Friedrich Casimir (Ortenburg)

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Imperial Count Friedrich Casimir von Ortenburg.

Imperial Count Friedrich Casimir (born January 23, 1591 at Waldeck Castle near Kemnath ; † March 2, 1658 at Alt-Ortenburg Castle ) was the eldest son of Count Heinrich VII von Ortenburg and his second wife Johannetta, Freiin von Winneberg and Beilstein. He came from the direct empire counts of the Ortenburgers . After the death of his cousin in 1627 he became Count of Ortenburg and remained so until his death in 1658. His artistic skills are still well known in Eastern Bavaria to this day, and his drawings and watercolors are still very popular with many historians.

Live and act

Worldly work

After Friedrich Casimir's birth, he spent part of his youth in the Waldeck estate . Because of his father's work in the Upper Palatinate , he accepted the faith of the Reformed Church according to Johannes Calvin, which was widespread there, and grew up in this strict faith. At the age of only two years Friedrich Casimir was appointed by Count Joachim as his main heir. However, the inheritance did not take place, as Joachim pledged the county on the deathbed of his wife Lucia. When Casimir was old enough, he left Waldeck to study at the University of Heidelberg, which was shaped by Calvin . Little is known about his studies and his life up to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War . In contrast to his two younger brothers, Johann Philipp and Heinrich VIII. , Who both lost their lives in the war, he did not serve in the war because he was more drawn to research and art.

Sketch of the Ortenburg market by Friedrich Casimir around 1625. Alt-Ortenburg Castle can be seen in the upper right corner of the picture.

In 1624 and 1625 Emperor Ferdinand II expelled all Protestants from the land above the Enns . For many exiles , Ortenburg was the next place of refuge on their journey to Regensburg and the Franconian-Protestant imperial cities. Casimir granted them asylum and gave them forest land near Alt-Ortenburg Castle and in Markt Ortenburg . About 200 exiles then settled in the imperial county and founded the districts of Vorderhainberg, Hinterhainberg and Gänswinkel. The refugees brought the traditions of their homeland in fruit growing and cider production with them to Ortenburg. This was to become an important source of income for the population and the counts over the next few centuries.

Due to the steadily growing influx of exiles to Ortenburg, the Catholic Elector Maximilian I and Emperor Ferdinand II requested the incumbent Count Georg IV , a cousin of Friedrich Casimir, not to grant the refugees any further asylum and to prevent further immigration. George IV reluctantly followed this request; However, the exiles who had already settled in Ortenburg were allowed to stay.

Around 1625 Friedrich Casimir negotiated a contract with Lucia von Limpurg in which he could have redeemed the pledged imperial county and the two fortresses of Alt-Ortenburg and Neu-Ortenburg for 25,000 guilders . The county had been pledged to his widow Lucia since 1601 on the basis of the will of Count Joachim. Only the private estates outside the county and the Bavarian fiefs were retained by the counts. After Lucia's death in 1626, according to her will, the county fell to her relative Johann Joachim von Sinzendorf .

A year later, in 1627, Count Georg IV died in Burghausen . Due to the seniorate succession in the Ortenburg family since 1566 , Friedrich Casimir became head of the family and imperial count of Ortenburg. The official enfeoffment by Emperor Ferdinand II took place on February 8, 1628, although Friedrich Casimir was not in the possession of the county.

Even during his reign, Friedrich Casimir continued to be more interested in art and research. Furthermore, his tenure was strongly influenced by the Thirty Years' War , plague epidemics and the dispute with the Lords of Sinzendorf over the regaining of the county. The plague broke out three times in Ortenburg: 275 people died in 1634, 189 people in 1648 and another 206 people a year later.

Due to the high taxes and the great need of the population of the imperial county, the emperor issued the imperial count a letter of protection. Friedrich Casimir was allowed to affix the imperial coat of arms to all of his castles and palaces. It was also stipulated that every army leader who would spend more than one night on the Ortenburger property would have to pay a fine of 50 guilders. But neither the Bavarian army commanders nor the emperor's own troops adhered to it and demanded further taxes from the population. The inhabitants of Ortenburg soon faced ruin and starvation.

In 1628 Friedrich Casimir tried to redeem the imperial county and the two castles. But due to his lavish lifestyle and his enormous expenditure on art, he was unable to raise the required 25,000 guilders and was only able to redeem the ancestral castle of the counts, Alt-Ortenburg Castle.

