Froben Christoph von Zimmer
Froben Christoph von Zimmer (born February 19, 1519 at Mespelbrunn Castle in Spessart; † November 27, 1566 presumably in Meßkirch ) was the author of the " Zimmerische Chronik " and a member of the Swabian noble family Zimmer .
The following remarks are based primarily on the biography of Beat Rudolf Jenny .
Youth and years of study
Froben Christoph von Zimmer was born on February 19, 1519 at Mespelbrunn Castle in Spessart as the son of Johann Werner von Zimmer and Katharina von Erbach . He was raised there and in Aschaffenburg by his step-grandfather Philipp Echter and his grandmother, the Countess von Werdenberg.
It was not until 1531 that he came to his home in Zimmer for the first time. After a short stay at Falkenstein Castle , which was connected with an initial conflict-ridden meeting with his father and prompted him to leave to his uncle Gottfried Werner von Zimmer in Meßkirch, he began, together with his older brother Johann Christoph, initially to 1533 his studies in Tübingen .
After a stay in Strasbourg, he studied in Bourges from the winter of 1533/34 to 1536 , then, after a stay in Cologne in the winter of 1536/37, from Easter 1537 without his brother Johann in Leuven . He stayed there until July 1539.
After a short stay at home, he left at the beginning of November 1539 with the plan to travel via Leuven to Spain to continue his studies there. But he abandons this plan in Leuven and in December 1539 Froben Christoph traveled via Paris to Angers .
His first historical opus, the "liber rerum Cimbriacarum", was dated from Paris on February 23, 1540, and was a first (short) version of the Zimmeric Chronicle.
Shortly after Easter 1540 Froben traveled on to Angers with his younger brother Gottfried, with whom he had met in Paris. In the winter of 1540/41, however, they continued their studies in Tours , since the cost of living in Angers had become too high. Froben fell ill with smallpox there. But it is also possible that the effects of his alchemical experiments, which he had undertaken there, were involved.
After his recovery he made a hasty return trip to Messkirch because he feared for his life due to a feud against the Zimmer house. He reached Messkirch at the end of July 1541. However, this fear turned out to be unfounded, so that Froben was able to continue his studies in Speyer in the fall . He lived there with his uncle Wilhelm Werner , who at that time was still working as an assessor (judge only from 1548) at the Reich Chamber of Commerce there. After Wilhelm Werner (temporarily) gave up his activity at the Imperial Court of Justice in July 1542, Froben Christoph also finished his studies.
Apprenticeship as a Swabian nobleman
It is striking that Froben had practically no contact with his father in the first 23½ years of his life. Not at all in the first twelve years, the time thereafter significantly less than a year, spread over four contacts. The aversion was mutual.
It is therefore not surprising that Froben spent the time up to his rule with his uncle Gottfried Werner in Meßkirch and Wildenstein and not with his father at Falkenstein Castle. Gottfried Werner saw in Froben Christoph, if not the son, who was denied him himself, then at least the guarantor for the preservation of the sex. Accordingly, he took care of its training.
The next twelve years were a tough apprenticeship because Gottfried Werner kept his protégé very short. Nevertheless, a cordial relationship must have existed, as the following quote from the Zimmerische Chronik shows: "What strange and wonderful actions ... between the old man and the younger one, because who a special and a funny tract of writing" (III, 382, 3-5).
After his father's death in January 1548, he initially handled the noble's specifications, which Jennys put it, for his own property ...: administration of his own property, visits to the rampant arbitration days ..., social Obligations… .
Froben Christoph von Zimmer married Kunigunde von Eberstein (1524–1601) in 1544 and they had ten daughters (the oldest, Anna von Zimmer married Count Joachim von Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg in 1562). Three years later, in 1547, he took part in the Reichstag in Augsburg . In 1548, after the death of his father, he took care of safeguarding his inheritance. This included paying off the father's concubine and enforcing the brothers' renunciation of inheritance. In June 1549 he traveled to Innsbruck to receive confirmation of the Austrian fiefdom. On June 17, 1549 his only son Wilhelm was born. Similar to his uncle Gottfried Werner before him, this was the reason to tackle future-oriented building measures. The expansion of the suburb of Messkirch began in 1550, a project in which his uncle gave him more or less a free hand. On March 9, 1554, his uncle suffered his first stroke. He then gave the nephew, in front of witnesses, all keys and disposal of belongings.
Sovereign and chronicler
After Gottfried Werner's death on April 12, 1554, Froben immediately obtained the hereditary homage from his uncle's subjects. The brothers were again forced to renounce the inheritance very quickly.
In 1556, on the occasion of the marriage of his brother-in-law Philipp von Eberstein to Johanna, Countess von Donliers in St. Omer, he and his relatives traveled to Flanders via Zweibrücken, Trier, Liège, Tongeren, Leuven and Brussels.
On May 9, 1557, he laid the foundation stone for the new palace in Meßkirch . It was to be the first four-wing palace complex based on the Italian model in southern Germany. In the spring of 1558 he added an orchard based on the Heidelberg model. His seventh child was born on October 8, 1558. The news about this is the last entry in the Zimmerische Chronik (without additions). From 1559 he withdrew from all public obligations, but still visited the Reichstag in Augsburg.
It can be assumed that manuscript A was created from this time on
The beginning of the writing of manuscript B is dated to 1565.
In the winter of 1565/66 he probably went on a trip to Italy. A long-cherished wish from his student days when his father refused to study in Bologna . References from the chronicle attest to stays in Venice and Rome.
He died on November 27, 1566, presumably in Messkirch.
Web links
- Literature by and about Froben Christoph von Zimmer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Genealogy ( Memento from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Beat Rudolf Jenny: Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Historian, narrator, sovereign. A contribution to the history of d. Humanism in Swabia . Lindau, Konstanz: Thorbecke 1959.
- ^ Beat Rudolf Jenny: Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Historian, narrator, sovereign. A contribution to the history of d. Humanism in Swabia . Lindau, Konstanz: Thorbecke 1959. Page 98
- ^ Beat Rudolf Jenny: Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Historian, narrator, sovereign. A contribution to the history of d. Humanism in Swabia . Lindau, Konstanz: Thorbecke 1959. Page 119
- ^ Beat Rudolf Jenny: Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Historian, narrator, sovereign. A contribution to the history of d. Humanism in Swabia . Lindau, Konstanz: Thorbecke 1959. Page 120. Jenny takes the day and month date from Andreas Rüttel's genealogical lists. But he deduces the year given there as incorrect.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zimmer, Froben Christoph von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Author of the "Zimmerische Chronik" |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 19, 1519 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mespelbrunn Castle in the Spessart |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 27, 1566 |
| Place of death | uncertain: Messkirch |