Real (noble family)

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Coat of arms of the Echter family

The Echter were a noble ministerial family who were mainly in the service of the Counts of Erbach and the Archbishops of Mainz .

history

Origins

The earliest known members of the sex appear in the 13th century in the Odenwald .

According to an old legend, three brothers of the family sat in a castle in the Odenwald town of Weckbach , where they worked as robber barons. Pursued by the troops of Emperor Barbarossa, they withdrew to the Spessart and settled in three different places for security reasons. From time to time they met in a specific place for meetings and tied their horses to a pole with three metal rings. This place is known to this day under the name Echterspfahl .

The secured line of ancestry begins with Albrecht I. d. Ä. Real, noble farmhand and Kurmainzischer forest and brook forester in Wintersbach in the Spessart, who, on February 8, 1335, in joint venture with the farmhand Wortwin von Ungelaube , with feudal approval from the donor Konrad zu Erbach , from the farmhand Rudolf Kilian and his housewife Christine, bought the tithe at Beerfurth for 40 pounds Heller on repurchase. On April 28, 1336 they (the two aforementioned noble knights) finally acquired the tithe at 72 pounds heller and were enfeoffed with it by the aforementioned Schenk zu Erbach. Also because of the documented purchase association, a relationship and coats of arms of the gentlemen von Echter with those of Ungeloube and the gentlemen of Brensbach is assumed. In a document from 1367 because of a transfer of goods from Conze von Hochhausen to his brother Hermann von Hochhausen, a seal from the Echter is documented for the first time. The witnesses Conze (Conrad) Echter and Wernher Duborn admit to having attached their seals to this letter. The families Starkerad / Duborn (coats of arms on the grave slab of the nun Grete Duborn around 1350), von Weckbach, as well as those of Berwangen with the sloping beam, covered with three rings, appeared in their coats of arms.

Stone house in the Echter'schen Hof , known as the Templar House in Erbach, Odenwald since the 18th century

As Erbacher Burgmannen , the Echter and their relatives were also settled around the Erbacher Wasserburg, today's Erbach Castle . A Burgmann settlement is only documented there from 1321 onwards, but Erbach Burgmannen are occasionally mentioned as early as 1206 with Gernoldus de Ertbach as a witness for Count Palatine Heinrich, and in 1214 with Fridericus de Ertbach as a witness for Heinrich von Kühlsheim. At least Fridericus de Ertbach is to be regarded as the ancestor of the Erbach castle man Friedrich von Brensbach, attested from 1257. The settlement of Burgmannen in Erbach should therefore be scheduled shortly after the Erbach Castle was built. Around 1350, as part of the Erbacher Burg Freiheit, the stone house was built as a residential tower leaning against the city wall, erroneously referred to as the Templar house since the 18th century , already on Echterschem ground. This residential tower was in their possession until they went out and is today one of the most important architectural monuments of Erbach. Two more Burgmannen houses are in the vicinity.

In 1412 the Archbishop of Mainz gave the following real people in a side valley of the Elsava a courtyard with the name "am Espelborn", whose name later became Mespelbrunn . From this date Hammann I (1399–1427) is to be regarded as the second progenitor of this family and founder of the headquarters in Mespelbrunn. With him the new section of the real as real from and to Mespelbrunn begins in the family history .

Another story

Mespelbrunn moated castle
Stair portal in the inner courtyard of the palace with the representations of Peter and Gertrud Echter

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Echter were still as higher officials in the Electoral Mainz service and were already very wealthy. The family was a member of the knightly canton of Odenwald , which belonged to the Franconian knight circle . Philipp Christoph von Echter lived in Walkershofen Castle around 1615 and expanded the medieval castle into a splendid Renaissance castle.

Peter and Gertrud Echter

Peter III Echter (1520–1576) studied in Italy and France, probably to take up a clerical profession. However, in 1542 he married the then 17-year-old Gertrud (1525–1583) from the family of the Lords of Adolzheim (also: Adelsheim ) and entered the service of the Archbishop of Mainz as a councilor.

