Buchenau (noble family, Eiterfeld)
The Lords of Buchenau were a noble family of Franconian origin, which took its name from the eponymous place Buchenau near Eiterfeld in Hesse . They came from the class of free vassals and were based on a manor. They were the sole landlords, with the castle as the center of the rule. Above the medieval castle, the Buchenau residents built their last residence, the Buchenau Renaissance castle . The old castle was rebuilt and is now called Seckendorff Castle , which was the Buchenau family seat until the end. Also on the castle grounds, next to the Seckendorff Castle, the manor house known today as the Spiegelschloss was built during the Renaissance.
Various land ownership, the power that came with it and the possibility of offering protection formed the core of the landed man's rights. They had active and passive feudal rights . Through the active feudal right they could give fiefs themselves in their allod . At the same time, they were feudal bearers of numerous feudal lords, for example the Imperial Abbey of Hersfeld , the Imperial Abbey of Fulda , the Archdiocese of Mainz , the Landgrave of Hesse , the Count of Henneberg and the Diocese of Würzburg .
Family law
In terms of family law, the headquarters was an inheritance . As a result, the undivided property was passed on to all descendants. 1406 were z. B. 20 Ganerbe mentioned. In addition, the “female or kunkellehen ” applied within the family so that, after the male line had died out, it could also be passed on to female descendants. The last male member of the family, Georg Wilhelm von Buchenau, died in the Juliusspital in Würzburg in 1831 . As a result, the knighthood came into the possession of the von Seckendorff family .
coat of arms
In gold, a left-turning, golden-crowned, red-armored, striding green ring-necked parakeet with a red ribbon. The Siebmacher's coat of arms, on the other hand, shows a ring-necked parakeet turned to the right, which does not walk and is not crowned.
Members
Two brothers, Reginbodo and Sigebodo from Buochon, were mentioned in a document in 1062, who donated a soul device to the church in Fulda . Presumably these brothers are ancestors of the von Buchenau family.
The first mention of a representative of the family was in 1217 with Berthold von Buchenau. He was probably subordinate. Another bailiff is named in 1266 with "Magister Eckinbertus advocatus de Buchennowe".
The family provided two abbots in Hersfeld , Simon von Buchenau (1305–1315) and Albrecht von Buchenau (1418–1438) .
Eberhard von Buchenau (around 1360-1414), known as the "old goose", was known as a feared warrior and knight. He got the nickname when, according to legend, he once rode in single file with his 12 sons and his and his sons miners in Fulda. Eberhard was not a member of the Sternerbund , but took part in the battles of the city of Hersfeld with its abbots on the side of the abbots and the monastery, including on the famous Vitalis Night on April 28, 1378. In the battles of the Landgraves of Hesse he stood on theirs Seite and rendered them such excellent service that the landgrave once owed him 2,525 guilders, a very high sum for the time. He supported the bishop Gerhard von Würzburg against the count von Henneberg .
In 1377 Berthold von Buchenau made himself worthy of an honorary gift by traveling to Prussia .
Hermann II von Buchenau was coadjutor and administrator from 1419 to 1427 and abbot of Fulda from 1440 to 1449.
In 1474 Engelhard von Buchenau sold a number of villages to the Landgrave of Upper Hesse. He was known for living in a wild marriage to a woman who led him to big expenses. The sale was reversed at the protest of the abbot of Fulda, at least for the goods of the abbey of Fulda.
Another Eberhard von Buchenau excelled in 1568 with the construction of the Protestant church and in 1572 with the construction of the so-called mirror castle. He had converted to the evangelical faith and implemented the Reformation in his domain. Eberhard also built the churches in Bodes and Erdmanrode. With Eberhard, the family experienced its last heyday. His tomb with his wife Margaretha von Goltacker and his children can still be found today in the sanctuary of the Protestant church.
A son of Eberhard, Georg Melchior von Buchenau , built Buchenau Castle with his wife Agnes von Schwalbach from 1611 to 1618 .
In 1656 the Buchische knighthood achieved the desired independence, so that from then on it was no longer in feudal relationship with the abbot, but was directly subordinate to the emperor. However, the knighthood in general was already in a crisis that became more and more evident at the end of the 17th century.
