Johann Christoph von Westerstetten

Johann Christoph von Westerstetten

Johann Christoph von Westerstetten (born January 6, 1563 at Wasseralfingen Castle ; † July 28, 1637 in Eichstätt ) was Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt and counter-reformer from 1612 to 1637 .

Origin and education

Johann was the son of Wolfgang Rudolf von Westerstetten zu Altenberg, a caretaker from Ellwang in Wasseralfingen, and of Ursula von Riedheim zu Wasseralfingen. The von Westerstetten were a Swabian ministerial family . He studied from 1575 at the University of Dillingen , 1581 at the University of Ingolstadt , 1584 at the University of Dole .

Canon and provost of Ellwangen

In 1575 he became a canon of the Ellwangen monastery, in 1589 a canon in Eichstätt, where he was the dean of the chapter from 1592 to 1602 and owned the so-called Ulmer Hof from 1590 to 1595 and from 1601 lived in the Lamberg canon on today's Residenzplatz. He was ordained a priest on August 11, 1589 in Augsburg. From 1600 he was also dean of the Augsburg cathedral chapter . Coadjutor since 1602 , he was elected prince provost of the prince provost of Ellwangen on July 24, 1603 ; he held the office for ten years. From 1603 to 1608 he converted Ellwangen Castle into a four-winged Renaissance castle with octagonal corner tower attachments. From 1592 he was also the episcopal council in Eichstätt.

Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt

On December 4, 1612 he was elected bishop of Eichstätt by the cathedral chapter and consecrated bishop by the bishop of Augsburg on April 14, 1613. His motto was: "Candide et fortiter".

Filled with the spirit of Catholic reform and educated in Jesuit schools, the bishop called in 1614, taking up the considerations and plans of his predecessors, but contrary to the election surrender of the cathedral chapter , the Jesuits to Eichstätt, who initially worked as pastors, but then transferred the leadership of the Collegium Willibaldinum from him got. He had already brought a Jesuit from Ellwangen to Eichstätt as a confessor. The Jesuit College, which belonged to the Upper German Order Province until 1769, was set up on October 19 of the same year under the Superior and (from 1616) Rector Father Nikolaus Gall; the Jesuit high school soon comprised the usual five classes of the “ Ratio Studiorum Societatis Jesu ” from 1586 and 1599 and was housed in the Kaisheimerhaus . The college was completed by the opportunity to study philosophy and theology , and from 1669 by a principle school outside the college building, in which candidates for the grammar school learned Latin. The 200 to 300 scholars lived “externally”, ie with private individuals in the city, “internally”, in the college, only the Jesuit conventuals lived. 1616 the bishop gave the Jesuits temporarily by the Dominicans used John's Church next to the cathedral . From 1617 to 1620 the Jesuit Church was built next to the Collegium Willibaldinum, which the bishop personally consecrated together with the bishops of Augsburg and Bamberg on August 30; however, his coat of arms in the gable was not added until 1735. The college was rebuilt under Bishop Johann Christoph from 1624 to 1626; When it was destroyed along with the church on February 12, 1634 in the city fire set by the Swedes (the Jesuits had taken to safety in the bishop's residence, in Willibaldsburg , while the prince-bishop had fled to Ingolstadt ), it came to an instant gradual reconstruction. The Jesuits, concerned about their independence, had refused to take over the management of the episcopal seminary and alumnate built 1626–1628 east of the city wall on the Graben , which could not gain any significance as an educational institution. In 1627 the bishop put two Jesuits permanently in Herrieden ; however, the settlement did not survive the storming of the city by the Swedes in 1633.

In 1617 the bishop gave the bishopric to the Catholic League for political security and thereby proved to be a partisan of Bavarian politics.

During the reign of Johann Christoph, half of the lost areas of his diocese could be re-Catholicized. Thus, after the marriage of the Neuburg ruler Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg in 1613 with a Catholic Bavarian princess, his rulership in the south of the diocesan area and the southern Upper Palatinate returned to the Catholic faith, as Catholicism was once again a prescribed religion by state law there. The Bavarian Duke and later Elector Maximilian I also reintroduced the Catholic denomination in the former Electoral Palatinate, now Bavarian areas of the Upper Palatinate in 1622/23. The converted Neuburg Count Palatine finally ensured that the Counter-Reformation also came into play in the offices of Hilpoltstein , Heideck and Allersberg .

In the parts of his diocese that remained Catholic, the bishop pushed the reform forward in the spirit of the Council of Trient by visiting the parishes and holding chapter congresses in the deaneries. To this end, he issued statutes from 1621. He also promoted popular piety and veneration of saints and supported religious brotherhoods and lay congregations. In 1623 the bishop called the Capuchins to Eichstätt for the pastoral care of the common people and gave them the former Schottenkloster in the east of the royal seat. On March 3, 1623, the foundation stone for a new monastery church was laid there, including the Romanesque replica of the Holy Sepulcher, which was inaugurated on October 12 of the same year. In 1627 he solemnly raised the three wretched saints of Etting . 1629–1631 he rebuilt the parish and monastery church of St. Walburg in Eichstätt.

