Holzach (family)

Representatives of the Holzach family are first attested in 1240 as the owners of the Counts of Rapperswil. From the 13th to the 16th century, carriers of the name Holzach have been found in Zurich , Bern , Baden and Liestal .

The plumber Conzmann Holzach, occupied from 1385, founded the Basel line. His son Konrad Holzach was a monk of St. Urban and later abbot of Lützel and took part in the councils of Constance and Basel . Oswald Holzach († 1495), a grandson of Conzmann, worked as a merchant and in 1481 was appointed chief guild master (2nd post after the mayor). After that, the family experienced a gradual social decline. Oswald's son Eucharius Holzach and his son Onophrion († 1552) were still members of the Small Council . In the following generations the family was only represented in the Grand Council .

It was not until the second half of the 18th century that individual family members found their way back into the urban elite. The painter Hieronymus Holzach (1733–1793) was the federal bailiff in Mendrisio from 1772–1774 , the theologian Hans Conrad Holzach (1753–1826) became vice rector of the grammar school in 1784 and dean of the Farnsburg chapter in 1814. Other family members worked as merchants and entrepreneurs. The beer brewer Dietrich Holzach (1836–1905) founded a line in Aarau from which the bank manager Robert Holzach emerged .

Sources and literature

• State Archives Basel-Stadt , PA 738a (family archive)
• Albert Iten: The Holzach of Central Switzerland and the City of Basel. Name and family history. In: Heimat-Klänge. Supplement to the Zuger Nachrichten. 53: 29-39 (1973).
• Gustaf Adolf Wanner : The Holzach. Story of an old Swiss family. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel / Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7190-0833-9 .

Web links

• Stefan Hess : Holzach. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Information on the Holzach family archive in the Basel-Stadt state archive
• Distribution of the family name Holzach in Switzerland
• Family tree of the Holzach family in the 15th and 16th centuries at www.stroux.org (PDF; 29 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Cf. Markus Lutz : Baslerisches Bürgerbuch . Schweighauser, 1819, p. 162 ( digitized in the Google book search).