Georg Christoph , Eitel Georg and Wilhelm Sittig von Buchenau sold 2/3 of the Fulda fiefdoms to the Prince Abbot Placidus von Fulda . This was today's Buchenau Castle , which later came into the possession of the Schenck zu Schweinsberg family .
1694–1710, 1/8 of the property was again sold to Anna Elisabeth von Buchenau's husband, Daniel von Boyneburg zu Lengsfeld, for lack of money. His granddaughter, Philippine von Boyneburg, married the head forester von Warnsdorf, to whom ownership was passed. His granddaughter married a Freiherr von Spiegel , which is why this family came to Buchenau. They lived in the middle castle, which is still called the mirror castle today. In 1878 the von Seckendorff family bought the mirror lock.
After secularization , the knighthood lost its independence and imperial immediacy through mediatization in 1803 .
The penultimate of the family, Julius von Buchenau , heavily indebted the manor and had to be placed under Curatel ( guardianship ) because he was drunk . He died at the age of 41 from excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages . Julius had two sons, of whom the younger, Ludwig, shot himself at the age of 19 because of lovesickness. The older one, Karl Ferdinand, moved to Russia with Napoleon and died there in Smolensk on the Ruhr . The mother of the two had married a captain von Warendorf who, by delaying the issuing of Karl Ferdinand's death certificate, prevented the Seckendorffs from taking over the inheritance for a long time.
Feuds
In the Middle Ages, the family was constantly involved in feuds or riots. For example, an atonement from 1305 has been handed down, which had to be paid for a failed uprising against the abbot in Fulda.
In the summer of 1468 the Buchenauers alone received 14 feuding letters. As a result, Buchenau Castle was attacked in autumn and besieged by 4,000 men. This attack took place as part of a fratricidal war between the Landgraves Ludwig II of Niederhessen and Heinrich III. from Upper Hesse. The Buchenau were on the side of Ludwig II. A direct attack on the well-fortified castle and a siege did not take place; the enemies were repulsed by an attack on a log cabin and by relief from Hersfeld.
possession
The knighthood of Buchenau extended over Branders, Mengers, Buchenau, Eitra, Erdmannrode , Fischbach, Bodes and Körnbach. Furthermore, in their heyday, the Buchenau owned around 50 villages in whole or in part, and thus achieved a fortune that would have suited a county. At that time the Buchenau had rich possessions in Thuringia, on the Main, in the Saalgau, but especially on the Werra. In 1706, when much was already lost, the property was estimated at the enormous sum of 600,000 thalers. The property was divided into three parts by sale in the 18th and 19th centuries:
- from Buchenau;
- Schenck zu Schweinsberg;
- from Boyneburg, from Warnsdorf, from Spiegel
literature
- Georg Landau: Hessian knight castles , second volume, Cassel, 1833
- Johann Gottfried Biedermann, gender register of the Reichs Frey immediate knight creates land to Francken praiseworthy place Ottenwald , pedigree Buchenau
- Hubertus von Wilmowsky: The history of the knighthood Buchenau from its beginnings to the Vienna Congress, in: Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter , 40th year, No. 1, 1964
- Waidfeld, Johannes M., Monumenta Buochonia, Büchner, Buchner, ... alias von Buchenau, von Buch, ..., Elaborate on vitality, genealogy and sphere of activity, [2] (Büchner, Günther) ISBN 978-3-9813053- 2-6
Web links
- Article with the title "Hermann von Buchenau: Koadjutor, Verweser and Prince Abbot of Fulda, 1419 to 1427 and 1440 to 1449" from the supplement "Mein Heimatland" of the Hersfelder Zeitung as a PDF file (330 kB)
- Article with the title "Wilhelm von Buchenau and Landgrave Otto von Hessen" from the supplement "Mein Heimatland" of the Hersfelder Zeitung as a PDF file (306 kB)
- Buchenau Castle
- Buchenau coat of arms in the Book of Arms of the Holy Roman Empire , Nuremberg around 1554–1568
References and comments
- ↑ Georg Landau gives in his work "The Hessian Knight Castles and Their Owners", the year 1815 as the year of death of the last male Buchenau.