Christoph Carl Fernberger

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Christoph Carl Fernberger (1646; copper engraving by Elias Widemann )

Christoph Carl Fernberger (* around 1596 at Eggenberg Castle ; † December 7, 1653 in Maria Enzersdorf ) was an imperial captain, world traveler, explorer and is considered the first Austrian circumnavigator , although he always referred to himself as "Teutscher" in his little drawing books .

After the Habsburg monarchy was at the head of the Holy Roman Empire (German Nation) until 1806 , and Austria also chaired the German Confederation until 1866 , Christoph Carl Fernberger was also the third German circumnavigator after Maestre Anes and Hans Barge and among other things - a quarter of a century before the Franconian Johann Jacob Mercklein - also the first German who has verifiably traveled to Ayutthaya . Fernberger was a second cousin of the Vorchdorf nobleman Georg Christoph Fernberger . He has also made a name for himself with discoveries on world trips, he came to the Ganges and Burma on his trip to the Orient in 1588/93 .

prehistory

In 1620 another offensive was launched by Spain against the rebellious provinces of the Netherlands . Fernberger, subject of the Austrian Habsburgs, had been recruited as a mercenary officer by the Spanish Habsburgs and commanded a company of 300 mercenaries . But in 1621 he was taken prisoner of war. After his family paid a ransom of 300 guilders, Fernberger was released again, but was stuck in the Netherlands . Crossing the front line back to his company on the Spanish side seemed too dangerous to him, so Fernberger concluded that the only safe way out of the Netherlands was by sea.

The Travels of Christoph Carl Fernberger

Circumnavigation

His circumnavigation of the world from 1621 to 1628 was not done too voluntarily, Fernberger found the ship Hazewind in the port of Amsterdam whose route was supposed to lead via "Lanänder" (Luanda / Loanda in Angola or Landana north of the Congo estuary) to Veneto. Fernberger wanted to disembark there to cross the Alps to Austria. Fernberger hired as an assistant cook, he writes about it in 17th century German in his travel book: On November 29th I went to the water, there was a ship that wanted to go through the country instead of Lanander to Venice, I went to the capitan from same ship and talk to him, whether I announced to come ..... However, the Hazewind did not reach her first stage destination, the ship crashed at the Cape Verde Islands ; some of the castaways saved themselves on a bare rock. The scarce food fished from the water was divided. After two weeks, the 29 survivors were found and taken away by a fleet of the Dutch East India Company , VOC for short, consisting of five ships. However, this was not on its way to Europe, but headed for the Pacific and Indonesia via the Strait of Magellan in order to strengthen the Batavia colony founded a few years earlier. Then only fourteen of the men allowed themselves to be taken away; the rest stayed behind in the expectation of being taken home by another ship. Their fate is unknown.

Fernberger was one of the fellow travelers who had to commit to service in the VOC in return. The journey took him across the Atlantic to South America , on through the Strait of Magellan along the Pacific coast of America to the north to Baja California. Off the southern tip of Baja California, the Goeden Fortuin captured the last remaining ship in the fleet, a Spanish merchant ship. In the course of the looting of the Spanish ship, Fernberger came into possession of valuable diamonds. The journey continued across the Pacific past the Thief Islands, as the Marianas were called by the Spanish until 1667, and the Philippines to the Dutch colony of Jakarta in Indonesia. After he had bought himself free from the service in the VOC in Jakarta / Batavia with the help of the diamonds in his possession in 1623, he made trading trips through East Asia as a freelance merchant and citizen ( vrijburger ) of Batavia 1623–1627.

On these trips Fernberger, meanwhile with household in Jakarta, came to Sumatra, several times to the Moluccas , to Siam and China. In 1624 Fernberger arrived on the Pescadoren Islands , which housed a VOC base, and took part in the relocation of the base to Formosa . In the following years, Fernberger took further companies to China ( Macau , Canton ), to the Japanese island of Hirado , where a VOC trading post was located from 1609 to 1639, to Goa in India and via Hormuz to Persia.

