Hieronymus Marchstaller

Abbot Hieronymus Marchstaller (portrait by Lorenz Glaber, 1629)

Hieronymus Marchstaller OSB (* 1576 in Weingarten ; † 1638 ) was a Catholic clergyman during the Counter Reformation . From 1616 to 1638 he was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Paul in Lavanttal . During his tenure, he led the monastery, which was in crisis, to a new bloom by expanding and acquiring properties, which is why he is also referred to as the "second founder" of the monastery.

Life

Marchstaller was born in Weingarten in Upper Swabia in 1576 and entered the Benedictine monastery in Ochsenhausen as a monk . In 1610 he was prior of the Styrian monastery of St. Lambrecht .

Accompanied by four monks from St. Lambrecht, he came to the Carinthian Benedictine Abbey of St. Paul in Lavanttal in 1616 and took up the office of abbot there. At that time, the abbey was in a badly neglected condition, which was partly due to the mismanagement of its predecessors. Marchstaller restored monastery breeding, abolished the monks' private property and reintroduced the cloister . Shortly after taking office, he initiated the expansion of the monastery complex and made changes to the collegiate church.The current appearance of the complex is essentially based on his plans and the expansions that had begun under him, which, due to the difficult economic situation, were initially due to the removal of Damage and the renovation of the farm buildings were limited. It was not until Abbot Albert Reichhart (reigned 1677–1727) that the extensive complex was completed in its current form. Marchstaller commissioned a number of artists and craftsmen to design the interior of the collegiate church, including his “court painter” Jakob Lorenz Glaber, the Saxon sculptor Michael Hönel , who also worked in St. Lambrecht and above all at the Gurk Cathedral , and the carpenter from Velden Konrad Scherer, who made the prelate's chair, the pews and the doors of the collegiate church.

Marchstaller also had the monastery archives organized and dealt intensively with the origins of the monastery. He wrote a history of the monastery, which is no longer preserved today, and had Jakob Glaber make a number of pictures of the donors. In 1625 he had Urban VIII in Rome confirm the papal privileges for St. Paul. Marchstaller also made sure that the staff resident in St. Paul - when he took office he only met eight monks and one novice in St. Paul - grew to thirty professed, of which 14 came from Carinthia, eight from Swabia and Bavaria, six from from Styria and two from Salzburg.

Marchstaller took back many of the monastery 's previously pledged goods, but sold remote properties. In addition, he acquired numerous new lands for the monastery, including regaining the Faal / Fale dominion in Lower Styria, acquired by his predecessor and then given away to his brother. In the immediate vicinity of the monastery he bought the Unterdrauburg rulership and in 1629 the Rabenstein rulership, which was adjacent to the monastery in the south, came to the monastery after the members of the Rabensteiner noble family, who adhered to Protestantism , had been expelled from the country. The castle burned down completely as early as 1636 and was not rebuilt, but with the reign, St. Paul had also grown by 97 hubs, 19 Zuleheads and 25 châteaux .

The pasture and arable land in the immediate vicinity of Sankt Paul was cultivated by a new meier farm at the foot of the collegiate hill .

In addition to the office of Abbot of St. Paul, Marchstaller was also administrator and vicar general of the diocese of Lavant from 1618 after the death of Lavant Bishop Georg Stobäus von Palmburg and from 1625 archdeacon of the Salzburg archbishop for the eastern Lavant valley. In addition, he was a member of the "Great Committee" of the Carinthian Parliament from 1616. In 1619 he acquired a building on Klagenfurt's Heiligengeistplatz (on the site of today's Gutenberghaus) that served as St. Paul’s residence in the state capital. He also campaigned for the restoration of the neighboring Heiligengeistkirche , laid the foundation stone for this in 1630 in the presence of the entire state parliament and had the altarpiece of the new church, which depicts the Pentecostal miracle, made by Lorenz Glaber.

The expansion of the monastery, which Marchstaller began, the "keystone" of which was the construction of the representative main portal, which was completed shortly before his death in 1638, was carried out by his successors, Paul Memminger (1638–1660) and Philipp Rothenhäusler (1661–1677), who were also from Swabia ) and continued by Albert Reichhart (1677–1727).

literature

• Gerfried Sitar: The Abbey in Paradise. The St. Paul Abbey in Lavanttal . Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2179-3
• Claudia Fräss-Ehrfeld: History of Carinthia, Volume II: The class epoch . Johannes Heyn, Klagenfurt 1994, ISBN 3-85366-685-X , pp. 653-655

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Fräss-Ehrfeld 1994, p. 654
2. ↑ ^{a b} Sitar 2009, p. 24.
3. ↑ Sitar 2009, p. 25
4. ↑ Fräss-Ehrfeld 1994, p. 653