Johann Conrad Meyer

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Johann Conrad Meyer (born May 5, 1544 in Schaffhausen ; † June 18, 1604 in Maienfeld ) was the mayor of Schaffhausen and a politician.

Life

Johann Conrad Meyer was born as the son of Conrad Meyer (first mentioned before 1517; † February 4, 1554 in Schaffhausen), baker's guild master and from 1546 to 1553 mayor of Schaffhausen. When he was baptized on May 5, 1544, he was sponsored by Hans Peyer and Elsbeth Ziegler. He still had three siblings:

After attending schools in Schaffhausen he studied in the period from 1562 to 1567 and had to this, on May 1, 1562 at the University of Basel enrolled . From there he went to the University of Heidelberg (matriculated on December 9, 1562), then from 1565 to 1566 to the University of Orléans and finally to the University of Padua (matriculated on October 8, 1567), where he also obtained the Dr. . jur. both rights .

From 1570 to 1571 he was the judge ( assessor ) of the city or debt court in Schaffhausen, from June 4, 1571 to 1577, Säckelmeister (fourth highest office in the city) and from 1572 to 1577 chairman of the marriage court . As a representative of the bakers' guild , he was a member of the Grand Council from 1570 to 1572 ; from 1572 to 1599 he was a member of the 24-member Small Council .

On April 18, 1574 he became Obervogt von Merishausen and Bargen and on May 24, 1575 the Grand Council appointed him governor until 1577 , at the same time he also became a member of the Scholarchenrat, in which church and school matters were dealt with.

After the death of Mayor Alexander Peyer (1500–1577) on January 10, 1577, the previous deputy moved up, so that Johann Conrad Meyer was elected mayor on May 27, 1577. He took over this office alternately, as one of the two annually alternating mayors until 1599; his counterparts Dietegen Ringk von Wildenberg, mayor from 1559 to 1590, and Hans Jacob Ziegler, mayor from 1590 to 1599, exercised this function next to him.

His term of office as mayor was marked by the turmoil of the Counter Reformation , which split the Confederation ; In Schaffhausen a serious threat arose from the advancing Catholic troops as well as internally from the Anabaptist movement in Schleitheim .

He acted repeatedly as envoy; from 1572 to 1599 he took part 78 times in the daily statutes in Baden and 26 times in the conferences , mostly held in Protestant Aargau .

In 1573 he mediated in Chur because of the uprising in the three leagues , in Baden in 1583 because of a dispute between the bishop and the city of Basel , in 1587 in Mulhouse because of the "confused action" there and in the summer of 1590 in St. Maurice when the four were united Protestant cities between Savoy and Geneva .

But he was also an arbitrator, among other things in 1582 in the renewal of the alliance for the Swiss troops in French service for the royal house of the Bourbons in Paris . He made the trip to Paris from November 2, 1582 to December 31, 1582 as a member of a 24-person delegation that was to conjure up the new soldiers' alliance with France on behalf of the eleven allied towns ; the solemn execution took place in the presence of King Henry IV on December 2, 1582 in the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral . On December 9th, the farewell audience took place in the Louvre with a final visit to Queen Margaret of Valois and Queen Mother Caterina de 'Medici . From October 6th to October 21st, 1595 he stayed again as a member of a federal embassy in France, which had the task of ensuring the neutrality of King Henry IV towards the Confederation during his campaign in the Free County of Burgundy .

In April 1584 he and former mayor Heinrich Fleckenstein († 1589) from Lucerne acted as arbitrators of the federal places in the differences of opinion between Bern and Freiburg because of the administration of the lordships of Grandson and Grasburg .

Under his supervision, the renovation of the Rhine bridge was tackled in 1585 , the wooden bridge was replaced by a stone bridge.

In 1585 he was delegated by the conference of the four evangelical cities of Zurich, Bern, Basel and Schaffhausen as the sole deputy to Duke Ludwig von Württemberg , to ask him “in the name of all” to publicly blaspheme and abuse their predicants of the Augsburg Confession to prohibit Swiss religious members .

Together with signatory Georg Mäder and the representatives of the three other Protestant cities, he was also sent "with an instruction" to the five locations and later to Solothurn and Freiburg in November 1585 .

