Josias of Qualen (Field Marshal)

Josias von Qualen (* around 1528 ; † September 29, 1586 in Gottorf ) was lord of Koselau , Danish field marshal , bailiff of Steinburg and governor of Süderdithmarschen .

Life

The exact year of birth of Josias von Qualen is unknown. He was born around 1528 as the eldest of six sons of Otto von Qualen (died 1604), heir from Koselau and his second wife Druda Wittorf. From 1563 he was married to Ölgard von Ahlefeld. The marriage resulted in two sons and five daughters.

In 1544 he enrolled as one of the first students at the newly founded Albertus University in Königsberg . After completing his studies, he entered the military and fought a. a. 1558 as a lieutenant in France. Back from the war he became court marshal of Gottorfischer in 1559 .

In the seven-year three - crown war , Qualen was in the service of the Danish King Frederick II between 1563 and 1570 and led to the conquest of Varberg fortress in Halland , Sweden , during the siege of which the general Daniel Rantzau was killed. As an award for his special merits, he was appointed field marshal .

On December 10, 1571 he was appointed bailiff of Steinburg and governor of Süderdithmarschen to Krempe . In the period that followed, agony was primarily about settling disputes. In 1577 he brokered a comparison between the council and the citizens of Itzehoe . He had the Steinburg Castle rebuilt as early as 1576, but fell out of favor with the king in 1579 because it emerged that over the past eight years he had acquired extensive land in the Dithmarsch church games in Süderhastedt , Eddelak and Marne and had merged it into a single property. On January 25, 1579, the king issued a mandate that none of the nobility were allowed to trade with the residents for estates, inheritance and their own without the knowledge and will of the king, or to acquire them. The king reprimanded him in writing on September 14, 1579 and ordered the cession of the property to the crown, which was henceforth called Friedrichshof. As late as 1580, Qualen appeared with 10 horses on the fief days of Odense and rode in the 5th rank after the king, but was recalled a year later as bailiff and governor from Krempe. Duke Adolf I , however, had taken a liking to him and appointed Qualen to the district administrator in the same year and made him bailiff of Gottorf in 1582. As such, he became a member of the court council and daily advisor to the duke.

On September 29, 1586, after a feast at Gottorf Castle , Qualen fell from the drawbridge into the water, got his golden necklace hanging on a pole in the water and drowned. As the heir of Koselau, he was buried in the Lensahn church.

literature

• Hans-Hellmuth Qualen : Those of Qualen. History of a noble family from Schleswig-Holstein. Mühlau, Kiel 1987, ISBN 3-87559-055-4 , pp. 30-40.
• Ludwig Andresen, Walter Stephan: Contributions to the history of the Gottorf court and state administration from 1544–1659 (= studies and sources on the history of administration and economy in Gottorf from 1544–1659. 1–2 = sources and research on the history of Schleswig-Holstein. 14-15, ISSN  0173-0940 ). 2 volumes. Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, Kiel 1928.
• Andreas LJ Michelsen : News from the Holstein offices and officials in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg History . Vol. 7, 1877, pp. 117-150, ( digitized ).