Heinrich IV of Plauen

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Heinrich IV during the siege of the city of Hof, contemporary colored woodcut by Hans Glaser

Heinrich IV. Von Plauen (* 1510 , probably on August 24th in Neuhartenstein ; † May 19, 1554 in Stadtsteinach during the siege of the Plassenburg ) was Colonel Chancellor of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Burgrave of Meissen , Lord of Plauen , Gera , Greiz , Schleiz and Lobenstein , Mr. zu Theusing , Neuhartenstein , Engelsburg and Luditz . The title of Herr von Königswart he had by tradition, that of Beschau , apart from the intermezzo in 1547, also.

Life

Origin and family

Heinrich IV came from the older line of the House of Plauen . He was a son of the burgrave Heinrich III. († 1519) from his second marriage to Barbara von Anhalt-Köthen (1487–1532 / 33)

Before August 29, 1532 Heinrich married Margarete, daughter of Count Nikolaus I von Salm and Neuburg , with whom he had two sons:

⚭ 1. 1564 Princess Katharina of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1548–1565)
⚭ 2. 1566 Princess Anna of Pomerania-Stettin (1531–1592)

Adolescence

After the death of his father, Heinrich grew up on Neuhartenstein, first under the care of his mother and, after her remarriage in 1521, under the supervision of a guardian, Zdenko Leo von Rosenthal , who was appointed by his mother and the Oberstburggrave of the crown of Bohemia. According to his father's will of February 27, 1515, Neuhartenstein was intended only for him and should not be considered as a marriage property if his mother were to remarry. In June 1528 his mother Barbara separated from Johann the Younger from Kolovrat on Maschau and called herself Countess of Meißen again. From Gut Schönhof near Maschau she first went to Theusing and from August 1529 back to her widow's residence, Schlößles Prohor . She refused Heinrich's letter requests to come to him in Neuhartenstein.

At the court of Prague

His guardian placed him in good time at the court of Prague. On April 5, 1530, Heinrich asked King Ferdinand to renew the deed of lease for the Burgraviate of Meissen. For him, it was not about the lands, which were occupied by troops of the Wettin Elector Friedrich the Arguable immediately after the death of the last Meinheringer , who remained childless , but about the position and vote associated with the title in the Reichstag as imperial prince. In 1530 Heinrich accompanied King Ferdinand as one of the four taverns to the Reichstag in Augsburg . On September 19, 1530, Emperor Charles V also confirmed the certificate to him. In the summer of 1532 Heinrich married Margarethe, Countess of Salm and Neuburg. The young couple moved to Castel Sant'Angelo in August 1532. Heinrich had previously been able to convince his mother to leave her widow's residence and come with them, where she died about six months later.

In 1532 the Heinrich IV area consisted of the four dominions Theusing, Neuhartenstein, Engelsburg and Prohor. In 1537 Prohor belonged again to Theusing and Neuhartenstein and Engelsburg were united. An interest and income tax register from this time mentions the rule of Engelsburg-Neuhartenstein. In July 1537, Heinrich rounded off his property with the purchase of the, albeit small, lordship of Luditz.

Also in July 1537, under the chairmanship of the Saxon-Ernestine Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous , a contract of inheritance with Messrs Reuss von Plauen zu Greiz was concluded in Torgau over the Geraic lordships in the event of the death of the childless Lord von Gera . When Heinrich von Gera died childless at Burgk Castle on August 7, 1550 , Heinrich became his feudal heir. From this point in time, Henry IV actually had the entire unified Vogtland assigned to him by King Ferdinand in his hand. His whole life he had to fight off quarrels of his half-brother Heinrich the Fake and from the end of the Schmalkaldic War until his death he led legal disputes with the Russians because of their former rule and the succession of the Geraischen rule.

On January 22nd, 1542, King Ferdinand appointed Heinrich IV. Colonel Chancellor of the Crown of Bohemia, royal councilor and chamberlain.

Schmalkaldic War

Heinrich played a key role in the Prague treaty concluded on November 14, 1546 between King Ferdinand of Bohemia and the Albertine Duke Moritz of Saxony for the implementation of the imperial ban on the Ernestine Elector of Saxony. As Colonel Chancellor of Bohemia, Heinrich took part in the battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547 and in the Wittenberg surrender on May 19, 1547, which ended the Schmalkaldic War , alongside Ferdinand and his brother, Emperor Charles V. In the same function he was in Prague at the end of June 1547, where Ferdinand held the Bohemian Landtag, which went down in history as "the bloody one" and at the Ferdinand's court over the Bohemian estates and rebellious nobles. From confiscated lands, Heinrich received, among other things, the castle and town of Bečov , which his great-grandfather had bought in 1410 and his father had sold to von Pflugk in 1495 . Ferdinand demanded the rule back shortly afterwards. In September 1547 Heinrich's troops occupied Greiz Castle and drove out the Russians . With a certificate from Emperor Charles V dated May 24, 1548, Henry IV was appointed “as the burggrave of Meissen prince of the empire” at the Diet of Augsburg . On January 21, 1549, King Ferdinand Heinrich issued a solemn feudal letter over the Reussian and Geraic rule. Heinrich was officially appointed as sovereign of Greiz and Gera. The legal completion of the inheritance purchase of the lords of Plauen , Voigtsberg and the Pausa office took place a short time later on April 10, 1549.

