Justinian von Holzhausen

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Justinian von Holzhausen (* October 1502 in Frankfurt am Main ; † September 9, 1553 ibid) was a Frankfurt councilor, diplomat, general and humanist . He has held the office of junior and senior mayor several times .

Life

Justinian and Anna von Holzhausen

Justinian von Holzhausen was born in October 1502 as the youngest son of the Frankfurt patrician and councilor Hamman von Holzhausen . His mother was Margarete Helle, a bourgeois daughter. Of the seven children, apart from Justinian, only the two older sisters Margaretha (* 1494) and Katharina (* 1495) survived childhood.

His mother died when he was six years old. Nothing is known about his youth. Presumably he was brought up by private tutors, as was customary among the Frankfurt patrician families at that time. Probably he no longer attended the municipal Latin school founded by his father in 1520 , but privately he attended the lectures of Rector Wilhelm Nesen on Humaniora . In April 1521 he got to know Martin Luther , who stopped in Frankfurt on his trip to the Worms Reichstag .

Based on the impressions he had received from Nesen and Luther, he and his childhood friend Johann von Glauburg moved to the University of Wittenberg from 1524 to 1526 .

In 1528 he married the patrician daughter Anna Fürstenberger (1510–1573), a daughter of the senior mayor Philipp Fürstenberger , who was friends with his father. Justinian and Anna were among the first patricians to openly profess the Reformation . Anna was godmother at the first Lutheran baptism in Frankfurt am Main in 1527. The couple had eleven children, nine of whom survived childhood and six started their own families. The six sons all had classically ancient names: Trajan, Justinian, Achilles, Johann Hector, Hieronymus Augustus and Julius.

Justinian owned an unusually large library for the time. The circle of friends of humanists that he gathered on his estate, the Holzhausen-Oede in what is now Frankfurt's Holzhausenpark , included, along with other patricians such as Johann von Glauburg, Daniel zum Junge and Georg Weiß von Limpurg, the lawyer Johann Fichard , Philipp Melanchthon , who Stayed in Frankfurt in 1539, and Jakob Micyllus .

plant

Epitaph of Justinian and Annas von Holzhausen

Justinian's political career led him to the highest city offices. In 1529 he became councilor as a member of the Alten Limpurg patrician society , the most powerful bank in the Frankfurt council. In 1534 he became the junior mayor , and in 1537, after the death of his father, a lay judge. He held the office of senior mayor in 1538, 1543 and 1549.

More important than the inward-looking offices, however, were his functions as a diplomat. He represented the city as envoy at the Diets of Speyer (1531 and 1542), Worms (1535) and Nuremberg (1542). In 1537, as a representative of the "Free and Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main" at the Schmalkaldic Bundestag, he signed the Schmalkaldic Articles , with which Frankfurt joined the Confessio Augustana .

In 1546 Frankfurt was threatened in the Schmalkaldic War by an imperial army under General Count Maximilian von Büren. The council recognized that the city could not be defended militarily against the emperor and turned to diplomacy. Justinian and Johann von Glauburg were sent as emissaries to the imperial field camp near Groß-Gerau to negotiate the surrender of the city. By opening its gates to the troops of the Catholic Emperor Charles V on December 29, 1546, the Lutheran city of Frankfurt secured its imperial privileges, which formed the basis for the city's prosperity and political significance. She sacrificed her loyalty to the Lutheran covenant for this.

During the winter of 1546/47 the city had to accommodate an imperial garrison of 5000 men and at the same time to convince the emperor of their active repentance with enormous contributions. The hope of a victory for the Lutheran princes faded at the latest after the battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547.

In the time after Karl's victory, especially after the Augsburg Interim (1548), it was again thanks to Justinian's diplomatic skill that the city did not sink into confessional strife. Against the resistance of the Lutheran clergy, above all Hartmann Beyers , Justinian enforced the implementation of the interim. The three collegiate churches St. Bartholomäus , Liebfrauen and St. Leonhard were given back to the Catholics, as well as the Dominican monastery and the Carmelite monastery . Justinian cautioned the clergy to preach according to the Interim and threatened them with consequences if they refused.

Their loyalty to the emperor, combined with their financial generosity, meant that the city did not have to submit to any further imperial reprisals. Rather, the emperor treated the Lutheran patrician with respect by issuing an imperial letter of protection and coat of arms for him in 1550.

Justinian passed his most serious test in 1552, when his military skills were tested in addition to his diplomatic skills. The Protestant princes under the leadership of Moritz von Saxony had risen in the prince revolt against the emperor and besieged the Lutheran city of Frankfurt for three weeks in July, which was defended by Catholic troops led by Colonel Konrad von Hanstein . Only the Passau Treaty of July 29, 1552 ended the siege.

It was the greatest military and diplomatic achievement in Frankfurt's history. The city had successfully defended its Lutheran creed and at the same time its privileges as a trade fair venue and as the place of election and coronation of the Roman emperors . From 1562 onwards, almost all emperors in Frankfurt were not only elected, as was customary before, but also ceremonially crowned.

Justinian died on September 9, 1553 at the age of 51. Like his father Hamman, he was buried in the family grave in St. Peter's Church. His epitaph has been lost since the demolition of the old St. Peter's Church in 1894, but there is an image from the 17th century in the Holzhausen family's epitaph book, which is in the Institute for City History.

The memory of the noble Holzhausen family and above all of Justinian and his father Hamman is cultivated in Frankfurt in many ways to this day:

See also

literature


personal data
SURNAME Holzhausen, Justinian von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Frankfurt patrician, councilor and mayor
DATE OF BIRTH October 1502
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1553
Place of death Frankfurt am Main