Görlitz powder conspiracy

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The Görlitz Powder Conspiracy was a political conflict between 1466 and 1468.

In the 1450s the tensions between the Catholic city council of Görlitz and the Utraquist hostile Georg von Podiebrad , King of Bohemia (1458–1471) grew to such an extent that the city was threatened with secession from the king. At the same time, internal opposition to the council developed in the Görlitz patriciate because of an honorary trade . Supporters of the king tried to use this opposition to overthrow the city council by means of a conspiracy and thus to prevent the city from falling. This “ powder conspiracy ”, which ran from 1466 to 1468 , was betrayed, however. It ended with ten death sentences and ten evictions from the city, while the leading masterminds loyal to the king remained unscathed.

Political background

Picture of King Georg Podiebrad - who stood in the background of the Görlitz powder conspiracy - from the Chronicle of Martin Cuthenus, 1539

As crown land, the city of Görlitz was subject to the King of Bohemia . In view of the efforts of some princes to assert property claims, Georg von Podiebrad (* 1420, † 1471) saw on December 9, 1457 - when he was still governor of Bohemia - prompted to remind the six cities and thus Görlitz that they belong to the Kingdom of Bohemia. After the death of Ladislaus Postumus , Duke of Austria , from the Albertine line of the House of Habsburg , who ruled as King of Bohemia from 1453 to 1457, the utraquist majority in Bohemia elected the former state marshal or gubernator (provincial administrator ), George of Podebrady, King of Bohemia.

After this election, the city of Görlitz stayed aside - remembering its "glorious struggle" against the "heretical" Bohemians - but finally had to pay homage in 1459 and therefore only received confirmation of its privileges on June 2, 1461. Görlitz provided allegiance to the king by sending troops and supplies to his campaigns against Balthasar II, Duke of Sagan († 1472), in August 1461 and against the city of Cottbus in October / November 1461, but remained despite the king's efforts for a good understanding, reserved for religious reasons. In this "army voyage" against Cottbus, the Görlitzer took part in a prominent place - with knightly armor, three people and four horses "Ermilreich" - that is probably Nickel Ermilreich - as the only one of the later conspirators. Nevertheless, King George tried to accommodate the people of Görlitz and paid Görlitz visits in May and June 1462. However, the practice of mutual tolerance changed after a few years. In Bohemia in 1465 influential Catholic nobles united under the leadership of Zdenko von Sternberg auf Konopischt (* 1410; † 1476 in Wiener Neustadt ) in the Grünberg alliance against the king.

Pope Paul II, who ordered the removal of King Georg Podebrady

At the same time, the Catholic Church under Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini; 1458–1464) actively opposed the king, who was suspected of heresy , and a crusade against him was even considered. His successor, Pope Paul II (Pietro Barbo), who ruled from 1464 to 1471, was also hostile to the Utraquist Podiebrand. In 1465 he therefore commissioned the Bishop of Lavant , Rudolf von Rüdesheim (actually Rudolf Hecker, * 1402, † 1482), as papal legate for Germany and Bohemia, to organize the resistance of the anti-Hussite forces against Georg Podiebrad. Pope Paul II finally ordered the excommunication and dismissal of the king on December 23, 1466 and released his subjects from the oath of allegiance. Thereupon on January 19, 1467 the papal legate issued the order to the Görlitzers, with the heretic Georg , from whom they were relieved by papal power, and his officials "to keep no action and no obedience", this order to all parishes and Preacher not only in Görlitz, but also to those in the other allied cities. For the strictly Catholic city council of Görlitz, the apostasy from the “heretic king” Georg von Podiebrad was only a question of time or the power-political opportunity.

Conflict over the Bohemian crown

The reigning Bohemian King Podebrady was in conflict with the Catholic Matthias Corvinius , King of Hungary , over the Bohemian crown. The patrician Emmerich family supported Corvinius, while the patricians of the Horschel family supported Podiebrad. Podiebrad had previously betrothed his daughter Katharina (* 1449) to Corvinius (marriage in 1461), but she died in 1464 after a stillbirth. The initially superior Podiebrad died in 1471, making Corvinius King of Bohemia.

The family feud in Görlitz

At this critical point in time, a family feud broke out in Görlitz among the city's leading families. The trigger was an honor trade. The son of the mayor of Görlitz, Urban Emmerich, Georg Emmerich (* 1422, † 1507), (who later was mayor of Görlitz several times between 1483 and 1502 and was called "King of Görlitz" because of his wealth) had Benigna Horschel in 1464, seduced a daughter of councilor Nickel Horschel - with consequences - but refused to marry her. Since the city council did not intervene under the influence of the mayor, the family, supported by relatives and influential friends, first approached the city judge Niklas Mehefleisch († 1468), then the captain von Görlitz, Martin von Maxen and finally von From 1465 to 1467, acting royal bailiff of Upper Lusatia, Benes von Kolowrat († 1495/97). In the meantime, Georg Emmerich evaded the dispute by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1465 out of alleged repentance . He returned from there not only with an absolution from his sins, but also as a new knight of the Knightly Order of the Holy Sepulcher and probably also brought plans for the burial chapel of the Holy Sepulcher, of which he had a replica built in Görlitz in 1504.

Görlitz grave chapel of the Holy Sepulcher, which indirectly reminds of the powder conspiracy.

Leading supporters of the Horschel family's point of honor - and thus one of the most important "conspirators" - in Görlitz included Nickel Horschel, Benigna's father, who was on the city council from 1431 to 1465, and Martin Runde (city councilor from 1444 to 1464), Martin Lauterbach (from 1434 to 1463 city councilor or aldermen) and Nickel Ermelreich, from whose family three mayors of Görlitz come (Hermann Ermerich or Ermilrich, who was in 1321, Johann Ermilreich, who was in 1376 and Nikolaus Ermilrich, who was mayor in 1402, 1413 and 1419) . His uncle, Johannes Ermelreich, was a professor and in 1437 rector of the University of Leipzig . In addition, as Richard Jecht notes, the “conspirators” all came from families, some of whom had made great contributions to the city as early as the 14th century.