Neu-Ortenburg Castle after an engraving by Michael Wening from 1723.

In the next few years Friedrich Casimir could not prevent Johann Joachim von Sinzendorf from increasing his influence, property and power in the imperial county. In 1629 he received the right to use Neu-Ortenburg Castle as a pledge for the rights inherited from Lucia von Limpurg. In the following years Friedrich Casimir sold promissory notes to Johann Joachim to alleviate his acute financial need. This promoted more and more the influence of the Sinzendorf in Ortenburg.

In order to pay off his debts with his stepsister Lucia Euphemia, Casimir gave her the Weihersberg, Tal and Kettenham farms in 1646. This in turn sold the farms in order to alleviate the suffering of the population from hunger, hardship and the high war taxes.

In 1652, Friedrich Casimir suffered another serious setback in his efforts to regain the imperial county. By decree of Emperor Ferdinand III. Johann Joachim von Sinzendorf was instructed as authorized representative of the market and Neu-Ortenburg, even Alt-Ortenburg, although the latter was in the possession of the counts. Apparently he also received the Ortenburg fief in Bavaria. Friedrich Casimir retired to Dorfbach after what he saw as the final loss of the Ortenburg property and rights . But even there he was unable to master his financial situation and finally had to sell the castle, which he had eagerly embellished, to the Peckenzeller family. They owned the castle until 1805. Friedrich Casimir moved back to Alt-Ortenburg Castle, where he died on March 2, 1658. The reign fell to his cousin Georg Reinhard .

Friedrich Casimir, like his father Henry VII and his cousin Georg IV, was not allowed to redeem the imperial county. Likewise, he did not contribute to the consolidation of the heavily indebted count family, but plunged the house with his extravagance even deeper into the crisis. After Friedrich Casimir's death, one of his closest friends said aptly about his lifestyle: "He lived unmoved, built houses and did not know how to appreciate the value of money!"

His successor, Georg Reinhard, together with his brother Christian , succeeded in turning the conflict with the Counts of Sinzendorf over the county and the market, and in 1662, after 61 years of dependency, to trigger it.

Artistic creation and construction activities

Friedrich Casimir was already inspired by the ornamental gardens when he was a student in Heidelberg.

Between 1620 and 1630 Friedrich Casimir put the majority of the Ortenburg property on paper in the form of 40 small watercolors. These are still popular with many historians today because of their detailed depiction of the buildings and the population. Likewise, the representations of only small farms and the associated area are rarities and a real treasure trove for local researchers.

Alt-Ortenburg Castle with an ornamental garden in 1723 on an engraving by Michael Wening .

According to the latest research, Friedrich Casimir is also responsible for the magnificent Renaissance wooden coffered ceiling in today's chapel at Alt-Ortenburg Castle. He is said to have designed these himself after purchasing the castle in 1628. For a long time it was assumed that the ceiling was commissioned from the Augsburg workshop of the master Wendel Dietrich , but today it is assumed that it was a master from the Allgäu. It is not known when the ceiling was installed in the castle. Friedrich Casimir is also credited with founding and laying out the ornamental garden east of the palace. He is said to have laid this out around 1630 on the model of Italian ornamental gardens, including a zoo in the southeastern area. Deer, roe deer and other game were housed in the enclosures. There is also said to have been a pond with exotic turtles. The count was probably inspired by the ornamental gardens at the court of his university town of Heidelberg. The ornamental garden was expanded by Count Georg Philipp in 1695 and adapted to the Baroque style. Today the Ortenburg Wildlife Park is located on the grounds of the garden.

After moving to Schloss Dorfbach , he had extensive embellishments carried out on the facade and interior. However, nothing specific is known about this work, as most of the castle is no longer there. It was acquired by the Kingdom of Bavaria at the beginning of the 19th century and soon afterwards partly demolished. Today, however, the rear wing is the church of Dorfbach. The location of the second castle, Oberdorfbach, is still unknown today.

Friedrich Casimir also destroyed some pictorial representations in the so-called " Ortenburg Bibles ". As a devout Calvinist, he had the depictions of God in one of the two volumes erased and thus destroyed the magnificent depictions. Since the deletions are only available in one volume, Friedrich Casimir was probably only in possession of one of the two. The other volume must have passed to another branch of the Ortenburg family after Count Joachim's death.

Under the company name of the Persevering , he was accepted into the Fruitful Society in 1637 as the 316th member .

progeny

Friedrich Casimir was unmarried and left no descendants.

