in accordance with his nature and that of his master, the count was usually mild and mediating. He enjoyed the cardinal's trust, while the count asked for his removal from office only a few years after his first appointment. But since his all too long service at court and accordingly the long absence from his family, country and people became too much for him in the long run, he insisted on being dismissed from his original employment in 1524 and limited himself to the position of a councilor from then on House out.

After his strenuous work for Cardinal Albrecht, his services as a councilor for Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V took a back seat, although these were recognized and thanked in special awards in 1518 and 1521. Charles V's request to take the post of one of the four councilors in the Reich Regiment at Nuremberg in the latter year was rejected.

family

Botho was married to Anna von Eppstein-Königstein , the sister of the last representative of the Eppstein noble family, Eberhard IV von Eppstein and since 1505 Count von Königstein. After Eberhard's childless death in 1535, his sister sons Ludwig zu Stolberg († 1574) and Christoph († 1581) successively inherited the rule of Eppstein, including the county of Königstein.

Botho had several children, including Counts Wolfgang , Heinrich and Ludwig zu Stolberg , Countess Juliana zu Stolberg , who is considered the ancestral mother of the House of Orange-Nassau , and Countess Anna zu Stolberg , the 28th abbess of the Quedlinburg monastery.

literature

• Eduard Jacobs :  Stolberg-Wernigerode, Botho III. Count too . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 327-329.