Joachim (Ortenburg)

Imperial Count Joachim von Ortenburg at the age of 60.

Reichsgraf Joachim (born September 6, 1530 in Mattighofen , † March 19, 1600 in Nuremberg ) was a Lower Bavarian nobleman from the wealthy Ortenburg family and ruled the realm of Ortenburg from 1551 to 1600 . He was the only son of Count Christoph I and his second wife Anna Freiin von Firmian . In view of his education and political relationships, Joachim was considered one of the most educated and influential personalities of the 16th century. Due to his parental influence, he soon campaigned vehemently for the teaching of Martin Luther and the spread of Protestantism . Joachim introduced the Protestant faith in his small county in 1563 and has been the reformer of Ortenburg ever since . He did not shy away from the resulting conflict, including his 8000 hectare county, he successfully braced himself against the overwhelming power of the Bavarian duchy for many decades .

Live and act

youth

Martin Luther (1483–1546) in 1529. His teachings influenced Joachim so much that he soon became an advocate of them.

Representation of the marriage connection of Joachim and Ursula von Fugger from the Fugger's Secret Book of Honor.

From a young age Joachim was influenced by Lutheran teachings. His parents, Count Christoph and Anna Freiin von Firmian, converted to the Lutheran faith in 1538 . Joachim himself remained a Catholic because he was only eight years old, but on the other hand, in order to be able to complete his school education without conflicts.

Joachim's talent was already evident at a young age - at the age of only eight he greeted all the guests present at the wedding party of his cousin Count Karl I in a speech in Latin . At the age of 13 he studied at Ingolstadt University . Joachim completed his studies in just two years and was particularly noticeable because of his hard work and his exceptional perception for his age. In 1545 he left the university and was able to speak and write fluently in Latin and Italian. Joachim was also interested in historical studies, which he carried out throughout his life.

After completing his studies, he went on a study trip to Italy for several years . There he trained not only in art, but also in jurisprudence. In 1547 Joachim was enrolled in the law faculty of the University of Padua . No further information is known about Joachim's stay in Italy.

On May 19, 1549 Joachim married the young Countess Ursula von Fugger , daughter of Count Raymund Fugger in Mickhausen . This marriage brought 30,000 guilders as a dowry to the House of Ortenburg.

Reign

After the death of his father, Count Christoph I am 22 April 1551 would be Joachim, due to the force since the mid-13th century Senioratsnachfolge in the house Ortenburg, the third in succession for the office of count by Sebastian II. And John III. been. Sebastian II., George III. and Joachim entered the service of Emperor Charles V as a councilor on April 28, 1551. The emperor advised Sebastian II against exercising the office of imperial count because of his advanced age. After careful consideration, on May 21, 1551, due to physical disabilities, he renounced it in favor of his nephew Joachim. Thus, at the age of only 21, Joachim became provisional count - until Sebastian's death. Johann III. did not object to this decision. Joachim was officially enfeoffed on June 5, 1551 by Emperor Karl V with the imperial countship.

Count Joachim was to be the incumbent Count of Ortenburg for 49 years, from 1551 to 1600. However, in order to be able to continue to maintain the small imperial immediate county independently, he, like many of his ancestors, had to establish influential political relationships. Due to his high level of education and his position as a powerful and influential imperial estate in the Duchy of Bavaria, he quickly succeeded in doing this. So by 1553 he was the spokesman for the estates in the state parliaments. He stayed in continuous correspondence with many of them.

At the same time, Joachim's interest in the teachings of Martin Luther grew . He soon became a proponent of its teaching. In 1553 he campaigned for the first time publicly for complaints about church abuses . At the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1555, Joachim stood up for the Augsburg confession and for the Protestant side. Joachim was very pleased with the conclusion of the Augsburg Religious Peace , as he hoped that the evangelical doctrine would now spread more widely.

In the same year, 1555, Joachim was elected adjutant to Duke Albrecht V by the Bavarian estates . Thus, Joachim's influence and power in the Holy Roman Empire grew considerably. In the same year, the estates sent him to Ghent to see Emperor Charles V , in order to obtain confirmation and renewal of the privileges of the Bavarian estates there.

In 1557 Joachim publicly professed the Protestant faith. He tried to give further expression to his belief in Lutheran doctrine. He also appeared in the following years on diets of the Duchy of Bavaria again and again as spokesman for the Protestant estates in appearance. Between the parliaments , Joachim stayed in correspondence with the Lutheran princes and estates, especially with Baron Pankraz von Freyberg .