In the summer of 1551 Heinrich got vacation for the first time in many years and was able to devote himself to the traditional Bohemian lordships and the new ones in Vogtland. So he called representatives of all Vogtland lordships to a joint state parliament in Schleiz, which he opened on July 28, 1551. In Plauen the establishment was made a governor's office as supreme state authority for all Vogtland dominions. For Greiz he issued the first court order and a sovereign police order on September 8, 1551. A drink tax and the Reichspfennigordnung followed on September 11th . In mid-October he left the Vogtland, first to Prague and then to Vienna. He never returned to his Vogtland areas. Although he was a Catholic all his life, he fought off all attempts at recatholization of his Vogtland rulers from outside, promoted the Protestant church and in 1552 issued a castle-count's church order, designed by the Protestant superintendent of Plauen.

Passau Treaty and Combat Albrecht Alcibiades

Siege of the Plassenburg, contemporary woodcut by Hans Glaser

On 15./16. In March 1552, Heinrich IV met Elector Moritz of Saxony in Leipzig and prepared a meeting between Moritz and Ferdinand in Linz, which took place on April 18, 1552. The principles negotiated there formed the foundation of the Passau Agreement of July 22, 1552. Heinrich IV had to convince Emperor Karl V on behalf of King Ferdinand, who sealed the Passau Treaty with his signature on August 15 in Munich . During the subsequent Turkish campaign, Heinrich stayed in Győr until the end of November .

As Chancellor Colonel of Bohemia, Heinrich IV was actively involved in the creation of a new peace order for the empire, for example in the Eger farewell on May 6, 1553, which brought together the interests of the Heidelberg and the Cheb confederations.

On June 29, 1553, Heinrich and Moritz met in Nordhausen and discussed the last details of the procedure against Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach . Shortly afterwards, on July 9, 1553, Moritz was fatally wounded in the battle of Sievershausen . Now Heinrich took over the role of the leader of the allies against Albrecht Alcibiades. On August 7, Heinrich began the siege of Hof , which was captured on September 28, but was recaptured by Albrecht's troops on October 11. On November 27, the allies succeeded in conquering Hof again. Heinrich IV appointed Georg Wolf von Kotzau as governor of Hof . Then began the siege of the Plassenburg near Kulmbach, in which Heinrich IV died on the morning of May 19, 1554 in Stadtsteinach. On May 24th, he was buried in the Johanniskirche in Plauen according to his wishes .

See also

literature

  • Berthold Schmidt : The Reuss, genealogy of the entire Reuss house older and younger line, as well as the extinct Vogtslinien to Weida, Gera and Plauen and the burgraves of Meißen from the House of Plauen. Schleiz 1903.
  • Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV of Meißen, Colonel Chancellor of the Crown of Bohemia and his government in the Vogtlande. Gera 1888.
  • Berthold Schmidt: History of the Reussland. 1st and 2nd half volume, Gera 1923 and 1927.
  • Johannes Richter: On the genealogy and history of the Burgraves of Meißen and Counts of Hartenstein from the older Plauen house. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter 5/1992.
  • Johannes Richter: Burgrave Heinrich IV of Meissen, Count of Hartenstein, Lord of Plauen and Gera - "The Conqueror of Hof". In: History on the Obermain. Volume 19, Lichtenfels 1993/94, pp. 47-55.
  • Gerhard Cheap: The Burgraves of Meißen from the House of Plauen - a sequel to the immediate imperial position and rule of the bailiffs of Weida, Plauen and Gera. Part 2 . In: Messages from the Association for Vogtland History, Folklore and Regional Studies. - Plauen. - Vol. 6 (49) (1998), pp. 51-82.
  • Ferdinand Hahn:  Heinrich V, burgrave of Meissen . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 577-579.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV of Meißen, Colonel Chancellor of the Crown of Bohemia and his government in the Vogtlande. Gera 1888. p. 38
  2. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 45
  3. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 40
  4. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 46
  5. a b Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 55
  6. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 60
  7. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 59
  8. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 232
  9. ^ Berthold Schmidt: Burgrave Heinrich IV. Zu Meißen, ... , p. 170
  10. ^ Kurt Stierstorfer: The Siege of Hof 1553 . Hof 2003. ISBN 3-928626-43-4 .