Erasmus mirror

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Epitaph of Asmus Spiegel in the church at Gruna

Erasmus Spiegel (called Asmus Spiegel ; * around 1475/80; † January 28, 1551 ) was Electoral Saxon councilor, court marshal and official captain of Wittenberg , church inspector , colonel and in 1547 commander in the Schmalkaldic War .

Life

Asmus Spiegel came from the old Saxon noble family of those von Spiegel with ancestral seat in Gruna . His parents were the Saxon court master Dietrich Spiegel auf Gruna and Magdalena Spiegel nee. von Kitzscher He entered the service of the electoral court early on, then rose to the electoral council and was used for various missions of the state government. As early as 1533 he worked with Georg Spalatin and Joseph Levin von Metzsch (1507–1571), on behalf of the elector, as a church and school visitator in Meissen and Vogtland , in order to ensure the implementation of the Reformation in the rural communities. His reliability ensured him a quick rise at the court of Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous . As early as 1535 he was one of the top earners at court, in addition to regular and numerous extraordinary financial contributions, he also received other lucrative and influential offices, as well as electoral scholarships for his sons. In 1538 he was given the important office of court marshal and in 1542, alongside Bernhard von Hirschfeld, one of the commanders of the Torgau district in Electoral Saxony. Finally, in 1543, he was given the central position of governor of the residential city of Wittenberg, with which the chairmanship of the Wittenberg court was connected. As such, Spiegel was not only responsible for the security of the city, such as the repair and expansion of the fortress, but was also entrusted with the affairs of the University of Wittenberg , where his sons studied. For example, he had to sit in court over the ringleaders during the student revolts of 1543 , or he had to check the correspondence of the Wittenberg professors during the Schmalkaldic War.

Spiegel had been very familiar with the Wittenberg reformers not just since taking over the main team. Justus Jonas the Elder valued him as early as 1533 . Ä. as a reliable confidante, and Georg Spalatin, at whose side Spiegel was repeatedly active as a visitor, called him "his dear friend". Spiegel developed a close relationship with Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora in particular . An invitation from Luther and other reformers to the Spiegel house in Gruna has been handed down for the year 1538. The banquet was followed by a hare hunt, during which the hunted hare is said to have vanished into thin air - a welcome opportunity for Luther, who is known to be on the lookout for satanic temptations and activities, to spot a devil. This episode from Luther's and Spiegel's life is known not least because it was later merged with the Faust legend . In 1540 Luther thanked Spiegel in a letter about the "Geschencke des wildprets", and a little later, after Luther came into conflict with the Saxon lawyers, Spiegel and Bugenhagen acted as a mediator. When Luther died on a trip to Eisfeld in January 1546 , Spiegel paid his last respects to the great reformer by accompanying his funeral procession from Bitterfeld to Wittenberg. Katharina von Bora, Luther's bereaved widow, who was brought into a precarious financial situation by the death of her husband, entrusted herself to her brother Hans von Bora and Asmus Spiegel as guardians, who regulated the affairs of Boras and her children and took on their property management.

Erasmus Spiegel had been married to Anna born around 1525/29. von List († 1571) from the House of Wartenburg . Her descendants included the sons Bernhard, Hans, Paul, Philipp and four other sons who died young. Just as after the death of Erasmus S. a sandstone grave slab epitaph (which shows him larger than life as a relief!) Came into the Church of Gruna, this also happened after the death of his wife; it is also shown as a relief on its epitaph.

Possessions

According to the feudal letter from 1541, Erasmus Spiegel owned: Gruna, Glaucha , Hohenprießnitz , Laussig , Mörtitz and Sprotta . In the context of the new tenancy by Elector Moritz von Sachsen in 1547, properties in Niederglaucha , Kossa , Falkenberg and Zschettgau were also mentioned. The vassal register 1548/51 also mentions Authausen .

Signature: Asmus Spiegel zu Grunaw

literature

  • Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences. Volume 38, 1743, p. 1588. (online)
  • Johann Friedrich the Middle, Duke of Saxony: A Contribution to the History of the Sixteenth Century. Volume 2, 1858, p. 160. (online)
  • D. Martin Luther's table speeches or colloquia. 1846, p. 27. (online)
  • How Luther practiced church discipline. 1958, p. 17.
  • A selection of Luther's works. 1967.
  • Katharina Luther née von Bora. 1854, p. 99.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fritz Fischer "Ancestry of the Fischer siblings"
  2. ↑ Klaus Knothe: The Saxon-Thuringian noble family Spiegel . Ed .: AMF. 183rd edition. April 2007, p. 42 ff .
  3. ↑ Hans-Joachim Böttcher : Historical grave monuments and their inscriptions in the Dübener Heide . Ed .: AMF. No. 165 , August 2005, p. 106-108 .
personal data
SURNAME Spiegel, Erasmus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spiegel, Asmus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Electoral Saxon court marshal
DATE OF BIRTH around 1500
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1551