When Sebastian II died on August 26, 1559, Johann III. the right to hold the office of imperial count, since Joachim was only in government at the tolerance of the elder of the Ortenburg count house. But Johann also waived because he was an imperial captain in South Tyrol and wanted to stay there due to his marriage. In November 1559 Joachim was enfeoffed again by Emperor Ferdinand I and this time finally with the county. Thus Joachim became the undisputed imperial count and colonel of the count family.

Albrecht V (1528–1579) changed in the course of time from Joachim's friend to his greatest adversary.

In 1563 a state parliament was held in Ingolstadt . There the Protestant estates tried again to achieve equality of the Lord's Supper in both forms. Count Joachim was the spokesman for the Lutheran side. However, there was no majority in this state parliament either, and the Protestants' concerns failed. The Bavarian Duke was unwilling to make such a far-reaching decision without a papal council. Furthermore, Duke Albrecht V was annoyed by the vehement attitude of his adjutant Joachim. The state parliament was dissolved after a short time without a decision. The Duke then had a secret report drawn up about the so-called denominationalists , the stubborn Lutheran princes. In the report, assumptions were made that some states were planning a conspiracy with the help of foreign forces and aimed at a violent overthrow of the political and ecclesiastical order in Bavaria. The results of this study and further Joachim's behavior should to trigger the so-called " Ortenburgers aristocratic conspiracy " are. After their demands failed, Joachim and Pankraz von Freyberg stayed in touch with everyone in writing.

Joachim, for his part, was very angry about the outcome of the state parliament, as the discussion had been going on for years and no decision had been made since then. After the end of the state parliament, however, he did not travel to Ortenburg, but to the coronation of Maximilian II as King of Hungary in Pressburg . On this trip he found time to deal with the events of the last few years and soon realized that neither the duke nor most of the estates were ready to introduce the Augsburg confession in full. So he made the decision to introduce the Reformation in the immediate empire county after his return to Ortenburg.

On October 17, 1563, Joachim had Johann Friedrich Coelestin hold the first public Protestant service in the Marktkirche Ortenburg and a few days later declared the introduction of the Reformation in the county by edict . Ortenburg was one of the first imperial principalities that dared to introduce the Reformation in the midst of a Catholic area. The Duke urged Joachim several times to reverse this step. This was the trigger for the intensified struggle for imperial immediacy, which had been smoldering before the imperial court in Speyer since Duke Wilhelm IV's complaint in 1549 . Since 1504, Duke Albrecht IV tried vigorously to clear up his ducal territory and to incorporate many small states into the duchy. He also tried this at the imperial county of Ortenburg, but failed at the time because of the imperial immediacy of the county. Duke Albrecht V and Count Joachim were close friends, however, so the process before the Imperial Court of Justice was only partially pursued by Bavaria until the Reformation was introduced. However, since the relationship between Albrecht and Joachim deteriorated between 1553 and 1563, the trial became more important again for Albrecht, as it was a suitable means of pressure against the Imperial Count. When Joachim introduced the Reformation in Ortenburg, Duke Albrecht V was forced to intervene. He pushed the process before the Reich Chamber of Commerce and from then on pushed for an early decision. The Duke hoped that the process would be decided in his favor and that - after Ortenburg had become a Bavarian fief - the Reformation could be reversed. But Albrecht realized that the court process would not come to a verdict all too soon as hoped. Since the influence of the Lutheran faith in the Ortenburg area grew steadily, the duke had to intervene as quickly as possible.

In order to put Joachim further under pressure, he referred to an "opening right" of the castles Alt- and Neu-Ortenburg from the year 1391. This was created under the counts Georg I. and Etzel , which at that time by Duke Heinrich XVI. had been blackmailed by Bayern-Landshut . On December 17, 1563, Duke Albrecht V opened and occupied the two Ortenburg festivals. This had little success, as Joachim did not reside in Ortenburg but in Mattighofen.

On February 20, 1564, the Duke had the Ortenburg pastors arrested. Albrecht placed her across the Danube near Sandbach and made her swear never to return to Bavaria. Despite the right of opening, he had no right to these machinations. Joachim complained in this regard because of a breach of the state and religious peace in court and opened another trial before the Reich Chamber of Commerce. He also complained to Emperor Ferdinand I and King Maximilian II.

In order to prevent the further spread of the faith, Albrecht V soon blocked all entrances to the imperial county. However, this measure was only partially successful, as the Bavarian population tried even more to get into the county in order to follow Luther's teaching there. Joachim himself remained persistent and did not change his views.

