Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg

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Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg, painting by Balthasar Denner , 1747

Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg (* September 2 . Jul / 12. September  1683 greg. In Wolfenbüttel ; † 3. April 1767 in horror court in Braunschweig ) was a princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg . By marriage, she first became hereditary princess and then ruled Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön for two years for her underage son . In her second marriage she became Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg and Princess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .

Thanks to her biblical cabinet, which she had compiled over the course of 25 years, Elisabeth Sophie Marie was one of the most famous collectors of her time and was also an author of religious writings herself.

Life

Elisabeth Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.jpg
Augustus William, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.jpg


Elisabeth Sophie Marie and August Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, painting by Christoph Bernhard Francke , before 1729

Elisabeth Sophie Marie was the third child of Rudolf Friedrich (1645–1688), Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg , and Bibiana von Promnitz (1649–1685). At the time of her birth, her father was in the service of Wilhelm III as an officer . of Orange-Nassau . Her mother had brought the Fürstenau estate in Silesia into the marriage. Elisabeth Sophie Marie grew up there for five years. After the death of her father, her mother had been dead for three years, she and her brother Ernst Leopold (1685–1722) went to the court of their guardians, the dukes Anton Ulrich , the husband of their paternal aunt Elisabeth Juliane, and Rudolf August in Wolfenbüttel brought.

On October 8, 1701 she married Adolf August (1680–1704), Hereditary Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön. He was the grandson of her guardian Rudolf August von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. Her husband died a few days before his father, Duke Johann Adolf . The only child from this marriage, Leopold August, born on August 11, 1702, became Duke on July 2, 1704, but died on November 4, 1706.

On September 12, 1710, Elisabeth Sophie Marie became the third wife of August Wilhelm (1662–1731), Hereditary Prince of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Wolfenbüttel. The duke's earlier marriages had no heirs and this marriage also remained childless.

Her brother, Duke Ernst Leopold von Holstein-Norburg (1685–1722), served in the war in Brussels for several years . When he fell ill there, he wanted to go to his sister at the court in Wolfenbüttel. However, he died on the trip to her in Wesel , whereupon his body was transferred to Wolfenbüttel in August 1722 and buried in the princely family crypt there.

Elisabeth Sophie Marie died on April 3, 1767 at her widow's residence in the Grauen Hof in Braunschweig . Her grave is located in the princely crypt of the main church Beatae Mariae Virginis in Wolfenbüttel, where no other members of the royal family were buried after her.

Bible collection

The Herzog August Library in the 18th century, engraving by Anton August Beck

At the age of almost sixty, the Duchess began to systematically build up a biblical collection, which she put together with considerable financial expenditure and set up in Braunschweig Castle. She acquired them, along with other books, at auctions, through purchases from private owners and through donations. Over the years there have been 1,161 Bibles in various languages. These included manuscripts, Luther translations and biblical books from other denominations. She herself wrote religious writings, a lay doctrine, and refuted as a devout Lutheran the letters of the Jesuit Seedorfer, which promoted Catholicism.

Mainly pastors were visitors to this exhibition. Johann Christoph Selchow, the pastor of Bettmar , Sierße , Fürstenau and Sophiental , for example, signed the guest book in the Grauen Hof in June 1754 with a word from the Bible. But teachers and scholars such as the poet and philosopher Johann Christoph Gottsched also came to see the collection.

She had the first catalog of the collection created in 1752 by court preacher Georg Ludolph Otto Knoch (1705–1783). In September 1764 she had her library of around 4900 volumes, 1161 Bibles, set up in Braunschweig Castle , the "Grauen Hof", brought to the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. In doing so, she established the basis of today's Bible collection in the library.

Builder and village founders

f1Georeferencing Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

Vechelde Castle around 1760, engraving by Anton August Beck

As Duchess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Elisabeth Sophie Marie developed a brisk building activity that led to the founding of three villages in the western outskirts of the city of Braunschweig , in today's Peine district in Lower Saxony .

From 1712 Vechelde Castle ( ⊙ ) served as her residence. To this end, she had the existing castle in Vechelde expanded and, probably by the baroque master builder Hermann Korb (1656–1735), another wing of the building and a castle chapel built. On November 8, 1727, a godchild of the Duchess, Johanna Elisabeth von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , and Prince Christian August von Anhalt-Zerbst married there . From this marriage, Sophie Auguste Frederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg emerged on May 2, 1729, who later became Tsarina Katharina the Great .

For the farm workers of the castle estate, the duchess had a day laborer settlement built about one kilometer north of the castle complex , from which today's Vechelder district Vechelade ( ⊙ ) emerged.

In 1716 the Duchess acquired an estate, the Häßlerhof or Hasselhof , and had a pleasure palace built there, which was named Schloss Fürstenau ( ⊙ ). The castle was little used, only served as a prison for the court in Vechelde around 1802 and was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century. Today , apart from parts of the moat, no building remains are visible on the former castle grounds in the Vechelder village of Fürstenau .

In 1724, Duke August Wilhelm transferred an area in the Wendeburg district to his wife , where she had another palace complex built with Sophiental Palace ( ⊙ ). Sophiental, named after the Duchess, developed from the complex . This castle was also not preserved and was demolished around 1769, two years after the Duchess's death.

The newly founded villages were merged with the Vechelde Castle and Manor to form the “Princely Court”, the Vechelde Office . The office existed in this form until 1807, when the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel was incorporated into the Kingdom of Westphalia created by Napoleon and the Vechelde office was dissolved.

