Christoph von Gendorf

Christoph von Gendorf (also: Christoph Gendorfer von Gendorf ; Christoph Jandorfer von Jandorf ; Czech: Kryštof Gendorf z Gendorfu ; *  1497 ; †  August 6, 1563 in Hohenelbe ) was a mining entrepreneur and the chief Bohemian miner .

Life

Christoph von Gendorf came from an Austro-Bohemian noble family. As early as 1528 he was involved as a commissioner in the transfer of the Joachimsthaler mint operated by Count Schlick to the royal chamber . That is probably why King Ferdinand I appointed him Oberstbergmeister in 1530. In 1532 he was accepted into the Bohemian knighthood and Gendorf was commissioned to reform the Kuttenberg silver mine and to re-regulate the Bohemian coinage. On March 12, 1533, Gendorf acquired the village of Hohenelbe , which the king elevated to a town in the same year and which experienced an economic boom under Gendorf. As early as 1523, the Bohemian King Ludwig had given Gendorf the mining rights for Hohenelbe.

In 1534 Gendorf came under the rule of Trautenau , which King Ferdinand I gave him as a hereditary fiefdom; in the same year he also granted him mountain freedom for all his goods. In 1539 Gendorf acquired half of Schatzlar Castle and the villages of Trautenbach , Krinsdorf, Goldenöls , Lampersdorf , Glasendorf and half of the village of Königshan from the brothers Wilhelm, Hynek and Heinrich Kruschina von Lichtenburg . On July 15, 1541, King Ferdinand I renewed the Schatzlar fief, to which fifteen villages now belonged. However, in the same year Gendorf lost the Trautenau fiefdom due to disputes over property rights. By “royal grace”, however, in 1542 he again received the fief for thirteen villages from the Trautenau lordship. In 1545 Gendorf was promoted to mining captain in Joachimsthal. He held this office until May 27, 1546.

After Trautenau joined the League of Towns directed against the king in the Bohemian uprising of 1547, King Ferdinand I pledged the rule of Trautenau to Christoph von Gendorf for his lifetime and six more years for his heirs. Gendorf exercised the office of burgrave and expanded the Trautenau castle into a city palace. Disputes with the citizens led Gendorf to give the town of Trautenau to his daughter Eustachia in 1562. The longstanding border disputes between Gendorf and the Grüssau monastery over a forest "behind the Bober in the swamp" were settled in 1559 by an imperial commission.

As the chief mining captain of Bohemia, Gendorf was involved in numerous mountain activities in the country. The mines and industrial plants built by him reached a high technical level and contributed to the economic development of the country. He made great contributions to the extraction of alum and vitriol .

Inherit

Gendorf died in 1563 without male descendants. As early as 1539 he received permission from King Ferdinand I to bequeath his property to his daughters. The approval was linked to the condition that the entire inheritance would revert to the Crown of Bohemia if the daughters should not leave any male descendants either. Gendorf's daughters were:

• Paula, married to Hermann von Czettritz († 1564); their property was inherited by the son of the same name, Hermann von Czettritz
• Eustachia († 1568), widow of Liegnitz Chancellor Wolf Bock von Hermsdorf
• Benigna († 1577), married to Johann Silber
• Cordula, married to Peter Bohdanecký von Hodkov
• Eleonora, married first to Christof Silber and second to Leo Vitzthum
• Lucretia († 1586), married first to Peter von Schellenberg, second to Bohuslav Křinecký

literature

• Friedrich Bernau: Knight Christof von Gendorf and his daughters . In: Schatzlar and its district communities . Marburg / Lahn 1993, pp. 99-101