Duke Albrecht V was now determined to the utmost to force Joachim to reverse the Reformation. So in 1564 he confiscated the Bavarian fiefs and possessions of the Ortenburg count family and had the count's castles and palaces opened by force, including Mattighofen Castle, which he had opened by force. In the process, all of Joachim's correspondence with Pankratz and the estates fell into Albrecht's hands. After looking through the letters and files, the Duke believed he had found evidence of the conspiracy within Bavaria that had been suspected since the Landtag in Ingolstadt . He also hoped through another process to be able to put Joachim even more under pressure. In June 1564 Albrecht V then sued the court in Munich against Joachim, Pankratz and their comrades-in-arms.

The defendants, including Joachim, traveled to Munich to defend themselves. However, it soon turned out that an acquittal was foreseeable. Furthermore, Emperor Ferdinand I campaigned vehemently for the Ortenburgers and tried to mediate. After signing a declaration, the accused were allowed to leave the detention center in Munich and return home. Only their defenders continued the negotiations.

After Emperor Ferdinand I died in 1565, his successor Maximilian II quickly tried to find a solution. He even obliged the Bavarian duke several times to return the feudal estates, against which the duke vigorously resisted. The Protestant princes of Saxony , Württemberg and Neuburg soon agreed to help Joachim. They wanted to bring the Ortenburg matter up at the next Reichstag in Augsburg and use it as a means of pressure for questions in the religious conflict that had not yet been resolved.

Emperor Maximilian II wanted to prevent this and increasingly advocated a solution to the conflict. However, he did not manage to get both parties to reach an agreement before the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1566. There the imperial princes stood up for Joachim and his county. Duke Albrecht now feared being punished because of the Augsburg Imperial and Religious Peace of 1555. The Duke asked the Elector of Saxony to take on the role of mediator. The latter agreed, and negotiations started again. On May 10, 1566, a treaty was finally concluded in which Joachim and all the accused of the so-called aristocratic conspiracy declared that they had no conspiracy in mind. In addition, the Munich charges were dropped. Duke Albrecht thus achieved the silence of the Bavarian estates on the question of faith despite the legal defeat. As a sign of goodwill and as part of the agreement, Duke Joachim returned his Bavarian fiefs and possessions, including the rich Mattighofen estate . Furthermore, it was contractually agreed that the people of Ortenburg were allowed to remain Protestant, only the service in the market church was discontinued. Only in the chapel at New Ortenburg could be preached Protestant. This agreement on the question of faith was limited in time until the final judgment of the Reich Chamber Court.

Until 1565 Joachim himself was always a staunch Lutheran. However, two years later, in 1567, the first tendencies were already evident that he personally tended towards Calvinism .

Count Joachim realized that the dukes would never give up their efforts to incorporate the imperial county. For this reason, he created in 1566 together with his two cousins Ulrich III. and Johann III. a new law of inheritance. The seniorate succession for the Reichsgrafenamt, which had been in effect orally since the 13th century, was legally stipulated. Joachim also had his law confirmed by Emperor Maximilian II. This secured the continuation of the line of succession of the House of Ortenburg in the event that a branch of the family died out.

On March 4, 1573, the Imperial Court of Justice passed the verdicts on the two ongoing negotiations on the imperial immediacy of Ortenburg and the violation of Ortenburg's privileges by the Bavarian duke. It was confirmed that Ortenburg is an imperial fiefdom with all associated imperial privileges and blood jurisdiction . This confirmed the independence of the county from the Duchy of Bavaria. The opening right from the year 1391 was declared null and void as this constituted a violation of imperial rights. The Bavarian dukes were also obliged not to contest Ortenburg's imperial immediacy any more and to maintain silence on this matter.

Count Joachim saw his view confirmed and immediately resumed the Protestant services for the population in the market church, which Duke Albrecht disliked. He was now trying other ways to achieve his goal.

After Count Joachim's son Anton died on May 23, 1573, Duke Albrecht saw this as a new opportunity to claim the county for himself. He hoped that after Joachim's death the imperial county would not fall to members of the House of Ortenburg, but would be viewed as a reverted fiefdom. Albrecht thereupon asked in a letter from 1574 to Emperor Maximilian to be able to claim the county for himself. Maximilian, however, only partially agreed with Albrecht and assured him of the county in the event that the entire noble family of the Ortenburgers should die out. The reason for the emperor's decision was the law of the Ortenburg succession from 1566, which Maximilian himself had confirmed in 1567.

