Joseph Feyerabend

Joseph Feyerabend (* 1493 in Schwäbisch Hall ; † February 23, 1543 in Ansbach ) was a lawyer and reformer , the first Protestant monastery dean in Ansbach and the first Protestant provost in Feuchtwangen .

family

Feyerabend (alternative spelling: "Feierabend") came from a middle-class Schwäbisch Hall family. His father Heinrich Vyeraubent (approx. 1439–1515), like his grandfather Konrad Vyeraubent († 1472), who was originally from Uttenhofen, was a leather tanner. Feyerabend's mother was Elisabeth Bechstein. The Heilbronn syndic and Latin poet Stephan Feyerabend was his nephew, the Frankfurt printer and publisher Sigmund Feyerabend the great-grandson of his uncle.

Feyerabend as Princely Councilor

After studying law and doing his doctorate in 1518, Feyerabend worked as a canonicus and scolasticus in Ansbach or as a high court assessor and princely councilor to Margrave Georg von Brandenburg-Ansbach (1515–1543), who in turn had been committed to the Reformation since 1524 and his brother Albrecht von Prussia moved the religious state of Prussia into a secular duchy.

In 1530, Feyerabend undertook a trip to Rome on behalf of the margrave and accompanied by the Rigian secretary Anton Morgenstern to have Pope Clement VI confirmed the Electen of Riga, sponsored by the margrave . to reach. In addition to the letter of sponsorship from the King of Poland, the Vatican also asked for a larger amount than the agreed amount. The return of the ambassadors was delayed by several months after a life-threatening fever and the sale of their horses.

Feyerabend was a member of the state parliament committee and is mentioned in 1534 as an assessor at the court court.

Feyerabend as dean and provost

Feyerabend was appointed by Margrave Georg in 1535 as the first Protestant dean of the St. Gumbert Collegiate Monastery in Ansbach , which had joined the Evangelical Lutheran Reformation in 1528 by a state parliament resolution (until 1540).

After the last Catholic provost of the Benedictine Abbey of Feuchtwangen, Johannes Knorz, died in 1540, Margrave Georg and his nephew Albrecht II of Brandenburg-Kulmbach presented Joseph Feyerabend as his (now Protestant) successor to the new one on July 29, 1540 To enforce church order after the Catholic canons had turned to the Bishop of Augsburg for help. The monastery had to accept, and on May 9, 1541, Feierabend swore to its statutes.

Joseph Feyerabend died on February 23, 1543 in Ansbach, his successor as provost was Valentin Kieser. After the death of the next and last provost Sigmund Hasentaler, the monastery was confiscated in 1563 and his fortune fell to the margrave.

estate

Feyerabend himself left no children, but on November 16, 1542 he founded a Lutheran foundation for student descendants of his siblings. It is the largest family foundation in Hall.

In addition, he obtained a letter of arms from Emperor Maximilian I for himself and his relatives , issued in Innsbruck on October 4, 1515.

In the collegiate church of St. Gumbertus there is a memorial plaque cast in brass by Pankraz Labenwolf (1492–1563) after a carved relief by Peter Flötner in brass for Joseph Feyerabend from the year 1543, for which the artists gave her for the silver Sigismund Altar in the cathedral of Krakow created relief The adoration of the shepherds used as a model.

swell

• Feyerabend Foundation in Schwäbisch Hall . Association for family and heraldry in Württemberg and Baden, [Stuttgart] 1976 ( The Württemberg family foundations . Addendum 5), p. 1, 160