In August 1764, Duke Karl I of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1713–1780) sold the castles and lands of Vechelde, Fürstenau and Sophiental for 99,400 thalers in gold to his brother Prince Ferdinand (1721–1792), after having been given to him in 1742 by Elisabeth Sophie Marie had been transferred. However, he left her the right of use and residence.

Trivia

Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, engraving by Georg Daniel Heumann , 1750

Elisabeth Sophie Marie was a committed supporter of the Lutheran theologian and church historian Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693–1755). The Duchess financed Mosheim's studies at the University of Kiel , where he had been matriculated since 1715, and supported his appointments as professor of theology at the University of Helmstedt , general school inspector of the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and abbot of the monasteries Mariental and Michaelstein .

In the 19th century it was assumed that Mosheim was the illegitimate son of her brother Ernst Leopold (1685–1722) and a washerwoman. However, the life data of Mosheim and his alleged father speak against this.

Works

  • Brief excerpt of some doctrines of the faith in dispute between the Catholics and Lutherans, from the Council of Trento, and the Divine Scriptures own words, as well as the attached Papal Confession of Faith and Religious Oaths faithfully taken, and for the necessary instruction what each part believes and believe should, put to the light . Wolfenbüttel 1714.
  • A clearer explanation of the doctrine of the faith, as contained in the 12 letters of the Jesuit Seedorf, according to the creed, which the Protestants in Hungary must swear when they convert to the Roman Church . Brunswick 1750.

literature

  • Werner Arnold: The Bible Collection . In: Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel . Westermann, Braunschweig 1978, pp. 42-49.
  • Georg Ludolph Otto Knoch (Ed.): Bibliotheca Biblica. This is the directory of the biblical collection, which the most lucid princess and wife Elisabeth Sophia Maria, first widowed Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg [...] in many languages, especially the German one by D. Mart. Luthern, collected u. in the book treasure in the gray court that the Christian church has set up for the best . Brunswick 1752.
  • Georg Ludolph Otto Knoch: Historical-critical news from the Brunswick biblical collection . Hanover and Wolfenbüttel 1754.
  • Maria Munding, Heimo Reinitzer: Elisabeth Sophie Marie , in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 11, Neumünster 2000, pp. 91–94, ISBN 3-529-02640-2 , corrected ISBN 3-529-02640- 9 .
  • Heimo Reinitzer : Biblia German. Luther's translation of the Bible and its tradition . In: Exhibition catalogs of the Herzog August Library . No. 40, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel 1983, ISBN 3-88373-037-8 .
  • Ulrike Gleixner : The reading princess. Book collecting as a lifelong educational practice . In: Premodern Education Courses: Self- and External Descriptions in the Early Modern Age . Juliane Jacobi (Ed.), Böhlau Verlag, Cologne-Weimar-Wien 2009, pp. 207–225, ISBN 978-3-412-20492-1 .
  • Ulrike Gleixner: Luther portraits in the service of princely self-expression . In: Hole Rößler (ed.): Luthermania. Views of a cult figure . Wiesbaden 2017 (exhibition catalogs of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel, No. 99), pp. 306–309.

Web links

Commons : Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Notes of personal physician and Canon Dr. med. U. F. B. Brückmann . Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenbüttel VI HS 5 No. 21
  2. ↑ Rudolph zu Solms-Laubach: History of the Count and Princely House of Solms . C. Adelmann, Frankfurt am Main 1865, p. 361 ( digitized version [accessed February 2, 2014]).
  3. ↑ Christoph Woltereck , Chronikon der Stadt und Vestung Wolffenbüttel, 1747, p. 38
  4. ↑ Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel: Sign. 125.25.A Extrav. Guest book in the Gray Court.
  5. ^ Paul Raabe (Ed.): Handbook of the historical book inventory in Germany. Lower Saxony HZ . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1998, p. 211; 234, ISBN 3-487-09576-9 .
  6. ↑ a b Friedrich Thöne: Wolfenbüttel. Spirit and splendor of an old residence . Bruckmann, Munich 1963, p. 140.
  7. ^ Karl Georg Wilhelm Schiller : Braunschweig's beautiful literature in the years 1745 to 1800, the age of the dawn of German beautiful literature . Holle, Wolfenbüttel 1845, p. 249 ( digitized version ).
  8. ^ Georg Hassel : Geographical-statistical description of the principalities of Wolfenbüttel and Blankenburg . Friedrich Bernhard Culemann, Braunschweig 1802, p. 480 ( digitized version ).
  9. ^ Lower Saxony State Archives Wolfenbüttel: Concerning the donation of the goods Vechelde, Fürstenau and Sophiental . 3 Urk 2 No. 120; Contract between the ruling Duke Carl and his brother, Duke Ferdinand, (...) , 5 Urk No. 384
  10. ^ Bernd Moeller: Johann Lorenz von Mosheim and the foundation of the Göttingen University . In: Theologie in Göttingen . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, p. 14, ISBN 3-525-35834-2 .
  11. ^ A b Johann Jakob Herzog: Real Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church . Volume 10, Verlag Rodolf Besser, Gotha 1858, p. 69.
personal data
SURNAME Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg, Elisabeth Sophie Marie von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schleswig-Holstein-Norburg, Elisabeth Sophia Maria von; Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg, Elisabeth Sophia Maria von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, Duchess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, book collector and author
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1683
PLACE OF BIRTH Wolfenbüttel
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1767
Place of death Braunschweig