Hermann Gessler

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Friedrich Pecht : Gessler
Gessler and Tell; Drawing by Ernst Stückelberg

Gessler , the "Reichsvogt in Schwyz and Uri", is a legendary Vogt of the Habsburg rule in Schwyz and Uri at the time of the formation of the Old Confederation . In the dramatization by Friedrich Schiller (1804) Gessler has the first name Hermann .

Gessler's death, fresco in the Tell Chapel on Lake Lucerne

According to the legend of Aegidius Tschudi , Wilhelm Tell , a member of the Confederation in the Hohlen Gasse near Küssnacht am Rigi, shot the high Habsburg state official Gessler with an arrow from his crossbow after he had forced him to shoot an apple and then wanted to imprison him for life . This tyrannicide was the immediate cause of the armed uprising of the secret allies.

In the White book of Sarnen of 1470 was of a gesler / who was vogt ze ze V re vnd Switz ... "... reported.

Coat of arms of the Gessler von Brunegg in the Kappel monastery . In historical depictions of the Tell saga, this coat of arms is often ascribed to Landvogt Gessler.

A family with the name Gessler (also Gesler or Gisler ) von Meienberg has been proven in Aargau since the middle of the 13th century as a ministerial family in the service of the Habsburgs and held various lands in lease or ownership. Their rise is closely linked to that of the Habsburgs, who rose from local nobles to counts and dukes of the Holy Roman Empire and finally achieved royal dignity. A Heinrich Gessler obtained the knighthood in 1319. His son Hermann actually held the office of bailiff in 1375 as a Habsburg treasurer and councilor , but not in Altdorf in Uri , but in Zurich 's Grüningen Castle . In the late 14th century, the Gessler von Meienberg family also owned Brunegg Castle . Gisler is an old and widely branched family in the canton of Uri . A Walter Gisler is mentioned as an arbitrator in Seelisberg in 1365. The origin of the surname Gessler , Gisler (etc.) is the personal name Giselher . In the Middle Ages this derivation was in competition with folk etymology with the connection to Middle High German gîseler "debt collector".

Historical research in the 19th century tried to find possible historical models for the figure of Gessler. A Vogt of this name in Schwyz or Uri could not be proven. In contrast, a Johannes Gessler is mentioned, who is documented as a landowner in Küssnacht in 1314. According to Schärer (1986), this Johannes Gessler should also be mentioned as "des Vogtes sun" and was killed in 1315 near Morgarten . His father Ulrich Gessler, also known as Ulrich von Meggen, was born in Wigwill in Aargau in 1224 and died in October 1289 near Küßnacht am Rigi.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinricus Gessler de Meienberg alias Gisler , in: Ernst Ludwig Rochholz : Tell and Gessler in Sage and History: According to documentary sources , 1876, p. 148
  2. ^ Rolf Gisler-Jauch: Gisler. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2017 .
  3. ↑ Kathrin Dräger, Familiennames aus Rufnamen (2017), 206 .
  4. ↑ Ernst Ludwig Rochholz, Tell and Gessler in Sage and History. According to documented sources (1877), p. 177
  5. ↑ Arnold Claudio Schärer, "... and there was Tell after all" (1986), quoted from the list of ancestors Jürgen Rüdiger Klatt from GENprofi4, written by Dierk Feye .

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