Gordian Seuter

Portrait of Gordian Seuter (1534)

Gordian Seuter (* 15th century ; † November 14, 1534 ) was mayor of the Free Imperial City of Kempten and representative of the Seuter patrician family . As a key figure, the imperial city of Kempten owed its absolute independence from the Princely Monastery of Kempten from 1525 onwards . During the peasant war he also acted as a mediator between the kemptischen peasants and the abbot. Seuter was also Imperial Councilor and Federal Councilor in the Swabian Confederation .

Live and act

The Patrician 1506 as Stadtammann been mentioned and was active from 1515 as mayor.

Thanks to Seuter, the imperial city was able to maintain its neutrality during the Peasants' War. There was no interference, but the citizens of the imperial city sympathized with the peasants, as they identified the prince monastery as a common enemy.

In 1525, Seuter took advantage of the unfortunate situation of Prince Abbot Sebastian von Breitenstein - he had to flee because of plundering monasteries and sought asylum in the imperial city - and bought all rights within the imperial city for 30,000 guilders. Breitenstein needed this money because his monastery was looted and partially destroyed during the Peasants' War. This event went down in history as the Great Purchase . In 1526 Seuter was a signatory to the Memmingen Treaty . Four years later, Emperor Charles V appointed him to his council and he and his heirs under his and the empire's protection and protection.

Seuter was called by the emperor to the imperial assembly on reforms of the coinage in Speyer . In 1532, Seuter and Duke Ernst of Bavaria were the highest imperial steward for the Imperial War against the Turks .

Seuter resisted the accession of the imperial city of Kempten to the Schmalkaldic League and the alliance of the Protestant imperial estates.

After the Peasants' War, the former mayor moved to Letten Castle at the gates of Kempten and later settled in the Ottobeuren monastery : Seuter felt the removal of the church decorations and the recently established Seuterkapelle in the course of the Reformation in the St. Mang- Church as ecclesiastical desecration.

Since the Seuterkapelle was no longer ideologically an option as his planned burial site, he was buried in an epitaph adorned with coat of arms on the choir wall to the cloister of the former Ottobeuren monastery. Because of his childlessness, his brother Lorenz inherited the imperial diplomas and the family fortune.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Wolfgang Petz, Josef Kirmeier, Wolfgang Jahn and Evamaria Brockhoff (eds.): "Citizen diligence and prince-luster." Imperial city and prince abbey of Kempten. House of Bavarian History , Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-927233-60-9 , pp. 89–91.
2. ^ Gudrun Litz: The Reformation picture question in the Swabian imperial cities. Mohr Siebeck, 2007, ISBN 3161491246 , p. 222.

literature

• Max Förderreuther : Gordian Seuter. A picture of life . Kempten 1926.
• Friedrich Zollhoefer (Hrsg.): In Eduard Zimmermann, Friedrich Zollhoefer: Kempter coat of arms and symbols including the city and district of Kempten and the adjacent areas of the upper Allgäu. In: Heimatverein Kempten (Ed.): Allgäuer Geschichtsfreund. 2. Delivery, No. 62, Kempten 1962, p. 309f.