Elisabeth von Bach

Elisabeth von Bach (born before 1475 ; died 1519 in Winterthur ) was a noblewoman and former accused in a poisoning trial who was buried in the Winterthur town church .

biography

Grave slab of Elisabeth von Bach in the town church of Winterthur

Elisabeth (also: Elsbetha) von Bach came from the noble family of the Lords of Bach , who were first mentioned in southern Germany in 1311 and were in the service of the bishops of Strasbourg and the margraves of Baden . Her father was Georg II von Bach (1427–1479), she was born as the youngest daughter of five siblings. Probably in 1475 she married the aristocratic Jörg von Staufenberg, as whose wife she is attested for the first time in a document dated December 22, 1475. She took an annual annuity of 200 guilders with her into the marriage, with which she was taxed from her parents' estate by her brother Bernhard, captain of Neustadt and Palatine court marshal . Not long after their marriage, her husband passed away after a brief illness without showing any suffering beforehand. This fact and the immediate remarriage of Elisabeth with the home fire Trub from Memmingen, who came from a bourgeois background, fueled rumors about the circumstances of her first husband's death.

Since these rumors increased faster and faster, also because of a former maid of the deceased, the couple left the city of Offenburg in a night-and-fog campaign for Basel . When the same rumors struck them there too, the couple settled in Zurich . Her husband opened a shop there, and Elisabeth von Bach acquired citizenship there in 1480. But the couple did not stay there any longer and in the summer of 1481 they moved to Winterthur, where they were allowed to settle under conditions detailed by the city. The couple were good taxpayers with eight guilders, and Heimbrand Trub was active in the wine trade. They moved into a house on the Unteren Bogen , and in 1486 the city left the moat in front of the house to them for free usufruct.

The couple soon faced debtor claims. In 1488 Heimbrand Trub was arrested by Johannes von Sonnenberg , bailiff in Swabia , during a business trip and confessed in custody that he was complicit in the death of Jörg von Staufenberg. According to his statement, made without prior torture, he had obtained the poison for the murder of Staufenberg in Besançon , with which his lover Elisabeth von Bach is said to have murdered her husband. The mayor Erhard von Hunzikon was also present at the interrogation as the Winterthur representative . Trub was then drowned at Wolfegg .

After her husband was arrested, Elisabeth von Bach was also arrested in Winterthur and subjected to repeated embarrassing interrogations after his husband's death . But Bach protested her innocence. Since there could be no judgment without a confession, the Winterthur council first sent a letter to Zurich, but no assistance was offered from there. The Winterthur council also wrote to Offenburg in order to obtain more detailed information from there about the rumors prevailing at the time. He also sent a letter to Jörg von Staufenberg's bereaved relatives to ask for their opinion. In particular, the response from the two von Staufenberg brothers caused a stir in the city, because they accused the city of not interrogating Elisabeth von Bach hard enough. And in the letter from Margrave Christof von Baden , the city was asked to "punish its prisoners according to the rights of the Holy German Empire", to which the city, as a "member of the realm", was obliged. Baron Caspar zu Mörsberg demanded the strictest possible punishment from the city.

In its response to the dishonorable reproaches to the brothers and the margrave, the city expressed its astonishment that the two accused had not been brought to justice during their time in Offenbach, and also justified the torture methods used (including thumbscrews , pull up on the rope and push under water by the message), which in the opinion of the council was more than enough for a woman. Furthermore, the council invited those involved to a court day on October 13, 1488 in Winterthur, so that they could represent their charges themselves.

On the day of the court , none of the accusers summoned by letter appeared in Winterthur, so that only the advocate of Elisabeth von Bach made a plea before the mayor's court and accused Trub of lying in this home fire. Thereupon Elisabeth von Bach was acquitted by the mayor's court under the leadership of Erhart von Huntzikon. However, as part of the original feud after her release, she had to live within the Winterthur city walls, and the annuity of 200 guilders a year was paid to the city of Winterthur, so that if she had escaped, she would have been destitute. Since that was not enough for her, however, she came to the Federal Diet in Lucerne. This decided on September 9, 1489 that the city of Winterthur should allow Elisabeth von Bach freedom of movement within a radius of four miles around the city for the pilgrimage to Veltheim and for a bathing trip to Baden .

From then on, Elisabeth von Bach lived in an apartment on the Middle Market. She did not lead a poor life there, as her annuity was still available. The town church Winterthur she donated it 55 guilders , which was a considerable sum at that time. Von Bach died in 1519 as part of a plague epidemic that struck the city. She was buried in the town church. Her stone tombstone is one of three tombstones found in the town church; it was discovered during an excavation in 1980.

Literature and Sources

• Kaspar Hauser : Elsbetha von Bach (1475–1519) . A cultural picture by Kaspar Hauser. In: Zürcher Taschenbuch . 1919, p. 159-182 .
• Jost Schneider: Poisoning trial in old Winterthur . In: Winterthurer yearbook 2002 . Edition Winterthur Foundation, Winterthur 2001, p. 158-163 .

Web links

• The poisoning of Junker Jörg Bock von Staufenberg on the site of the Durbach local history museum.