Jacob III (Baden-Hachberg)

Jacob III from Baden-Hachberg

Margrave Jacob III. von Baden (born May 26, 1562 ; † August 17, 1590 ) was Margrave of Baden-Hachberg in Emmendingen from 1584 to 1590 . In 1590 he converted from Lutheranism to the Catholic denomination, causing political turmoil.

Life

Jakob was the second son of Margrave Karl II of Baden and Anna von Pfalz-Veldenz , daughter of Count Palatine Ruprecht von Pfalz-Veldenz . From 1577 he received his education at the court of his Lutheran guardian Ludwig von Württemberg together with his brother Ernst Friedrich. Jakob was very interested in the innovations in science and studied in Tübingen and Strasbourg . It was formed by traveling to Italy and France .

The guardian government 1577–1584

Since the death of his father had a guardianship government with his mother Anna, Elector Ludwig VI. of the Palatinate (until 1583), Duke Philipp Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg and Duke Ludwig von Württemberg ("the Pious") exercised the business of government. His guardians signed the Agreement Formula of 1577 and the Book of Agreement of 1580 in Jacob's name .

The division of the country

Since Jacob and the eldest son of Charles II, Ernst Friedrich, wanted their own territories and the will of Charles II, which prohibited a division of the country, was not signed and sealed, the remaining guardians complied with the sons' demands, and Jacob received the margraviate of Hachberg with the main town Emmendingen and the stronghold .

His brothers Ernst Friedrich and Georg Friedrich also received parts of the country, so that the country was further divided beyond the existing division into Baden-Durlach and Baden-Baden . The margraviate of Baden-Hachberg fell back to Ernst Friedrich in 1590 after the death of Jacob, and Georg Friedrich was able to reunite the entire margraviate of Baden-Durlach after Ernst Friedrich's death.

The convert

Of the three sons of the prince, Jakob was the one who later turned to the Catholic faith during the turbulent times of confessionalization . The older brother, Ernst Friedrich , opted for Calvinism , while the younger Georg Friedrich remained Lutheran.

When war broke out between Duke Ernst of Bavaria and the Archbishop and Elector Gebhard of Cologne in the Cologne bishopric election, he fought under the Spanish general Alexander Farnese of Parma . The elector tried to reform the archbishopric and allied himself with the beautiful Countess Agnes von Mansfeld . Margrave Jacob III later served. under the Catholic Duke Charles of Lorraine .

In 1584 the 22-year-old Margrave of Baden married Jakob III. the 16-year-old Countess Elisabeth von Pallandt-Culemborg . She was the sole heir to a very large fortune. In the happy marriage of only six years, four children were born. In 1588 the couple moved from the stronghold (Emmendingen) to the small Emmendingen residence . On January 1, 1590, Jacob III awarded the previous market town of Emmendingen the city rights.

During this time of confessionalization, the deeply religious margrave closely observed the Christian camps that were forming: those of the Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. So he had two colloquia held in 1589 and 1590 , the first in Baden between Württemberg - Lutheran and Catholic theologians , the second in Emmendingen . Here in the main town of the Hachberg margraviate, the Strasbourg Lutheran Johannes Pappus in particular disputed with Jacob's court preacher Johannes Zehender. Then converted Margrave Jacob III. - like his doctor and advisor in all questions of life, Johannes Pistorius two years earlier - on July 15, 1590 in the monastery of Tennenbach on the Catholic faith. This caused quite a stir in Germany, as he was the first ruling Protestant prince in Germany to convert to Catholicism after 1555 . Pope Sixtus V had high hopes for the margrave. With Jacob's conversion, Emmendingen became Catholic again for a short time on August 10, 1590, following the ruling of the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555 " cuius regio, eius religio ".

But just a week later, the 28-year-old Margrave, who had been in good health, died surprisingly. The summoned canon Adolph Wolff von Metternich (1553–1619) from Speyer stood by him until his death and donated the sacraments to him . Jacob's body was dissected by Pistorius and two professors from the Freiburg Medical Faculty - it was one of the first forensic medicine sections in Germany. The protocol, which was precisely written by Pistorius in Latin, reports that no organ has shown any disease. "Solus ventriculus ... tribus locis, ubi venenum adhaeserat, perforatus ad tertiam pelliculam erat, erosis duris interioribus duabus tunicis" - "Only the stomach was in three places where the poison had stuck to another place a 'powder white' ' , perforated up to the third skin after the two inner hard skins had been eaten through. ”Both the course of the disease and the autopsy findings, as well as the awareness and availability of the poison at that time, make poisoning with arsenic (As ₂ O ₃ ) practically certain. Against his testamentary instruction, Jacob III. buried in the castle church there instead of in the then Catholic Baden-Baden in Protestant Pforzheim . The inscription on the epitaph does not mention its conversion and subsequent events with any syllable. A week later, Jacob's widow Elisabeth von Pallandt-Culemborg came down with their son Ernst Jakob; it was illegally taken from her by Jacob's brother Ernst Friedrich. In his care, this last legal heir of the Hachberger Land died on May 29, 1591. After Elisabeth von Pallandt-Culemborg had also become a Catholic after Jacob's death, she was refused the widow's residence in Emmendingen, which was granted in her will. So it came about that after Jacob's death, the margraviate of Baden-Hachberg fell to his brother Ernst Friedrich , who reintroduced the Reformation.

