Giech (noble family)

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Coat of arms graphic by Otto Hupp in the Munich calendar from 1898

Giech is the name of an old Frankish noble family . It belonged to the Franconian knight circle . In 1695 it was raised to the rank of imperial count and in 1726 - because of the possession of the Thurnau rulership - it was admitted to the Franconian Imperial Count's College and thus to the high nobility . It expired in 1938 in the male line.

Origin and development

Giechburg

The von Giech family can be traced back to the Giechburg very early on , even before the bishops of Bamberg . The family first appeared in a document in 1137 and 1149 with "Eberhardus de Giecheburg". Important lines were the Thurnau and Buchau lines . According to Herder's lexicon of 1854 , they were considered to be wealthy in "Bavaria and Nassau ".

The Giech were Imperial Counts since March 24, 1695 and members of the Franconian Imperial Counts College since September 17, 1726. 1806 they were mediatized. With the royal Bavarian diploma of August 25, 1831, they were awarded the title of exaltation on the basis of the award by the German Confederation on February 13, 1829 .

Wiesentfels Castle

Wiesentfels Castle

The castle Wiesent rock was from 1333 to 1938 the property of the Counts of Giech. Knight Albert von Giech received the castle as a fief from the Bamberg Monastery in 1333 . In 1412, two thirds of Unterwiesentfels Castle was lent to Heinz von Schaumberg . A third of Oberwiesentfels Castle was lent to Hans II von Giech in 1415.

After the Hussite invasion of 1433 Oberwiesentfels was described as desolate and disappeared from the fief books in 1467 . Wiesentfels Castle was rebuilt from 1476 to 1481. In 1487 the brothers Otto and Dietz von Giech received half of the new castle from the bishopric as a fief. In 1525 it was burned down by rebellious farmers and then rebuilt in the old style by Count Achaz von Giech.

In 1632 the bishopric withdrew the fiefdom of the Protestant nobles and enfeoffed Colonel Hans Wolf von Salis. In 1654 the lords of Giech, who were raised to the rank of count in 1695, were again enfeoffed with Wiesentfels. From then on, the castle remained the residence and property of the Counts of Giech until 1938, when the last Count died. The heirs, Barons Hiller von Gaertringen, sold it in 1969.

Buchau Castle

Buchau Castle

Around 1400 the Giech family succeeded in taking Buchau from the property of the Bamberg monastery Michelsberg . In 1437 Hans the Elder from Giech first called himself "zu Bucha". According to Biedermann , his father Heinrich von Giech Buchau had acquired as a Bamberg fief for the family. In 1525, during the peasant war, Buchau Castle was “cheered on” and completely burned down. It was rebuilt in 1526 by Matthes von Giech. During the Thirty Years' War Buchau was attacked and looted several times. Even the Buchau line of the Giech family did not survive the turmoil of the long war; In 1635 their inheritance fell to Carl Gottfried I von Giech (1607-1652) from the Thurnau line of the sex, the only male member of the family still alive at the time. Buchau Castle was also sold in 1969 by Barons Hiller von Gaertringen.

Krögelstein Castle

Krögelstein Castle

On October 17, 1500, the Bamberg prince-bishop Heinrich III. Groß von Trockau (1487–1501) returned Krögelstein Castle from the cathedral chapter. He gave the castle as a fief of the high pin Bamberg to Dietz of Giech. Georg Wolf von Giech was married to Ottilie von Absberg , the sister of the notorious robber baron Hans Thomas von Absberg . Since he often gave his brother-in-law shelter at the castle, the castle was destroyed in 1523 by the Swabian Federation . There was no reconstruction.

Thurnau Castle

Thurnau Castle

The knight Jorg Förtsch von Thurnau was "the oldest and last of the Förtsch family", and with him the family went out on Good Friday (March 31st) 1564. The extensive possession of Thurnau Castle then fell to the daughters of Wolf Förtsch, who died in 1551: Ursula was married to Hans Friedrich von Künsberg , Anastasia to Siegmund Fuchs von Rügheim, who died before 1564, and Barbara to Hans Georg von Giech zu Buchau . Anastasia Fuchs von Rügheim was compensated with money; the von Giech and von Künsberg families were the future masters in Thurnau.

Between 1600 and 1606, Hans-Georg von Giech built the Hans-Georgen-Bau in Renaissance style . In 1699 the Margraves of Bayreuth confirmed the long controversial High Jurisdiction and thus the sovereignty of the Lord of Giech - who had been elevated to imperial counts in 1695. In 1726 they were accepted into the Franconian Imperial Counts College and thus into the high nobility. In 1731 they bought half of the estate and the castle from the Künsbergs. In the same year, the Carl Maximilian Building was added to the Upper Court. Inside is the so-called Schönburg Hall with landscape wallpaper from the end of the 18th century. In 1833 the gatehouse burned down and was replaced by a new building in neo-Gothic form by 1837. The tea house was built around 1840. In 1919 the last male descendant, Friedrich Karl Graf von Giech, moved out of the castle and died childless in 1938. The heirs, the Barons Hiller von Gaertringen, brought it into the previously existing Gräflich Giech'sche Spitalstiftung, which still owns it, in 1972.