After Joachim had relocated the services from the palace chapel to the larger market church and these were again accessible to a wider audience, the interest of the Bavarian population soon grew again. Soon afterwards many moved to Ortenburg to learn about Luther's teachings. In order to prevent a renewed expansion of the faith, Duke Albrecht blocked the access to the county again in 1575. Again he moved Joachim's fiefdom in the Duchy of Bavaria to force him to stop the services. The Bavarian traders were also instructed by the Duchy not to conduct any trade with the County of Ortenburg. Joachim complained again to the Reich Chamber of Commerce in this regard. This decided on June 28, 1575 and October 1, 1576 in favor of Joachim. Duke Albrecht V did not react immediately and kept the Ortenburg possessions for the time being. It was not until 1577 that Albrecht V released Joachim's possessions again. Why the duke went unpunished, however, is unknown.

Despite the return and the court rulings in favor of Joachim, there were further religious conflicts in the period that followed. Due to the ongoing disputes with the Bavarian dukes, Joachim, like his ancestor George I , soon no longer ruled out the sale of the imperial county. He planned to move to the Protestant north after a sale and settle there.

Wilhelm V (1548–1626) followed his father in 1579. He too saw no reason to stop the fight against Count Joachim.

After Duke Albrecht V's death in 1579, Wilhelm V became Duke of Bavaria. Joachim soon approached him with a request for the return of his possessions and fiefs on Bavarian land. Because of his considerations, which arose from the longstanding conflict, he made the duke an alternative offer. If Wilhelm were not willing to return Joachim's possessions, he would be ready to discuss the sale of the Bavarian fiefs and possessions as well as the imperial county. In exchange he would accept an area on the northern border of the Duchy of Bavaria. However, the Duke saw no reason for this and declined Joachim's offers.

The Electors Duke August von Sachsen and Johann Georg von Brandenburg as well as Wolfgang von Dalberg , the Archbishop of Mainz, and Johann von Schönenberg , the Archbishop of Trier, strongly advocated negotiations between Wilhelm and Joachim. In 1584 Donauwörth was chosen as the place of negotiation. Even Emperor Rudolf II took part in order to end the years of dispute. Joachim hoped to get his possessions back. However, the negotiations failed due to the hardened positions of the Bavarian duke. Wilhelm even turned down another offer to sell from the Count. The negotiations were then broken off again.

However, the ducal councils soon recommended that the duke purchase the count's estates in order to finally end the ongoing dispute. On the mediation of Joachim's brother-in-law, Count Hans Fugger , there were again sales talks with the Duchy of Bavaria in 1589 and 1590. As a bargaining directly with Bohemia belonging was Glatz provided in 1549 for 140,000 guilders mortgage, from Duke Ernst of Bavaria was purchased and after his death on 13 June 1560 on December 7 as the heir to his nephew Duke Albrecht V had fallen. From this it was redeemed again in 1567 by the Bohemian sovereign Maximilian II . The Bohemian King Rudolf II, who was in office from 1575, would have pledged it again for a sum of 200,000 guilders , but this did not happen until 1590. So Joachim was offered this so-called Kaufschilling for the Ortenburg possessions in Bavaria and the imperial county of Ortenburg.

On September 4, 1589, Count Joachim himself offered his imperial county, including the Bavarian rural goods, to the duke for 550,000 guilders. The ducal side offered Joachim 500,000 guilders. The count wanted to have already paid out 200,000 guilders in cash, while he would acquire the debt for the County of Glatz for 150,000 guilders from the emperor. The remainder of the county’s purchase price was to remain with the Duchy of Bavaria as a mortgage because of the interest on the debt and against insurance . However, this trade could not take place, as it turned out that the payment of the debt of the County of Glatz was too insecure and Duke Wilhelm on October 4, 1590 did not want to expose Count Joachim to this.

Death shield for Count Joachim von Ortenburg in the Protestant market church.

In 1594 Wilhelm V gradually involved his son, Duke Maximilian I, in the government of the duchy. He had been brought up by the Jesuits and had a deep dislike for the Protestants. Joachim still hoped to be reconciled with him again. First, however, Joachim turned to the Imperial Estates again at the Reichstag in Regensburg and asked for help in the matter. The electors and the imperial estates campaigned for the Ortenburg cause and asked Emperor Rudolf to take care of the dispute. Together with Joachim, he wrote a letter to Maximilian, who had already completely taken over his father's business, with the request that the Bavarian fiefs be released. However, this did not answer. Then Joachim decided to appeal to an arbitration tribunal, but Duke Maximilian refused. Rather, he tried to postpone such a decision. Joachim saw no other way out and again sued the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Speyer . However, Joachim did not live to see the end of the process and the reconciliation of the counts with the dukes in 1602, since he had died two years earlier.