Selection of some works

literature

  • Andreas Herz: Four finds on the fruitful society. Philipp von Zesen, Johann Wilhelm von Stubenberg / Count Friedrich Casimir von Ortenburg, Prince Ludwig von Anhalt-Koethen, Johann Ludwig Prasch , in: Wolfenbütteler Barock-Nachrichten 38, Wiesbaden 2011 (pp. 51–65).
  • Walter Fuchs: Ortenburg Castle, Ortenburg monuments and the history of the imperial county of Ortenburg , Ortenburg 2000.
  • Friedrich Hausmann : The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, as well as their subsidiary lines , published in: Ostbairische Grenzmarken - Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde , No. 36, Passau 1994 (p. 9-62).
  • Heinz Pellender: Tambach - from Langheim monastery office to Ortenburg'schen Grafschaft - history of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle , 2nd edition, Coburg 1990.
  • Ina-Ulrike Paul: Ortenburg, Friedrich Casimir Graf von. In: Karl Bosl (ed.): Bosls Bavarian biography. Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2 , p. 564 ( digitized version ).
  • Friedrich Hausmann: Protestants as refugees in the county of Ortenburg, especially in the early 17th century. In: Helmut Maurer, Hans Patze (ed.): Festschrift for Berent Schwineköper on his 70th birthday, Sigmaringen 1982 (pp. 537–552).
  • Ulrich Pietrusky : On the population geography of the historical isolate of the former Protestant imperial county of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria . In: Mitteilungen der Geographische Gesellschaft in München , Volume 64, Munich 1979 (pp. 77-99).
  • Heinz Hans Konrad Schuster: Ortenburg after the death of Count Joachim. In: Hans Schellnhuber (Hrsg.): 400 years Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963 , Ortenburg 1963 (pp. 43–48).
  • Carl Mehrmann: History of the Evangelical Lutheran community of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria - memorandum for the anniversary celebration of the 300th anniversary of the introduction of the Reformation there on October 17 and 18, 1863 , Landshut 1863 ( digitized version ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Carl Mehrmann: History of the Evangelical Lutheran Community of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria - memorandum for the anniversary celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Reformation there on October 17 and 18, 1863 , Landshut 1863 (p. 69 ff)
  2. ^ A b c Walter Fuchs: Ortenburg Castle, Ortenburg architectural monuments and the history of the imperial county of Ortenburg , Ortenburg 2000 (p. 39).
  3. ^ Friedrich Hausmann: Protestants as refugees in the county of Ortenburg, especially in the early 17th century. In: Helmut Maurer, Hans Patze (ed.): Festschrift for Berent Schwineköper on his 70th birthday, Sigmaringen 1982 (pp. 537–552).
  4. ^ Hans Schellnhuber , Heinz Hans Konrad Schuster, Friedrich Zimmermann: 400 years Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963 , Ortenburg 1963.
  5. ↑ Heinz Pellender: Tambach - from the Langheim monastery office to the Ortenburg'schen Grafschaft - history of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle , 2nd edition Coburg 1990 (p. 43).
  6. ^ Friedrich Hausmann: The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, and their subsidiary lines , published in: Ostbairische Grenzmarken - Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde , No. 36, Passau 1994 (p . 36).
  7. ↑ Ulrich Pietrusky : On the population geography of the historical isolate of the former Protestant imperial county of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria In: Communications of the Geographical Society in Munich , Volume 64, Munich 1979 (p. 84).
  8. ↑ Source on Ortenburg-Evangelisch.de
  9. ↑ Source on Foerderkreis-Schloss-Ortenburg.de ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.foerderkreis-schloss-ortenburg.de
  10. ↑ Source on the Ortenburg Bibles at www.dhm.de
  11. ↑ Andreas Herz: Four finds on the fruitful society. Philipp von Zesen, Johann Wilhelm von Stubenberg / Count Friedrich Casimir von Ortenburg, Prince Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen, Johann Ludwig Prasch , in: Wolfenbütteler Barock-Nachrichten 38, Wiesbaden 2011 (p. 59)

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Casimir  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
George IV Count of Ortenburg
1627–1658 		Georg Reinhard
personal data
SURNAME Friedrich Casimir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Painter count
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Ortenburg
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1591
PLACE OF BIRTH Waldeck Castle (Upper Palatinate)
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1658
Place of death Alt-Ortenburg