In the peace negotiations between Bern and Savoy in 1589, which concerned the further fate of Geneva, he was one of the seven envoys appointed by the Diet, and two years later, at the end of 1591, he was one of the eight delegates to Basel who on behalf of the twelve places had to settle the dispute between the city and its subjects in various offices and bailiffs over the introduction of a surcharge on wine and meat.

In 1589, construction work on Munot Fortress was completed under his leadership.

Also in the service of the five evangelical towns, to which Glarus belonged, he traveled in October 1590, together with Heinrich Thomann (1520–1592) from Zurich, to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Innsbruck on the matter of the Mülhaus riots .

In 1592, the city of Geneva expressly wanted him as an arbitrator in its peace negotiations with Savoy, which was apparently seen as a special honor, also for the Schaffhausen estate .

In July 1593, he represented the entire Swiss Confederation together with the Zurich councilor Gerold Escher on the big Mint Day in Constance , which was organized to find suitable measures against the outpouring of foreign coins and to achieve uniformity.

From August 31 to September 8, 1597, he sat in the six-member arbitral tribunal as one of the three representatives of the outer Rhodes in the negotiations on the division of the Land of Appenzell .

On November 7th, 1597 he and the governor Georg Mäder, appointed by Bern as arbitrators, took part in the renewed discussion of the agreement with Freiburg, which led to the so-called sensic treaty between Bern and Freiburg, and in June 1598 he was one of the four "impartial additions" »In the March adjustment between the Freiämtern and the areas of Bern and the nobles von Hallwyl , again as Bern's steward, together with Mayor Hans Rudolf Huber from Basel.

He had various connections with the important scholars of his time, including Johann Jacob Rüeger , who had been invited to dinner several times, as well as Adolf Occo (1524–1606) and Johann Georg von Werdenstein in Augsburg, as well as Basilius Amerbach in Basel and Junker Hans Ulrich von Schellenberg (1518–1606) at Randegg Castle .

He also had a pronounced tendency towards alchemy and maintained connections with the pastor and "gold maker" Raphael Eglin (1559–1622) in Zurich. During the expansion of his former residence, Zum Thiergarten in Schaffhausen, in 1737, some relics from this gold-making shop were found in the walls , apparently with his experiments he had his gold unloaded into the chimney .

Outside the city walls, he had the previously modest Sonnenburggut converted into a representative, castle-like country estate at considerable expense.

Due to his ownership of several stately houses as well as his lavish lifestyle and the conclusion of some unfavorable guarantees, for which he had taken on the obligations, he suffered bankruptcy and then fled Schaffhausen on April 19, 1599 to Count Rudolf von Sulz , for whom he was also a guarantor had, and found shelter in his castle Jestetten . The municipal authorities of Schaffhausen therefore wrote to the Sulzischen Landvogt in Klettgau , his brother Michael Meyer, on May 30, 1599 , with the request for assistance in the search for the fugitive. A similar letter was sent to the Obervogt in Neunkirch , Franziskus Ziegler. If found, Johann Conrad Meyer was to be brought to Schaffhausen as a prisoner. He then fled to Maienfeld and worked there as a teacher from 1599 to 1604. He died poorly; Bartholomäus Anhorn the Elder gave his funeral sermon.

Johann Conrad Meyer was married to Helena (1536–1596), daughter of Jacob Studer (1574–1622), merchant and mayor of St. Gallen and widow of the wealthy St. Gallen merchant Niklaus Schlumpf (1531–1569), since 1570; the marriage remained childless.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jacob I. Kaiser, Joseph Karl Kruetli: The Eidgenössische Farewell from the period from 1587 to 1617 . S. 324. Wyß, 1872 ( google.de [accessed on February 8, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Chronicon Or a thorough description of the most memorable things and did: which in the Helvetic Lands from erbawung in the place of Bern in Nüchtland to the 1627th year happened and lost . P. 292, 1626 ( google.de [accessed on February 8, 2019]).
  3. ^ City of Schaffhausen | Thiergarten. Retrieved February 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Johann Conrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Johann Konrad; Meyerus, Johannes Conradus; Meier, Johann Konrad; Meier, Johann Conrad; Meierus, Johannes Conradus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss mayor and politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1544
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1604
Place of death Maienfeld