Fugger

The Fuggers are a Swabian merchant family who have lived in Augsburg since Hans Fugger's immigration from Graben in 1367 . They originally wrote their name "Fucker". Fucker advenit, Latin for "Fugger has arrived", was recorded in the Augsburg tax book in 1367.
One line, the Fugger "from the lily", was extraordinarily powerful in the first half of the 16th century. The name Fugger has become synonymous with wealth across Europe. The term “the Fugger” today mostly refers to the Fugger from the lily. Thanks to their great influence, the Fugger family earned the city of Augsburg the nickname "Fuggerstadt". The properties in Graben and Augsburg formed the beginning of the later substantial property holdings of the Fugger family.
Origin and split into two lines
The family goes back to Johann Fugger, a master weaver from Graben . His son Hans Fugger moved in 1367 to Augsburg, where he first rose as a weaver in the guild and its business goal for the direction of the textile dealer, and he by then fustian benefited boom. At the end of the 14th century he acted as a "weaver- publisher " with linen , which he bought and sold from Bavarian weavers, became chairman of the local weavers' guild and began to export Bavarian linen to Italy . Hans Fugger was the father of Andreas Fugger (1394 / 95-1457 / 58), the progenitor of the Fugger vom Reh , and Jakob Fugger the Elder. Ä. (after 1398–1469), the progenitor of the Fugger von der Lilie .
Tribe generation |
Hans Fugger (in Augsburg since 1367) † 1409 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Second generation |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
After the family fortunes were divided up in 1455, the two families went their separate ways. The Fugger von der Lilie family was very successful and influential in the 16th century. The family company of the Fugger vom Reh line was also successful at first, but became insolvent at the end of the 15th century.
The "Book of Honor of the Fugger", designed between the years 1545 and 1549, gave rise to the legend that the company of Andreas Fugger (from the deer) rose rapidly and splendidly, while Jakob the Elder (from the lily) ran his company slowly and carefully have expanded. Recent research has refuted this representation. The Fugger company "von der Lilie" was already more successful than that of the relatives "vom Reh".
The Fugger family became so important for the village of Graben that it included the deer and the lily in its municipal coat of arms.
Fugger from the lily
The company of the Fugger von der Lilie achieved worldwide renown under Jakob Fugger “the rich” and his nephew Anton Fugger . The members of the family rose to the nobility from 1511. From the middle of the 16th century they held high ecclesiastical and secular offices.
After the acquisition of the county of Kirchberg and the dominions of Weißenhorn , Wullenstetten, Pfaffenhausen and remnants of the former county of Marstetten, the bourgeois merchant, mining entrepreneur and banker Jakob Fugger "the rich" and after him the entire family gradually rose to the nobility or imperial count. The Fugger-Babenhausen (1803) and the Fugger von Glött (1913) were elevated to the rank of prince . The family is therefore one of the few German merchant families who - as happened more often in Italy - rose from the postal aristocracy to the high aristocracy . In addition, three members of the House of Fugger were "von der Lilie" as Prince-Bishops of Constance and Regensburg imperial princes . Other members of the Fugger family "von der Lilie" held high and highest state and church offices.
Several Fuggers made a name for themselves as art sponsors and donors. The best-known foundations are the Fugger Chapel in St. Anna's Church in Augsburg and the Fuggerei , today the oldest existing social housing estate in the world.
Branches are still located at Fugger Castle Babenhausen , Kirchheim Castle and Oberkirchberg Castle .
Fugger from the deer

The Fugger company "vom Reh" was already trading between the German Hanseatic cities , Antwerp and London , Milan and Venice , Leipzig and Frankfurt a. d. Or . In 1462, Lukas Fugger and his brothers were given their coat of arms with the coat of arms of a jumping deer.
In the end, one wrong decision made the Fugger company “vom Reh” insolvent: an insufficiently secured loan to Archduke Maximilian I. The Habsburg had the city of Leuven guarantee his debts, but the Fugger “vom Reh” claims were not were to be collected. In the last years of the 15th century, the Fuggers "vom Reh" got into financial difficulties and their company went bankrupt.
The descendants no longer had any supra-local significance, but achieved the so-called knightly nobility in two lines.
Today's members of the Fugger vom Reh family usually have the surname "Fugger", which means that they are not recognizable at first glance as members of the Augsburg Fugger family, only two family members have the traditional name "Fugger von dem Rech". "Rech" is the late Middle High German form of "deer", the family's heraldic animal. However, there are no bearers of the name “Fugger vom Reh”.
literature
- Otto Hermann Brandt : The Fugger. History of a German trading company. Diederichs, Jena 1928.
- Mark Häberlein: The Fugger: History of an Augsburg family (1367-1650). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018472-5 .
- Mark Häberlein: Departure into the global age: the trading world of the Fugger and Welser . Darmstadt: wbg, 2016. ISBN 380623342X .
- Franz Herre : The Fuggers in their time. 12th, newly illustrated edition. Wißner, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-89639-490-8 .
- Martin Kluger : The Fuggers in the golden Augsburg of the Renaissance. Monuments tell history. context, Augsburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-946917-04-5 .
- Martin Kluger, Wolfgang B. Kleiner (photos): The Fugger. The German Medici in and around Augsburg. History and sights, published by Regio-Augsburg-Tourismus. Context, Augsburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-939645-13-9 . (Travel paperback)
- Christian Meyer: Chronicle of the Fugger family from 1599. Self-published, Munich 1902. Digitized
- Günter Ogger: Buy yourself an emperor. Droemer-Knaur, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-426-05607-0 .
- Harald Parigger : Fugger and the scent of gold: The emergence of capitalism. Illustrated by Klaus Puth. Arena, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-401-05992-1 . (Youth book)
- Hans Jürgen Rieckenberg: Fugger, count. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , pp. 707-710 ( digitized version ).
- Ute Monika Schwob: Fugger . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe. Volume 1, Munich 1974, pp. 554-557.
See also
Web links
- Works about the Fugger in the German Digital Library
- Sources on the history of the Fugger family in the bavarikon culture portal
- Fugger.de
- Hans Fugger, weaver in Augsburg since 1367, citizen 1370
- Dominik Huber: The Fuggers. (PDF)
References and comments
- ↑ A "Fucker" was a beater, thresher ; the verb "fucken" stands for to hit or thresh, related to the English variant "to fuck"; what was meant was “threshing hay”. fugger.de
- ↑ Max Jansen: The beginnings of the Fugger. BoD - Books on Demand, Bremen 2013, ISBN 978-3-95580-098-7 , p. 8.
- ↑ Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz: Jakob Fugger: Sources and explanations. Volume 2, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1951, p. 1.
- ^ Mark Häberlein: The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance Germany. (= Studies in early modern German history ). University of Virginia Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8139-3244-6 , chapter The Fugger family in late medieval Augsburg
- ↑ Holger Hühn, Martin Holland, Isabella Fetzer: contentplus city guide Augsburg . epubli, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8442-3414-5 ( books.google.de ).
- ^ Richard Ehrenberg: The age of the Fugger . Georg Olms Verlag, 1922, ISBN 978-3-487-40062-4 , p. 92 ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ Dagmar Klose: Freedom in the Middle Ages using the example of the city . Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940793-95-9 , p. 120 ( books.google.de ).
- ^ Martin Kluger: Fugger - Italy. Business, Weddings, Knowledge and Art. Story of a fruitful relationship. Context, Augsburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-939645-27-6 .
- ↑ Peter Geffcken: Fugger - story of a family: "The merchants with the trident". In: THEN. 7/2004.
- ↑ For the term "knightly nobility" see the explanation of the knight class at adelsrecht.de