Development of the financial situation

Imperial Count Joachim von Ortenburg at the age of 69 on an engraving from 1599.

When Joachim took office, the Ortenburg counts were considered to be the richest house in Lower Bavaria and one of the richest families in the duchy. Above all, the properties around the Mattighofen market and Neudeck Castle brought the Ortenburgers a high income. These came from the Hollup family and came to the Ortenburgers in 1515 with the marriage of Count Christoph and the heiress of the Lord of Mattighofen and Neudeck. Furthermore, Count Ulrich II. Acquired the rich Hofmark Söldenau , which was directly adjacent to the imperial county.

With his marriage in 1549 to Ursula, Countess von Fugger , Joachim increased the Ortenburg's wealth considerably thanks to the dowry of 30,000 guilders.

With the introduction of the Reformation, however, the Ortenburgers' financial circumstances changed suddenly. The ducal occupation in 1564 and the collection of the Bavarian fiefdoms from 1564 to 1566 caused them considerable financial losses. In order to improve the economic situation, Joachim promoted agriculture after the recovery of his goods in 1566 and built a mill and a brewery.

The two lawsuits before the Reich Chamber of Commerce about the imperial immediacy of the county meant an immense financial burden for the count, they alone cost around 30,000 guilders, so that he soon found himself in financial need. Eventually he was forced to take on various offices in order to continue to pay the court costs.

Already in 1567 Joachim took the office of administrator of the castle Prunn in the Altmühltal . There he discovered a manuscript of the Nibelungenlied and gave it to the historian Wiguleus Hundt , who was passing through. Today this copy is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and is known as the “ Prunner Codex ” . In 1570 Joachim gave up the office of administrator of the castle.

Despite winning the lawsuit, Joachim was financially ruined. Likewise, the new cordoning off of the county from 1575 to 1577 and the further occupation of the Ortenburg fiefdom significantly damaged the county's trade income. Joachim was so financially troubled that he looked again for a high-paying office.

In 1581 Joachim and his cousin Ulrich III. and Henry VII forced to sell some properties. They sold unspecified goods to Bishop Urban von Passau , who paid them 19,000 guilders for them.

In 1584, a new governor was sought in the Calvinist city ​​of Amberg, as well as a seat for the Upper Palatinate . Joachim tried to get this well-paid job and even switched from the Lutheran denomination to Calvinism , which he finally succeeded in doing. In 1590 he asked to be dismissed from office and dignity, which happened on June 18, 1590. The reasons for this step are unknown.

Heavily indebted, Joachim moved to Nuremberg and found a few last lenders there before he died there on March 19, 1600. Joachim's debts were last over 50,000 guilders. He owed 40,000 florins alone to two patricians from Nuremberg, a governor of Salzburg and the diocese of Passau . There was also a loan from the imperial city of Nuremberg for 10,000 guilders. The reason for this great debt burden was the high legal costs before the Reich Chamber of Commerce, which alone devoured 30,000 guilders. The ducal occupations and lockdowns of the county had also resulted in great financial losses.

In his will, Count Joachim pledged the market and the two castles Alt-Ortenburg and Neu-Ortenburg to his widow Lucia von Limpurg , so that she would not remain unhappy. Joachim was certainly not aware of the enormous damage he would do to his sex. What is remarkable, however, is Joachim's self-awareness of the religious conflict with the Duchy of Bavaria. In his will he writes "that he could have done it in great honor if he had wanted to become a Catholic."

Client

At the beginning of his tenure, Joachim lived at Schloss Mattighofen , where he was born in 1530. It comes from his mother's rich estate. Around the year 1551 the castle was rebuilt in the Renaissance style. Some parts of the facility were also rebuilt. These are likely to have been large towers that were erected at the corners of the building wings. The entrance area of ​​the castle was also redesigned.

The oldest depiction of Alt-Ortenburg Castle after a copper engraving from around 1650. It shows the castle with the outer bailey and the earliest depiction of the castle garden.

Count Joachim shaped the image of today's Ortenburg market like no other. He lived his lifetime in Mattighofen, because the lock on the market since the Landshut War of Succession badly damaged and was just poorly repaired. In 1561, the count made the decision to renovate the fortress and to have some of it rebuilt. Construction work began a year later. The east wing of the fortress was rebuilt, all other parts of the castle were built from scratch and expanded. The old outer bailey was torn down. Work on the basic structure of the castle lasted until 1575. However, Joachim was unable to complete the interior work for the castle. Due to his financial hardship, he had to stop construction in 1575. So Alt-Ortenburg remained a newly established for the time being. It was not until Count Friedrich Casimir and Christian that the interior of the palace was completed in its current form.