The events of Jacob III. in Emmendingen are an example of the increasing polarization in questions of faith at the time. The tensions between the denominations thus fueled as well as the claims to power of German regents and duodec princes were to be terribly discharged almost three decades later in the Thirty Years' War .

Marriage and offspring

Margrave Jacob III. from Baden and Hachberg

Jacob married on September 6, 1584 Elisabeth von Pallandt-Culemborg (* 1567; † May 8, 1620), the daughter of Count Florence I of Pallandt-Culemborg (1537–1598). This marriage had the following children:

• Anna (June 13, 1585; † March 11, 1649), married Count Wolrad IV of Waldeck-Eisenberg in 1607 (July 7, 1588; † October 6, 1640)
• Ernst Karl (born June 21, 1588; † September 19, 1588)
• Jakobäa (June 2, 1589 - September 29, 1625)
• Ernst Jakob (* August 24, 1590; † May 29, 1591)

literature

• Hans-Jürgen Günther: Jacob III., A forgotten Emmendinger? Reformation and Counter-Reformation in our homeland. in: Emmendinger Heimatkalender 1990. pp. 50–59.
• Hans-Jürgen Günther: Margrave Jacob III. von Baden and Hachberg (1562–1590). The image of the city founder of Emmendingen through the centuries. Reprint from Badische Heimat 4/1990, Karlsruhe.
• Hans-Jürgen Günther: The section of the Baden margrave Jacob III. - The earliest forensic medical case of the University of Freiburg from 1590. in: Contributions to forensic medicine. Vol. 2, Vienna 1991, pp. 297-305.
• Hans-Jürgen Günther: The Reformation and their children - father and son Johannes Pistorius Niddanus - a double biography. Niddaer Geschichtsblätter, No. 2, Nidda 1994.
• Hans-Jürgen Günther: Johannes Pistorius Niddanus the Younger - humanist, doctor, historian, politician and theologian (1546–1608). in: Life pictures from Baden-Württemberg. 19. Vol. 109-145, Stuttgart 1998.
• Hans-Jürgen Günther: Margrave Jacob III. von Baden (1562-1590) - A denominational conflict and its victims. in: Freiburg Diocesan Archive . Volume 126, Third Series, 2006.
• Hans-Jörg Jenne, Gerhard A. Auer (ed.): History of the city of Emmendingen ,. Volume I: From the beginning to the end of the 18th century. Emmendingen 2006, pp. 185-278.
• Felix Stieve:  Jakob III., Margrave of Baden and Hochberg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, pp. 534-538.
• Helmut Steigelmann:  Jakob III. - Margrave of Baden and Hachberg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 311 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Werner Baumann: Ernst Friedrich von Baden-Durlach. Stuttgart 1962, pp. 33-63.
• Johann Pistorius: Badische Disputation - Kurtze verhaffte and out of…. Cologne 1590. in the Google book search
• Johann Pistorius: Warhaffte short description (of the last illness ... of Jacobs Margrafens to Baden). Mainz 1590. (online)
• Udo Krolzik:  JAKOB III .. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1510-1511.

Web links

• Works by and about Jakob III.  in the German Digital Library
• Arthur Kleinschmidt : Jacob III., Margrave of Baden and Hochberg, the first ruling convertite in Germany . Frankfurt a. M. 1875. Digitized
• Jacob III - Emmendinger Religious Discussion 1590
• Johannes Pistorius the Elder J.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See BSLK , p. 16 and p. 763.
2. ↑ s. Baumann pp. 21/22.
3. ^ Ludwig Stamer : Church history of the Palatinate , 3rd part, 1st volume, p. 132 u. 133, Pilger Verlag Speyer, 1954.
4. ^ Double epitaph of the Margrave Jacob III. and Ernst Friedrich von Baden, in the Pforzheim Castle Church (picture can be enlarged; Jakob III. right)

predecessor	Office	successor
Territory split off from the Mgft. Baden-Durlach under regent Anna von Pfalz-Veldenz	Margrave of Baden-Hachberg 1584–1590	absorbed in Mgft. Baden-Durlach under Ernst Friedrich