In 1613 he built the Castle Wahrberg near Aurach , which had been a Hochstiftisch-Eichstättisch since the 13th century. He increased the bishopric in 1617/18 with goods in Hausen and Pfalzpaint. In 1617 the parish church of St. Ottmar in Enkering was rebuilt under him . In 1618 he gave his royal seat an orphanage. In 1622 he bought Eybburg Castle . 1630 he acquired the Cronheim castle and sold the obereichstättische forge of Hagenacker . Together with the city of Eichstätt was the bishop from 1625 to 1628 the Willibald fountain with probably by Hans Krumpper simultaneously created bronze statue of St. Willibald rebuilt in front of the Eichstätter town hall. In 1629 he had the parish church of Meilenhofen built; ten years earlier he had had a rectory built there. He continued the construction of the new residence of his predecessor Johann Konrad von Gemmingen and completed the southern Gemmingen wing, but also attached importance to the fortification of the castle because of the troubled times; His coat of arms can be found not only on the south wing, but also above the entrance gate to the castle, in the gate hall itself and on the blacksmith's bastion. While the castle survived the Swedish storm of 1634 to some extent, three-quarters of the city was buried in ashes.

Portrait of Prince-Bishop Johann Christoph von Westerstetten on his grave slab in the Eichstätter cathedral cloister

On October 21, 1636, Johann Christophs Domdekan Marquard II. Schenk von Castell was elected as coadjutor with the right of succession. However, the resigned prince-bishop continued his spiritual and secular business until shortly before his death. When he died six months later, he was buried in the east choir of the cathedral church; his wish to be buried in the Jesuit church could not be fulfilled because of its destruction by the Swedes. His tombstone is now in the cloister of Eichstätter Cathedral. A portrait of the bishop painted in oil shows the Cathedral Treasury and Diocesan Museum in Eichstätt.

The witch hunter

Johann Christoph von Westerstetten already proved to be a systematic witch hunter during his time in Ellwangen and thus made a career. At the end of his tenure in Ellwangen, around 260 executions for witchcraft took place there in 1611 and 1612. As Bishop of Eichstätt, Johann Christoph von Westerstetten called Jesuits and Capuchins to the diocese and pursued witches in the Hochstift Eichstätt to a much greater extent than his predecessors. Even among his contemporaries, he was considered one of the notorious Franconian witch-bishops. During his tenure from 1613 to 1630 in the Hochstift Eichstätt at least 199 witch trials and 176 executions of 150 women and 26 men for witchcraft can be proven.

The Auxiliary Bishop Friedrich Förner from Bamberg dedicated his witch sermons, printed in 1625, to Johann Christoph von Westerstetten.

→ Main article : Witch trials in Ellwangen

→ Main article : Witch persecution in the Hochstift Eichstätt

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lyndal Roper , Hexenwahn: History of a persecution , CH Beck, 2007, ISBN 9783406540479 , p. 43
2. ↑ Wolfgang Behringer, Witches: Faith, Persecution, Marketing , CH Beck, 2000, ISBN 9783406418822 , p. 56
3. ↑ Durrant, p. 40
4. ↑ Durrant, pp. 14, 42

literature

• JG Suttner: Johann Christoph v. Westerstetten, Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt . In: KBIF 3 . 1852. pp. 257-264.
• Julius Sax: The bishops and imperial princes of Eichstätt 745–1806 . Publisher Krüll. Landshut 1884/1885 (2 volumes).
• Collective sheet of Historical Association Eichstätt 80 (1987). Eichstätt 1988. pp. 45f.
• Collection sheet for the Historical Association Eichstätt 97 (2004). Pp. 15, 20, 22, 27.
• Klaus Kreitmeir: The bishops of Eichstätt . Publishing house of the church newspaper. Eichstatt 1992. pp. 76-78.
• Erwin Gatz (ed.), With the assistance of Clemens Brodkorb: The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1448 to 1648. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-428-08422-5 .
• Wolfgang Behringer: Westerstetten, Johann Christoph von (1563-1637) . In: Encyclopedia of Witchcraft . 4. Santa Barbara, Calif. 2006. pp. 1191-1193.
• Peter Zürcher: The bishopric elections in the prince-bishopric of Eichstätt from 1636 to 1790. Election events in the mirror domkapitelscher, dynastic and imperial state and imperial church politics (dissertation Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, 2004/2005). Munich: Verlag CH Beck, 2008 (series of publications on Bavarian national history; 155). ISBN 978-3-406-10770-2 .
• Wolfgang Buchta: The Urgichten in the Urfehdebuch of the Eichstätt City Court: on the history of the witch hunt in southern Franconia . Yearbook for Franconian regional research. Volume 58, 1998, pp. 219-250.
• Jonathan B. Durrant: Witchcraft, Gender and Society in Early Modern Germany , Leiden (Brill) 2008 (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas, 124) Witches Trials Eichstätt

Web links

Commons : Johann Christoph von Westerstetten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Johann Christoph von Westerstetten  in the German Digital Library
• Witches trials Hochstift Eichstätt with a list of the names of the victims

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann Konrad von Gemmingen	Bishop of Eichstätt 1612–1637	Marquard II. Schenk von Castell
Wolfgang von Hausen	Prince Provost of Ellwangen 1603–1613	Johann Christoph von Freyberg-Eisenberg