In order to strengthen the economic situation of the market and the county, Joachim erected a number of other buildings in the village. In 1568 he had a “brewery and nursing office” built on the market square. Furthermore, he promoted the cultivation of hops in the area in order to be able to purchase the raw materials required for the brewery at a lower price. The brewery continued to brew until 1917. The building still stands today and belongs to the Schricker family, who had it extensively renovated at the end of the 1990s. To this day it is the largest and therefore most striking building on the market square.

Furthermore, Joachim built a mill on the Wolfach near Kamm. However, since this was not profitable for the count, he soon sold it.

In order to increase the prosperity of the citizens of Ortenburg, Joachim planned to build a school and a hospital to care for the sick and poor. Between 1566 and 1573 the schoolhouse was built between the market square and the Protestant market church. Joachim took over most of the costs for teaching the children himself. Attending school, however, was voluntary and was only recommended. The count placed great emphasis on arithmetic, writing and, above all, on the teachings of Luther. Joachim wanted to deepen and consolidate Protestantism with the school in Ortenburg, which he succeeded in doing. It is mainly thanks to the influence and vehement struggle of the school principals in the 17th century that the county remained Protestant despite Catholic rulers. Teaching continued in Joachim's school building until 1810, before a new building took place near the market church. The house still stands today and is characteristic of today's Fürstenzeller Straße des Markt. Joachim could not build the planned hospital due to the high court costs in 1573. Even later, he lacked the financial means due to his high debt.

Central part of the large cenotaph for his son Anton von Ortenburg.

Count Joachim's cenotaph in the choir of the Marktkirche.

Joachim also had the Protestant market church redesigned. Due to the growing interest in the faith and the insufficient size of the church, he had a gallery installed in the interior. In the chancel he had a marble-adorned and richly decorated cenotaph built for himself and for his son Anton, who had already died in 1573 . Under the sanctuary and his own cenotaph, a crypt for the counts was built on his instructions. This should be the burial place for the evangelical members of the count family for 300 years. The Catholic family members continued to be buried in the Sixtus Chapel , which had been used since the beginning of the 13th century, next to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Passau . The entrance to the crypt in the Marktkirche has been forgotten after a redesign in the 19th century. The entrance in the middle of the nave was only rediscovered and exposed during major renovation work in autumn 2006. The access is now covered by a marble slab.

progeny

Count Joachim was married twice, first to Ursula Countess von Fugger (born April 21, 1530; † September 7, 1570 in Ortenburg) and later with Lucia Freiin zu Limpurg (born November 23, 1550 in Gaildorf; † February 9, 1626 in Ortenburg ).

Anton von Ortenburg (1550–1573), who was married to Countess Dorothea von Hanau-Münzenberg (1556–1638), comes from his first marriage . Anton was Reichshofrat in Vienna .

Consequences of his reign

With the introduction of the Reformation and the ensuing decades-long quarrel with Bavaria, Joachim caused great damage to his family. By pledging the market and the castles of Alt- and Neu-Ortenburg to his widow, Joachim caused further financial losses for the counts. His direct successors, Henry VII and George IV , did not succeed in redeeming the county due to the high debt of the house. Thus the counts were forced to negotiate with the duchy about their confiscated Bavarian fiefs. After the Reich Chamber of Commerce had ruled in favor of the Ortenburg house again in 1602, negotiations began. However, the Ortenburgers were so much in debt that they were ready to make big concessions. So they undertook to sell the rich Hofmark Mattighofen to Bavaria and to ensure that Count Heinrich's successor, Count Georg IV., Would have to change to the Catholic faith. In return, the House of Ortenburg received the Bavarian fiefs and possessions back. However, the market and the two locks remained pledged. An attempt by Count Friedrich Casimir to redeem the possessions in 1628 had failed because of the high demands of 25,000 guilders. Only the ancestral castle Alt-Ortenburg could trigger this. The free solution of the market and Neu-Ortenburg only succeeded his successor Count Georg Reinhard and his brother Christian in 1662.

The introduction of the Reformation in Ortenburg was a blessing for Austrian Protestant religious refugees of the 17th century. They were able to rest in the small Lutheran enclave before moving on to the large imperial cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg . Some of them also settled in Ortenburg, creating the villages of Vorder- and Hinterhainberg and the district of Gänsewinkel. The refugees brought fruit growing and the must tradition with them from their homeland. This also had benefits for the county due to higher tax and trade revenues. The production and export of the must soon became important nationwide. The increasing importance of must over the centuries is shown by an edict from the 18th century in which the planting and rearing of further fruit trees was supported. Citizens who violated it were severely punished.

