Christoph von der Schulenburg

Christoph von der Schulenburg (* 1513 on the Warpke estate ; † September 9, 1580 in Diesdorf ) was the last Catholic bishop of Ratzeburg .

Life

Christoph von der Schulenburg came from the older, white line of the widely ramified von der Schulenburg family . In 1538 he received the prebend of Nusse from Bishop Georg von Blumenthal . Shortly afterwards he became provost of the cathedral in Ratzeburg and provost of the Diesdorf monastery .

On November 22, 1550 he was unanimously elected as his successor by the Ratzeburg Cathedral Chapter after the death of Bishop Georg von Blumenthal. This embittered Duke Franz I of Lauenburg , who had tried in vain to have his nine-year-old son Magnus elected bishop. The Duke brought the mercenary leader Vollrad von Mansfeld with his troops into the country, who looted the Ratzeburg Cathedral on May 23, 1552 and extorted a declaration against the bishop and in favor of the duke from those canons who had not fled. Mansfeld stayed two months; for a payment of the chapter of 4,000 thalers he did not burn the cathedral down. The canons borrowed the money from Nikolaus Bardewik , the mayor of Lübeck, and pledged part of the monastery property in return. Lübeck then acted as an intermediary. The bishop had the episcopal castle Stove (today part of Carlow (Mecklenburg) ) recaptured by the Brunswick mercenary leader Georg von Holle .

A treaty signed by Duke Franz and Duke Heinrich II in Lüneburg on June 7, 1554 , brought calm to the monastery and the disputed points were referred to legal action. But a little later, on October 5th, 1554, the bishop announced his resignation from the office of bishop to the cathedral chapter. Before, it had secret negotiations with Duke Johann Albrecht I provided. The latter paid him 10,000 guilders to persuade him to renounce the diocese in favor of his brother Christoph. After Schulenburg's resignation, Franz I tried again to have his son Magnus elected as bishop, but this time too he failed and the cathedral chapter decided in favor of Duke Christoph zu Mecklenburg .

Schulenburg initially remained provost of the cathedral, but shortly thereafter renounced this office and thus the possession of Mechow in return for a further payment of 5,600 guilders . Long before that he had turned to the Reformation. On January 24, 1555 he married Anna, the daughter of Otto von Estorff , in St. Marien . He remained provost of Diestorf and became a councilor in Braunschweig. His son Albrecht von der Schulenburg (* 1558), whom he had taught by Stephan Praetorius , became the progenitor of the imperial counts of Schulenburg.

literature

• Gottlieb Matthias Carl Masch: History of the diocese of Ratzeburg. F. Aschenfeldt, Lübeck 1835 ( full text ), pp. 495–502
• Georg May : The German bishops in view of the religious schism of the 16th century . Vienna (Mediatrix) 1983.
• Karl Schmaltz : Church history of Mecklenburg. Second volume: Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Friedrich Bahn, Schwerin 1936, p. 114f.

Web links

• Literature about Christoph von der Schulenburg in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to other sources, around 1514 .
2. ↑ Eckhard Düker: Freudenchristentum. The edification writer Stephan Praetorius. Göttingen 2003, p. 68. Praetorius dedicated his writing Historiae familiares to father and son von der Schulenburg in 1572

predecessor	Office	successor
Georg von Blumenthal	Bishop of Ratzeburg 1550 - 1554	Christoph von Mecklenburg (administrator)