Further spread

coat of arms

The family coat of arms shows two upright red sheep shears in silver (sometimes also called cloth shears ). On the helmet with red and silver covers a golden crowned, red clad maiden's torso between two buffalo horns divided by silver and red. A flying silver swan, the wings of which were each covered with a pair of red sheep shears, was the crest of a short-lived side line of the Giech. (After their extinction, the swan was also shown in the sign since 1482.)

There is a similarity to the coat of arms with the Thuringian marshals , who also have two scissors. The Franconian von Scherenberg as well as the Thuringian von Schernberg and von Nordhausen only had a pair of scissors in their coat of arms (as did the Westphalian von Langen ).

The increased coat of arms from 1482, awarded by Emperor Friedrich III. , is quartered . In fields 1 and 4 it shows two red sheep's claws in silver (Giech family coat of arms), in fields 2 and 3 in red a silver swan ( reminiscence of the crest of the extinct Giech side line). The two helmets show on the right the crowned maiden's torso between two buffalo horns divided by silver and red across the corner, on the left a silver swan with spread wings sitting on a crown, each covered with red sheep's claws.

The increased coat of arms from 1690 (after the Giech was raised to the status of imperial barons ) is also quartered, but additionally covered with a silver heart shield, in it the shield image of the Praunfalk zu Neuhaus: growing from the lower edge is a blue-clad arm with a gold cuff, the three holding golden shamrocks. The Praunfalk came from Styria , where they owned the lordship of Neuhaus (from 1670 Trautenfels), Falkenburg, Forchtenstein and Weyer.

For the elevation to the imperial count status in 1695, the coat of arms was increased again: the shield is divided once and split three times with a quartered heart shield, which corresponds to the first increased coat of arms from 1482; Fields 1 and 8 of the main shield show the shield image of the praunal falcon (on a silver background a blue-clad arm growing out of the lower edge with a golden cuff and holding three golden clovers), fields 2 and 7 show a silver slanting bar in red with three blue horseshoe is occupied one after the other, fields 3 and 6 show three (2: 1) golden balls in blue, fields 4 and 5 show a silver four-spoke mill wheel (comb wheel) in red. Four helmets: Helmet 1 wears the red-clad maiden's torso growing between two red-silver buffalo horns divided across the corner, with long hair (trunk helmet ornament Giech), helmet 2 wears the swan, the wings each covered with red sheep shears (second helmet ornament Giech) 3 carries a growing, blue-clad arm with a golden cuff, which holds three golden clovers (crest of the Praunfalk), helmet 4 carries a silver mill wheel, surrounded by six ostrich feathers, alternating red-black-silver. The arrangement of the shield images on the count's coat of arms was later varied.

The colors red and silver in the coat of arms of the municipality of Stadelhofen are reminiscent of the von Förtsch and von Giech families .

  • Coat of arms according to Scheibler's book of arms , 15. – 16. century

  • Increased coat of arms of the von Giech family in Siebmacher's coat of arms book from 1605

  • Emperor's coat of arms of those of Giech

  • Double coat of arms of the von Giech family at Thurnau Castle

  • Bronze epitaph with the coat of arms of the von Giech family in the Krögelstein church

  • Municipal coat of arms of Thurnau

Personalities

Georg von Giech, Würzburg Cathedral
Carl Graf von Giech (1795–1863), Bavarian politician

See also

literature

  • Franz Karl Ottomar von Guttenberg: Thurnau castle and palace construction . Dedicated to the castle tour in 1913. Assembled from documents. Baumann, Kulmbach 1913.
  • Uta von Pezold: Buchau and the counts of Giech, in: 850 Years Church and Parish Buchau 1139–1989, Mainleus 1989, pp. 27–39
  • Hans Georg and Karl Hiller von Gaertringen (eds.): Wake up - The collections of Count Giech from Thurnau Castle, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-422-07365-4
  • Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume IV, Volume 67 of the complete series, p. 111, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1978, ISSN  0435-2408
  • Georg Schwarz: The Counts and Lords of Giech at Thurnau Castle . In: Local supplement to the official school gazette of the administrative district of Upper Franconia . Bayreuth 1979.
  • Gustav Voigt: the nobility on the Upper Main. The Plassenburg - Writings for local research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia, Vol. 28, Kulmbach 1969.
  • Ernst Heinrich Kneschke , Deutsche Grafen-Haeuser der Gegenwart: in heraldic, historical and genealogical relation , Volume 1, p.266f

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 79. Report of the Histor. Bamberg Association, p. 123 fg., 278
  2. ↑ see also Wandereisen woodcuts from 1523
  3. ↑ a b c d e Bernhard Peter: The history of the coat of arms of the von Giech
  4. ^ A b Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon Volume IV, Volume 67 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1978
  5. ^ Karl Schmutz, Historisch-topographisches Lexicon von Steyermark: N - Se (1822), p. 207 ( digitized version )
  6. ^ Karl Sitzmann : Artists and craftsmen in Eastern Franconia . Kulmbach 1957, p. 186.

Web links

Commons : Giech  - collection of images, videos and audio files

family

coat of arms

Castles