Evangelical Luth. Joachim-von-Ortenburg-Church in Tambach near Coburg

Joachim is known to this day through his work for the evangelical faith in Ortenburg and in his family. Today he is considered the "most important political head" of Protestantism in Bavaria in the 16th century. He left a lot of traces, especially in Ortenburg. His buildings shape the face of the market to this day. In other parts of Bavaria, too, people still hold their memory high. After the change of faith of Count Alram zu Ortenburg-Tambach, who converted back to the Catholic faith, a new church was built in Tambach. This became necessary because the Ortenburg counts had the chapel at Tambach Castle consecrated to Catholicism again and evangelical services were no longer possible in the castle chapel. The new church of the parish was "Evang.-Luth. Joachim-von-Ortenburg-Kirche “called. The name of the church was linked to the man who was the first prince in Bavaria to dare to refer to the results of the Augsburg religious peace and to make his county Lutheran.

"Ortenburg Bibles"

One of the two volumes of the Ortenburg Bibles in the permanent exhibition of the German Historical Museum in Berlin

With the marriage of Count Joachim and Countess Ursula von Fugger in 1549, an extremely splendid two-volume version of the Bible came to the Ortenburg House as a dowry. Today these are known as "Ortenburg Bibles" .

This is Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, which Heinrich Steiner printed in a limited edition in 1535. This version consists of two ornate books, which were reserved only for generous patrons and nobles. The original title of the two Bibles is “Biblia. That is the whole holy scripture Deudsch ” . This version is decorated with 75 woodcuts, some of them full-page.

Count Joachim had letters from the reformers Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon entered on a few blank pages in these works . Some of them were considered lost until the books were acquired in the 1990s. Some historians rated this find highly significant. In addition to the copies of the letters, there are also some personal entries by Count Joachim and Friedrich Casimir in the Bibles .

After Joachim's death in 1600, the two Bibles were separated in the Ortenburg house. One came into the branch of the Calvinist Friedrich Casimir. As an avowed supporter of the Reformed Church, he made the representations of God unrecognizable in the Book of Genesis.

The two books have remained separate until 1986. It is not known when exactly the Bibles from the Ortenburg family came into public or private ownership. Only in that year were both acquired by a dealer and offered for sale together. The municipality of Ortenburg tried to acquire it with the help of the Free State of Bavaria . However, financial resources were limited and the Free State showed little interest in acquiring the Bibles. So both were sold to an American unknown to the public. In the mid-1990s, the two volumes were acquired by the foundation of the Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin for 5 million marks and donated to the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Today they are in the museum's permanent exhibition about the Reformation in Germany.

