Christian (Liegnitz-Brieg)

Christian von Liegnitz-Brieg

Christian von Liegnitz-Brieg (Czech Kristián Břežsko-Lehnický , Polish Chrystian legnicki ; * April 1618 in Ohlau ; †  February 28, 1672 ibid) was 1639 to 1653 together with his brothers Georg III. and Ludwig IV. Duke of Brieg , from 1653 sole Duke of Wohlau and Ohlau and after the death of his brothers from 1664 sole ruler of Liegnitz , Brieg, Wohlau and Ohlau. He came from the Liegnitz branch of the Silesian Piasts .

Origin and family

His parents were Duke Johann Christian and his first wife Dorothea Sybille , daughter of the Brandenburg Duke Johann Georg von Brandenburg .

On November 24, 1648 Christian married Luise von Anhalt-Dessau , a daughter of Prince Johann Kasimir, in Dessau . Children came from marriage

1. Charlotte (1652–1707), married on July 4, 1672 Duke Friedrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Wiesenburg
2. Luise (* July 28, 1657 in Ohlau; † February 6, 1660 in Ohlau)
3. Georg Wilhelm (1660–1675), with whom the Silesian Piast family died out.
4. Christian Ludwig (January 15, 1664 - February 27, 1664)

Life

From 1635 Christian lived with his parents and his father's court in exile in Thorn , which was followed a year later in the Prussian Osterode . At the instigation of his father, he returned to his older brothers Georg III in 1638 . , Ludwig IV. Back to Brieg . On his arrival, Wenzel Scherffer von Scherffenstein , who later became court poet at the Brieger Hof, wrote a poem that he presented to Christian on the New Year of 1639.

After the death of his father Johann Christian in 1639, his three sons from their first marriage inherited Georg III. , Ludwig IV. And Christian the Duchy of Brieg and Ohlau, which was assigned to their mother as Wittum in their will. At first they ruled their property together. They initially refused to split, as their relatively small inheritance was additionally burdened with a severance payment for the siblings excluded from the succession from the father's second marriage . Only after the duchy of Liegnitz and Wohlau came to them in 1653 after the death of their uncle Georg Rudolf, who died childless , they divided the property into the principalities of Liegnitz, Brieg as well as Wohlau and Ohlau, with Christian receiving the latter two. He made Ohlau his residence, where, among other things, he had the palace expanded to include the so-called Christian building according to the plans of the Italian master builder Carlo Rossi. The ducal palace in Wohlau , which was built by Duke Georg II of Brieger instead of a castle and which was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War , was rebuilt in the Renaissance style from 1653 onwards .

In 1648 Christian was accepted into the fruitful society under the membership number 505 and the designation "The Arbitrary" .

After all three brothers were still without male descendants in 1660, the eldest Georg III tried. with his sovereign, the Bohemian King Leopold I , to extend the right of inheritance to include his daughters, but received no promise. However, in September d. J. Christian's son Georg Wilhelm was born, which seemed to secure the continued existence of their tribe.

In 1664 Duke Christian inherited the eldest brother Georg III, who in turn had inherited the second-born Ludwig IV a year earlier. This enabled Christian to reunite all of the former Liegnitz territories in one hand. In 1668 he applied for the successor to the Polish King John II Casimir , who came from the Swedish Wasa dynasty . His candidacy was unsuccessful as he was rejected by the Polish nobility.

Although the re-Catholicization did not have to be carried out in his territory due to the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia , Duke Christian was exposed to religious oppression. At the instigation of the official and later Bishop of Breslau, Sebastian von Rostock , Christian had to dismiss the reformed superintendent Heinrich Schmettau in 1662 , as only the Augsburg Confession was permitted. In addition, various Protestant hymns were banned. In 1664 Christian took over the guardianship of the sons of the late Duke of Oels , Silvius I. In order to prevent an imperial guardianship , which would probably be followed by a Catholic education for the princes, he sent them to the Tübingen Collegium Illustre to study . In 1671 he had to order the expulsion of the Bohemian brothers who had previously fled from Poland to Kreuzburg .

In Christian's service was the lutenist Esaias Reusner , who came from Löwenberg and published the “Musical Taffel Fun” in Brieg in 1668 . For many years Christian's court marshal and governor was Wilhelm Wenzel Freiherr von Lilgenau (1634–1693), who was dismissed in 1670 for reasons unknown. Christoph Ernst von Uechtritz served as ducal councilor .

Christian died on February 28, 1672. His body was buried in the Liegnitzer Johanneskirche. Heir and successor was his son Georg Wilhelm , with whom the ducal Liegnitz line died out in the male line. He was also the last male descendant of all the Silesian Piasts. Duke Christian's widow Luise von Anhalt-Dessau received the town of Ohlau as the widow's seat.

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  Liegnitz Castle

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  Brzeg Castle

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  Wohlau Castle

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  Ohlau around 1750

literature

• Historical Commission for Silesia (Ed.): History of Silesia. Volume 2: The Habsburg era 1526–1740. Sigmaringen 1988, ISBN 3-7995-6342-3 , pp. 74f., 81f. and 204.
• Hugo Weczerka (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical places . Volume: Silesia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 316). Kröner, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-520-31601-3 , pp. 290, 376 and 570 and family tree on pp. 592–593.
• Norbert Conrads : Silesia in the early modern age: On the political and intellectual culture of a Habsburg country . New research on Silesian history. ed. v. Joachim Bahlcke . Weimar 2009, ISBN 3-412-20350-5 , pp. 51, 73, 79f., 93, 95 and 186f.
• Rudolf Žáček: Dějiny Slezska v datech. Nakladatelství Libri, Praha 2004, ISBN 80-7277-172-8 , pp. 413 and 428.

Web links

• Genealogy Liegnitz
• Entry in SILESIA

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://flitternikel.onlinehome.de/frucht.html