Between 1551 and 1569, he expanded the farm “am Espelborn” into the now famous and much-visited Renaissance moated castle Mespelbrunn . Peter and Gertrud had nine children:

Julius Echter

Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn (1545–1617), Prince-Bishop of Würzburg

The history of the family culminated with Peters and Gertrud's second son Julius (1545–1617). Julius grew up in Mespelbrunn, became a collegiate student in Aschaffenburg in 1554 and then attended schools in Mainz and Cologne, the universities of Löwen and Douai, and finally Paris, Angers and Pavia. From 1559 he received benefices as canon in Würzburg, Mainz and Bamberg. In 1570 he became cathedral scholar and councilor of the government chancellery of Würzburg as well as cathedral dean. In 1573 he was elected Prince-Bishop of Würzburg and, as was customary at the time, only then received the ordination of priests and bishops. He proved to be a great builder and administrative reformer as well as one of the leaders of the Counter Reformation in the decades before the Thirty Years War, which led to the emigration of many Protestants. In 1582, however, he failed in his election as Archbishop and Elector of Mainz and thus German Primate and Imperial Arch Chancellor, the highest ecclesiastical position in the Holy Roman Empire. He became known as the re-founder and builder of the University of Würzburg in 1582 and of the Juliusspital in 1579, a hospital for the poor and orphans that still exists today as the Juliusspital Foundation . He had the Marienberg Fortress expanded into a representative castle and set up an extensive court library there. Initiated by his renaissance with Gothic form elements are as Real Gothic and True style or Julius style refers to a form of Nachgotik .

End and inheritance to Ingelheim

Maria Ottilia, the last real woman, married Philipp Ludwig von Ingelheim in 1648 . This came from a baron family von Ingelheim , who was later raised to the rank of count . When the male line of the Echter family died out in 1665, the two families were allowed to combine their names and coats of arms with imperial permission, thus continuing the tradition of the Echter family. Even today the name of the family is "Count von Ingelheim called Echter von und zu Mespelbrunn". Since then, the new family coat of arms has united the coats of arms of the two old noble families. The family's residence is still in Mespelbrunn Castle, in the parts of the south wing that are not used as a museum.

coat of arms

The coat of arms shows a silver diagonal bar in blue, covered with three blue rings. On the helmet with blue-silver covers, two blue buffalo horns marked like the shield. According to Becher, the coat of arms was also used by the von Brensbach and von Weckbach families. The Stakerad / Duborn genders, as well as those of Berwangen with the inclined beam in the coat of arms, were also represented by three rings. Three rings to tie the horses are said to have been the origin of the coat of arms of the Echter family, which in many representations also shows an oblique left bar.

The coat of arms with the three blue rings is now part of the following local and district coats of arms:

See also

literature

  • Wolfram Becher: Comments on the attempt to provide a genealogical overview of the noble family "Echter" (von Mespelbrunn) in comparison with the alleged related families "von Brensbach", "von Weckbach", "von Eicholzheim", "von Schöllenbach", "von Hochhausen" ("Ruppel"), "von Freienstein", "Rauch" and "Unbelief". In: Der Odenwald 31, 1984, pp. 86-96.
  • Martin Kempf: Genealogy of the counts of Ingelheim gen. Echter from and to Mespelbrunn. In: Aschaffenburg Yearbook for History, Regional Studies and Art of the Untermaing Area, Volume 20, Aschaffenburg 1999, Geschichts - und Kunstverein Aschaffenburg e. V. ISBN 3-87965-081-0 , pp. 11-17f.
  • G. Simon: The history of the dynasts and counts of Erbach and their country , Frankfurt 1858 ( Google books )
  • Thomas Steinmetz: The origin of the ministerial families Echter and von Freienstein - formerly Burgmannen at Freienstein Castle. In: The Odenwald. Zeitschrift des Breuberg-Bundes 43/4, 1996, pp. 148–159.
  • Alfred F. Wolfert: Groups of coats of arms of the nobility in the Odenwald-Spessart area. In: Winfried Wackerfuß (Ed.): Contributions to the exploration of the Odenwald and its peripheral landscapes II. Festschrift for Hans H. Weber. Breuberg-Neustadt 1977, pp. 325-406, here pp. 338f.

Web links

Commons : Real  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. References and comments in: Wolfgang Hartmann: The destruction of Frankenberg Castle near Amorbach by Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa appeared as an article in: Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch 45 (1993), pp. 76–91
  2. ↑ Kirch-Beerfurth, Odenwaldkreis. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. (As of July 23, 2012). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  3. ↑ Simon (1858), Part 3, p. 29, Certificate XXVII.
  4. ↑ Simon (1858), Part 3, p. 29f., Certificate XXVIII.
  5. ↑ Becher (1984).
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Martin, Aschaffenburger Jahrbuch, Volume 13/14, pp. 36–37, ISBN 3-87965-052-7
  7. ↑ Original document in the StA Wertheim, printed in the magazine for the history of the Upper Rhine No. 2 (1851)
  8. ↑ Thomas Steinmetz “Die Schenken von Erbach”, special issue 3 from “Der Odenwald”, Verlag Breuberg Bund, 2000, pages 94–95, ISBN 3-922903-07-X
  9. ↑ Stefan Kummer : Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes; Volume 2: From the Peasants' War in 1525 to the transition to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1477-8 , pp. 576–678 and 942–952, here: pp. 597 f.