Johann Casimir (Saxe-Coburg)

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Duke Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Coburg, 1597, oil on panel, Callenberg Castle , Coburg

Johann Casimir (also Johann Casimir ) of Saxe-Coburg (born June 12, 1564 in Gotha ; † July 16, 1633 in Coburg ) was Duke of Saxe-Coburg . He came from the family of the Ernestine Wettins .

youth

Figure of Duke Casimir at the Casimirianum

Johann Casimir was the third of four sons of Duke Johann Friedrich II. (The Middle) of Saxony and his wife Elisabeth , daughter of the later Elector of the Palatinate, Friedrich III. , born. After the Reich execution against Gotha, the father lost his rule and his freedom on April 15, 1567. After that, Johann Casimir lived together with his younger brother Johann Ernst and his mother, first at the court of his uncle Johann Wilhelm , who was the children's guardian, in Weimar, then in Eisenach and Eisenberg . In 1570 the Diet of Speyer reinstated the sons in the rights they had inherited from their father. Two years later, in the summer of 1572, the mother moved in with her husband, who had been imprisoned in Austria, while the new Principality of Saxony-Coburg was awarded to her two sons by the Erfurt partition agreement of November 6, 1572 . The principality consisted of southern and western Thuringia, including the cities of Eisenach, Gotha and Hildburghausen . The children's guardian was Johann Georg (Brandenburg) (from 1578 Margrave Georg Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach ) and the maternal grandfather, Elector Friedrich von der Pfalz , and his father's enemy, Elector August von Sachsen , who was responsible for an upbringing under his supervision and in his sense took care of and established a guardianship government in Coburg, where Johann Casimir and his brother moved on December 5, 1572. In Johann Casimir's name, his guardians signed the concord formula of 1577 and the concord book of 1580.

From 1578 to 1581 Johann Casimir studied at the University of Leipzig . On May 6th, 1584 he got engaged, without his father's consent, to Anna , the daughter of August of Saxony, whom he married on January 16th, 1586 in Dresden.

For his engagement, a double engagement of two daughters of Elector August (Johann Casimir with Anna and Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig with Dorothea ), the imperial guilder was minted at 21 groschen (1584) .

Only after the death of Elector August of Saxony on February 11, 1586, Duke Johann Casimir was able to take over the government of his principality together with his brother Johann Ernst at the age of 22.

Regency

Government building, today town house on the market square, Coburg

1596, the principality was for Johann Ernst of Saxony-Eisenach furnished and Casimir ruled in Coburg on alone. His territory consisted of the offices of Coburg with the courts of Lauter, Rodach and Gestungshausen , Heldburg with the court of Hildburghausen , Römhild , Eisfeld , Schalkau , Sonneberg , Neustadt , Neuhaus , Mönchröden , Sonnefeld and Tenneberg .

Under Johann Casimir, the royal seat of Coburg experienced its first cultural heyday with lively building activity. The buildings, mostly works by Peter Sengelaub , can still be viewed today. The city ​​palace was rebuilt in the Renaissance style. The former Callenberg Castle was expanded into a magnificent hunting lodge; its palace chapel, inaugurated in 1618, is the first Protestant sacred space in the Coburg area. The Veste Coburg was converted into a state fortress and the armory and the government building on the market square were rebuilt. In 1598, Johann Casimir decorated the choir of the Morizkirche in honor of his parents with a twelve-meter-high alabaster monument with a richly sculptured pictorial program, which is one of the most beautiful Renaissance epitaphs in Germany. In addition, he founded the Casimirianum grammar school , expanded the palace library to include the books he had inherited, and in 1603 hired the composer Melchior Franck as court conductor. At times the court was made up of 213 people and 130 horses. The famous Johann Bierdümpfel was appointed to the court medicus . The castle Tenneberg was rebuilt under John Casimir's reign from 1612 to 1622 into a hunting lodge.

In 1593 Duke Johann Casimir divorced his first wife because of adultery, which he then held captive first in Eisenach, until 1596 in Sonnefeld Monastery and then until her death in 1613 at the Coburg Fortress (see also Coburg Taler ).

Princess Margareta of Braunschweig-Lüneburg

On September 16, 1599, Duke Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Coburg married Margarethe , daughter of Duke Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Lüneburg . The bride and most of the wedding guests stayed at Schloss Heldburg before and during the wedding party . The gilded float used for this occasion, which the bride's mother Dorothea von Braunschweig-Lüneburg ( Dorothea von Denmark ) brought as a dowry from Denmark to her own wedding in 1561, is one of the oldest still functional carriages in the world and is on display at the Veste Coburg.

Politically, Johann Casimir succeeded in subordinating the imperial knighthood to his rule by assuring them of jurisdiction over their estates. He issued a church ordinance for the Lutheran regional church with the duke as summus episcopus , which was later adopted by many Thuringian states . In 1589 he established a court court (special court for nobles), an appeal council , a Schöppenstuhl (court) and in 1593 a consistory in Coburg as the highest authority for the judiciary and the church , after they had previously settled in Jena , also responsible for Saxony-Weimar were. Above all, he established an administrative apparatus as the core of the Coburg statehood, which lasted long after his death and survived many political upheavals. Duke Casimir managed to remain neutral in the Thirty Years' War until 1629 . After joining the Swedish alliance was made in 1632 by imperial and Bavarian troops under Wallenstein the occupation of Coburg and an unsuccessful siege of the fortress . Duke Johann Casimir fled to Thuringia in time.

During Casimir's reign, the witch trials and burnings in Coburg reached their peak; he had 178 witch trials conducted. In 1633 Johann Casimir died childless, his inheritance fell to his brother Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Eisenach .

Saxe-Old-Gotha-Reichstaler-1626-av.jpg
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Joint coinage of a Reichstaler 1626 front side Johann Casimir and back side Johann Ernst
Eintrachtstaler with the slogan: Peace nourishes - discord consumes

At the time of the common reign, a common coinage began, which was continued even after the separation until 1633. There have been several Eintracht Taler marked in accordance with the imperial coinage.

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Casimir  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See BSLK , p. 15 and p. 763.
  2. ↑ Schloss Tenneberg on the website "Via Regia"
  3. ^ The princely supplement of Duke Johann Casimir's at Heldburg Castle and in Coburg see: Norbert Klaus Fuchs: Das Heldburger Land - a historical travel guide. Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86777-349-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Johann Casimir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince from the Ernestine line of the Wettins
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1564
PLACE OF BIRTH Gotha
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1633
Place of death Coburg