literature

• Förderkreis Schloss Ortenburg (ed.): Ortenburg - Reichsgrafschaft and 450 Years Reformation (1563 - 2013). Ortenburg 2013.
• Johann Schachtl: Beliefs and ways of life - denominationalization in eastern Bavaria in the 16th and early 17th centuries, shown using the example of the imperial county of Ortenburg and its Bavarian fiefdoms. (= Salzburger Theologische Studien 35), Salzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7022-2980-1 .
• Christian Wieland: The Bavarian noble conspiracy of 1563. Event and self-interpretations. In: Zeitblicke 4 , 2005, No. 2 ( online ).
• Christian Kieslinger: Territorialization and Imperial Liberty - Studies on the conflict between Joachim von Ortenburg and the Duchy of Bavaria , diploma thesis on obtaining the master's degree in philosophy, submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna, Vienna 2001.
• Walter Fuchs: Ortenburg Castle, Ortenburg monuments and the history of the imperial county of Ortenburg. Ortenburg 2000.
• Friedrich Hausmann : The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, as well as their subsidiary lines , published in: Ostbairische Grenzmarken - Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde, No. 36, Passau 1994 (p. 9 -62).
• Heinz Pellender: Tambach - from Langheim monastery office to Ortenburg'schen Grafschaft - history of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle. 2nd edition Coburg 1990.
• Kurt Malisch: Ortenburg, Joachim Graf von. In: Karl Bosl (ed.): Bosls Bavarian biography. Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2 , p. 564 ( digitized version ).
• Hans Bleibrunner: Lower Bavaria - cultural history of the Bavarian lowlands. Volume 1 & 2, 2nd edition, Landshut 1982.
• Friedrich Hausmann: New insights into the history and building history of the Ortenburg , Ortenburg 1974.
• Gerhild Hausmann: Anton Graf zu Ortenburg (1550 - 1573) A contribution to the educational history of the Protestant nobility in the 16th century , inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate at the Philosophical Faculty of the Karl-Franzens University Graz, Graz 1968.
• Hans Schellnhuber : The Reformation in the imperial county of Ortenburg. In: 400 years of Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963 , Ortenburg 1963 (pp. 7–42).
• Heinz Hans Konrad Schuster: Ortenburg after the death of Count Joachim. In: Hans Schellnhuber (Hrsg.): 400 years Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963 , Ortenburg 1963 (pp. 43–48).
• Hans Schellnhuber : Of war and strife in the old days - Ortenburg's war events. In: From Ortenburg's Past , Issue 1, Ortenburg 1959 (pp. 3–11).
• Dr. Eberhard Graf zu Ortenburg-Tambach: History of the imperial, ducal and counts 'entire house of Ortenburg - Part 2: The counts' house in Bavaria. , Vilshofen 1932.
• Leonhard Theobald : Joachim von Ortenburg and the implementation of the Reformation in his county . (Individual works from the church history of Bavaria, Volume 6), Munich 1927.
• Leonhard Theobald: The so-called Bavarian nobility conspiracy of 1563 , in: Contributions to Bavarian Church History, Volume 20, Erlangen 1914 (pp. 28–73).
• Leonhard Theobald: The introduction of the Reformation in the county of Ortenburg , Leipzig 1914.
• Walter Goetz , Leonhard Theobald: Contributions to the history of Duke Albrecht V and the so-called aristocratic conspiracy of 1563 . (Letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century, Volume 6), Munich 1913.
• Heigel, Karl Theodor von:  Ortenburg, Joachim Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 438-442.
• Carl Mehrmann: History of the Evangelical Lutheran community of Ortenburg in Lower Bavaria - memorandum for the anniversary celebration of the 300th anniversary of the introduction of the Reformation there on October 17 and 18, 1863 , Landshut 1863 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Joachim von Ortenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Joachim in CERL Thesaurus
• Root list on Genealogy.euweb.cz
• Genealogy of the Counts of Ortenburg
• Literature by and about Joachim in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Joachim  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Gerhild Hausmann: Anton Graf zu Ortenburg (1550 - 1573) A contribution to the educational history of the Protestant nobility in the 16th century , Graz 1968
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Friedrich Hausmann : The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, as well as their subsidiary lines , published in: Ostbairische Grenzmarken - Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde , No. 36, Passau 1994
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Markus Springer: Evangelical panther in the national coat of arms - the former imperial county of Ortenburg was the only Evangelical enclave in Old Bavaria , Sunday paper - Evangelical weekly newspaper for Bavaria, 31/2005 issue of July 31, 2005, ( online ).
4. ^ ^{A b} Christian Wieland: The Bavarian nobility conspiracy of 1563. Event and self-interpretations. In: Zeitblicke 4 , 2005, No. 2 ( online ).
5. ↑ Heinz Pellender: Tambach. From the Langheim monastery to the Ortenburg county. History of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle . 2nd edition, Coburg 1990.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hans Schellnhuber : The Reformation in the imperial county of Ortenburg. In: Hans Schellnhuber (Hrsg.): 400 years Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963 , Ortenburg 1963 (pp. 6–42).
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Eberhard Graf zu Ortenburg-Tambach: History of the imperial, ducal and counts 'entire house of Ortenburg - Part 2: The counts' house in Bavaria. , Vilshofen 1932
8. ↑ Discovery of the Nibelungenlied and discovery and transmission to Wiguleus Hundt
9. ^ Christian Kieslinger: Territorialization and Imperial Countess Liberty , Vienna 2001.
10. ↑ Source for the reconstruction of Mattighofen's Castle
11. ^ Friedrich Hausmann: New Findings on the History and Building History of the Ortenburg , Ortenburg 1974.
12. ↑ Walter Fuchs: Ortenburg Castle, Ortenburg monuments and the history of the imperial county of Ortenburg , Ortenburg 2000.
13. ↑ History of the Ortenburg supply on the part of the Ortenburg senior citizens' home
14. ^ History of fruit growing in Ortenburg ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
15. ^ Dieter Albrecht : Lutheranism and Anabaptism. In: Max Spindler , Andreas Kraus (Hrsg.): Handbook of Bavarian History. Volume 2: Old Bavaria. The territorial state from the end of the 12th century to the end of the 18th century. Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-32320-0 , pp. 708-711, here: p. 711.

predecessor	Office	successor
Christoph	Count of Ortenburg 1551–1600	Henry VII

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 8, 2007 .