Plans of the conspirators

The city judge, the captain and the governor were loyal to the king and decided to use this internal opposition of influential families against the city council to violently disempower the council and thus prevent the city from falling away from King George Podebrady.

From Lent 1466 onwards, various plans were secretly considered. So the bailiff gave the city judge the plan to set fire to the city in three places, he would then rush to the "early snack" with his team himself. To start the fire, he wanted to send his servant to him with 3 elderberry tubes filled with powder and with ignition knots. Since this attack failed, the matter was postponed to June 1466, when the governor wanted to advance with 1,600 men. To do this, one should hack open the Reichenberger Tor from the inside with axes “when sleeping for the first time” so that it could penetrate there and over the walls into the city, plunder it and leave it to the conspirators for booty. However, since the king needed his troops more urgently, the plans were repeatedly postponed. It was also planned to occupy the castle on the Landeskrone , Görlitz's local mountain, with Bohemian troops so that the governor could attack the city from there. Most recently, as the land rider Caspar Tetzel confessed on torture, an attack was planned for March 30, 1467. He wanted to start a fire in the house on Untermarkt 25, but was disturbed, so he threw away the “can with the powder, the sulfur and the fire” and fled. He was executed for this in 1468.

Suppression of the conspiracy

Rumors about possible attacks, even about an attack by the king himself on the city, who would hold a criminal court there and through a constitutional amendment would deprive the council of rights in favor of the community, etc. were circulating in the city. Finally, the current plans were betrayed by a member of the city council, which the conspirators - in vain - wanted to involve in their enterprise.

The city council responded with determination. He anticipated the attack by enforcing the removal of the city judge Mehefleisch - who came under house arrest - and by occupying the Landeskrone Castle with his own troops on March 27, 1467 and further strengthening the fortifications of the city. The bailiff Benes von Kolowrat then left Upper Lusatia on April 7, 1467 with Captain von Maxen . At the end of May, Jaroslav III became the new governor. von Sternberg († 1492) - who was a son of Zdenko von Sternberg, the leader of the Grünberger Alliance directed against King Georg - and Kaspar I von Nostitz auf Tschocha († 1484) - a declared enemy of the king - as the new governor. On June 8, 1467 - after long pressure from the Roman legate, Rudolf von Rüdesheim (* 1402, † 1482), Bishop of Lavant (1463–1468), then Prince-Bishop of Breslau , the formal rejection by Görlitz and the five other sister cities to König Podiebrad, whom they also declared a feud . On August 22nd and 23rd, 1467, the council struck the city. The conspirators were taken prisoner, the city judge Niklaus Mehefleisch first subjected to the "embarrassing questioning" (ie, torture) on August 30th and finally on January 29th, 1468. Martin Lauterbach was embarrassedly questioned on May 11th and 13th, Martin Runde on May 12th and 16th and Niklaus Ermilreich on May 12th and 23rd. Five death sentences and 10 expulsions from the city were then passed. On April 6, 1468, the former city judge Niklas Mehefleisch was quartered and hung a quarter in front of each city gate and a leg on the pottery hill. On May 31st, Lauterbach and Runde, and most recently Nicklaus Ermilreich, were beheaded with a sword in front of the pillory on the market square on September 6th, 1468, thus cruelly suppressing the "powder conspiracy".

Rating

According to the historian Richard Jecht (* 1858, † 1945), well-meaning contemporaries such as the Breslau city clerk and chronicler Peter Eschenloer saw in the four noble executed "honest city children" whose guilt had not been proven, as they revoked the confessions before their death. He would have known them all personally and would have only heard good things from them. It therefore seems likely that the convicted Görlitzers were less perpetrators than tools - and victims - of higher political power interests.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Codex diplomaticus Lusatiae superioris VI. Upper Lusatian documents under King Georg Podjebrad, published by Professor R. Jecht on behalf of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences, Görlitz 1931, [1]
  2. ^ Richard Jecht, History of the City of Görlitz, page 194/195; Self-published by the author, Görlitz 1922
  3. ↑ Richard Jecht, op. Cit. Page 195.
  4. ↑ Richard Jecht, op. Cit. Page 195.
  5. ↑ Codex diplomaticus Lusatiae superioris VI. Upper Lusatian documents under King Georg Podjebrad, [2]
  6. ↑ Codex diplomaticus Lusatiae superioris VI. Upper Lusatian documents under King Georg Podjebrad, [3]
  7. ↑ See wiki article Rudolf von Rüdesheim .
  8. ↑ Richard Jecht, op. Cit. Page 196.
  9. ↑ Richard Jecht, op. Cit. Page 196.
  10. ^ Matthias I. Corvinus. Retrieved July 22, 2020 .
  11. ^ Holy grave in Görlitz. Retrieved July 22, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Who married Katharina von Podiebrad? | WhoMarried.com. Retrieved July 22, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Richard Jecht, op. Cit. P. 197.
  14. ↑ see list of the mayors of Görlitz
  15. ↑ see Rectors of the University of Leipzig
  16. ↑ Richard Jecht op. Cit. Page 197
  17. ↑ Richard Jecht op. Cit. Page 198
  18. ↑ Richard Jecht op. Cit. Page 199
  19. ↑ Richard Jecht op. Cit. Page 197
  20. ↑ Jecht op. Cit. Page 200
  21. ↑ Jecht op. Cit. Page 202/203