In Persia in 1627 he heard the rumor that the Turks had conquered Vienna and occupied Austria. This news made Fernberger homesick and worried about his relatives and he decided to return home as soon as possible. Although it turned out in retrospect that the information was wrong, he nevertheless tried to get back to Jakarta to get a passage to Europe.

In 1627, the VOC governor of Jakarta, Pieter de Carpentier, was replaced by Jan Pieterszoon Coen - and Fernberger had the opportunity to return to Europe with the fleet that Carpentier brought to Amsterdam. The fleet set sail in Jakarta on October 1, 1627 and, after a stopover at the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, reached Holland on June 16, 1628, then it went on to Amsterdam. For Fernberger, the circle had come full.

In the Thirty Years War he hired himself as a colonel. Presumably in 1633, Fernberger dictated his younger brother Christoph Matthias Fernberger, based on his diary entries, the "tearing book", a 271-page manuscript that is now in the Vienna Finance and Court Chamber Archives. An incorrect copy of this manuscript made in the late 17th century was discovered in the 1920s by the librarian Ernst von Frisch in the Salzburg university library and published as a book in modern language in 1928. Karl R. Wernhart found the original in Vienna almost half a century later, who first edited it in 1972 and presented the original text in 2011 in an extensively commented scientific edition. In 2008, the Viennese historian Martina Lehner published a retelling of the "tear booklet" based on the original edited by Wernhart.

In the Upper Austrian Provincial Exhibition held in the Salzkammergut in 2008 , Fernberger and his cousin Georg Christoph were commemorated as part of this exhibition in the brewery experience at Eggenberg Castle .

literature

  • Ferd. Menčik: "Freiherrn Fernberger's sea trip. (1621-1628)" - communications from the Imperial and Royal Geographic Society in Vienna. 39th year Vienna 1896, 60–72.
  • Christoph Mathias Fernberger von Egenberg: Involuntary trip around the world 1621 - 1628 after an unpublished manuscript edited by Dr. E. von Frisch - Leipzig: FA Brockhaus 1928 (book series old journeys and adventure No. 22).
  • Karl R. Wernhart: Christoph Carl Fernberger. The first Austrian globetrotter 1621–1628. Vienna 1972.
  • Karl R. Wernhart, Helmut Lukas: Christoph Carl Fernberger. The first Austrian globetrotter 1621–1628. Completely revised. and newly commented edition. With additional commentary for Indonesia and Southeast Asia. LIT, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7000-0870-5 .
  • Martina Lehner: Journey to the End of the World (1588–1593): Study of the history of mentalities and travel culture of the early modern period based on the travel diary of Georg Christoph Fernberger von Egenberg. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001. (Contributions to the recent history of Austria 13).
  • Georg Christoph Fernberger's trip to Sinai, the Holy Land, Babylon, Persia and India / around the world in seven years. Two volumes in a slipcase. Issued in accordance with with the OK Offenes Kulturhaus Linz by Martina Lehner. Books accompanying the Upper Austrian Provincial Exhibition 2008 at Eggenberg Castle. Folio Verlag, Vienna 2008.
  • Christoph Carl Fernberger, Martina Lehner (ed.): Around the world in seven years. The adventures of the first Austrian globetrotter 1621–1628. Folio, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85256-458-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Around the world in seven years. The adventures of the first Austrian globetrotter 1621–1628. Folio, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85256-458-6 . P. 119
  2. ^ Christoph Carl Fernberger The first Austrian globetrotter 1621–1628. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7000-0870-5 . P. 35
  3. ↑ https://stifterhaus.at/index.php?id=167&no_cache=1&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=2402&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&cHash1769048c322e
  4. ↑ Christoph Mathias Fernberger von Egenberg: Involuntary trip around the world 1621-1628. Adapted from an unpublished manuscript by Dr. E. von Frisch - Leipzig: FA Brockhaus 1928 (book series old journeys and adventure No. 22).
personal data
SURNAME Fernberger, Christoph Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian world traveler and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1596
PLACE OF BIRTH Eggenberg Castle (Vorchdorf)
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1653
Place of death Maria Enzersdorf