Johann Pleskow

Seal of Johannes Pleskow around 1347

Johann Pleskow (* (before) 1308 in Lübeck ; † 1367 there ) was a merchant and councilor in Lübeck.

Life

Johann Pleskow was born as the son of the Lübeck citizen of the same name from Visby . The Pleskow family is one of the German families who migrated (back) from Visby to Lübeck in the 13th and 14th centuries with the loss of importance of Gotland in the Baltic Sea region. Belonging to the urban patriciate in Visby as well as in Lübeck , their family members are attested to have had considerable and outstanding political power in the 14th century. Johann Pleskow's mother Adelheid Geismar was the daughter of the Stockholm councilor Johann Geismar , who had moved his center of life from Stockholm to Lübeck. After the death of Johann's father (before) 1325 she married the Lübeck councilor Tidemann von Güstrow . Both had lived in the house at Breite Straße 43 , which his wife Adelheid had brought into their marriage since 1325 . The close relatives of his two wives included six Lübeck mayors and five other councilors.

As a merchant, Johann Pleskow is initially documented through his real estate transactions: in 1343 Johann von Pleskow acquired the farm on the field on the Mecklenburg island of Poel together with his stepfather Tidemann von Güstrow , which they both sold on in 1344. In 1345 he again belonged to a consortium of Lübeck merchants consisting of his stepfather, Hermann von Alen and the community of heirs after the councilor Marquard von Coesfeld , who acquired the village of Hinter Wendorf near Wismar as a capital investment and supplemented it with the acquisition of the associated Bede in 1350 . Johann Pleskow, whose multiple property and annuity transactions are naturally better documented than the other commercial and financial transactions, fell into increasing financial decline from around 1360. In this situation he was supported by his extended family and in particular by other families who had also immigrated from Gotland. This shortcoming obviously did not affect his political activities and reputation as councilor.

In 1348 Johann Pleskow was elected to the city council. As councilor, he first appeared in the disputes with the landed gentry of the Lübeck area and the city's efforts to increase safety on the country roads, for example in 1359 as an arbitrator in the case of the Knights of Scharpenberg , who since 1355 had unsuccessful claims for damages against the city of Hamburg because of their Castle Linau, which was demolished in 1349, operated in Lauenburg, and in 1365 as a representative of Lübeck in settlement negotiations as a result of the feuds of the knight families von Buchwaldt and Parkentin from Holstein and Mecklenburg. In 1366 Pleskow was entrusted with negotiating the settlement of the damage with the rector of the Rellinger Church , who had been damaged by Lübeck riders.

At the diplomatic level, at the end of the First Waldemark War, he was a member of a Hanseatic embassy as its leader in 1363 , which met in Nykøbing Falster to negotiate with the Danish King Waldemar IV . He also represented Lübeck several times between 1361 and 1367 at Hanseatic and Hanseatic congresses outside of Lübeck .

In 1357 he is also documented as a representative of the St. Johannis monastery in Lübeck .

Johann Pleskow was first married to Alheid von Alen († 1353/54), a daughter of Lübeck councilor Eberhard von Alen , and his second marriage to Alheid Morkerke , widow of Lübeck councilor Tidemann von Uelzen , who died in 1350 .

Seal of the widow Tidemann Vorrades

From his first marriage he had three daughters Alheid, Christine and Gertrud, and other children died before they reached adulthood. His daughter Gertrud / Geseke married councilor Tidemann Vorrade . After his untimely death, she was a recognized business woman as a widow in Lübeck.

Johann Pleskow had lived in a house in the Lübeck Maria Magdalenen Quarter since 1349 at Kleine Burgstrasse 24 ; the property is now built over with the Ernestin School .

literature

• Rafael Ehrhardt: Family and Memoria in the City. A case study on Lübeck in the late Middle Ages. Dissertation, Göttingen 2001. Full text with a prosopography of the council families von Alen, Darsow, Geverdes, Segeberg and Warendorf.
• Emil Ferdinand Fehling : Lübeck Council Line. Lübeck 1925, No. 361.
• Jürgen Wiegandt: The Plescows - A contribution to the emigration of Wisby merchant families to Lubeck in the 13th and 14th centuries: (Sources and representations on Hanseatic history) 1988, in particular pp. 140–192 ( III. 7. The councilor Johann Plescow II )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fehling: Lübeck Council Line. Lübeck 1925, No. 329.
2. ↑ Fehling: Lübeck Council Line. Lübeck 1925, no.340.