Katharina Elisabeth Baroness von Galler

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Katharina Elisabeth von Galler (contemporary portrait)
Riegersburg Castle (Styria), owned by Katharina Elisabeth von Galler
Riegersburg, Styria, coat of arms relief at the gate to the high castle of Katharina Elisabeth Gallerin, born changer
Riegersburg, Wenzelstor, relief with the coat of arms Wechsler
Inscription in the White Hall of the Riegersburg: "Building is a beautiful pleasure, what it costs me, I am aware"
Kornberg Castle , Styria, owned by the husband of KE v. Galler

Katharina Elisabeth Freifrau von Galler , née Wechsler (also Wexler), called " the Gallerin " or " the bad Liesl ", (* around 1607; † February 12, 1672 in Riegersburg ) was an Austrian noble castle mistress and early women's rights activist on her own behalf.

Life

Parentage, marriage and only daughter

Katharina Elisabeth Wechsler came from the rich merchant family of Wechsler (noble family) from Radkersburg . This was raised to the nobility in the 16th century. She was probably born in 1607, but the range of mentions ranges from 1600 to 1608. In 1630, at the age of 23 (?), She married the 31-year-old Baron Hans Wilhelm von Galler, President of the Court War Council . In 1642 their daughter Regina Katharina von Galler , the only child of Baroness von Galler, was born.

In 1645 Katharina Fondell entered the service of Baroness von Galler. She later married the manager Johann Paldauf . As a victim of the Feldbach witch trial, Katharina Paldauf achieved notoriety in 1675 and from then on lived on as a "flower witch" in the memory of posterity.

Sole heir after those von Wechsler expire

In 1648 the uncle of Baroness von Galler, Sigismund Wechsler, died . Because with him became extinct, the male line of the changeover, she was the sole heir to the Riegersburg in the same place Riegersburg in Südoststeiermark District in Styria and was immortalized by a coat of arms relief with the following inscription at the gateway to the High Castle. "JESVS VND MARIA SEY ME CATHARINA ELISAWETH FRAV GALLERIN FREYIN BORN [WEC] HSLERIN FREYIN FRAV ZV STAIN RIEGKHERSPVRG VND LIECHTENEGK [...] B ANNO 1653. " The coat of arms is that of the Wechsler family (also Wexler ).

According to the legal situation at the time, she would not have been entitled to rule as a woman, but would have had to leave this function as a married woman to her husband and she would also have had no right of disposal over her property.

Katharina Elisabeth Freifrau von Galler did not submit to this norm. In her marriage contract she had already secured the right to dispose of her property herself and not to be excluded from social and economic life.

The Gallerin and the Riegersburg in Styria

At the time when the Gallerin inheritance on the Riegersburg, it was not in good condition. She had the outer bailey, the equipment and officers' house built. The baroque White Hall was also built at that time. Under their rule, the construction of the numerous bastions, gates and long walls began. The fortification was only completed under her son-in-law. The building material for this building project was the Nidere Veste, which stood on the site of today's borderland monument and was demolished (around 1650).

She invested a lot of money in the expansion of the castle and was well aware of it, as some inscriptions in the castle prove. So you can read in the White Hall: "Building is a beautiful pleasure, what it costs me, I am aware". And above the Wenzelstor: “What I've had here in 16 years, that's wanting to see and look at, I can't regret Haller, but I do my good to Vatterland. ANNO DOMINI 1653 “(Note: In the 17th century there was still no uniform spelling).

For professional reasons, the indebted Freiherr von Galler lived mainly in Graz . First he kept asking his wife for money to be able to repay his debts. Later he began to sell weapons from the Riegersburg armory. This prompted the Gallerin 1649 to conclude a settlement with him. She paid him a considerable sum of money, in return he gave her complete control over the rule. She did not meet later monetary demands.

With the death of her husband in 1650, she became the commander of the Riegersburg. She was made to feel that she was not trusted in this role. She had to fear that the authority of the castle would be withdrawn from her at any time.

Daughter Regina and her marriage to Count Johann Ernst von Purgstall

The groom's choice for her 16-year-old daughter Regina was probably not without selfishness. For this she selected the baron Johann Ernst Graf von Purgstall from the family of those von Purgstall (noble family) as bridegroom, from whom she expected help as the castle mistress.

One point in the engagement contract that the groom had to sign seems curious: the wedding and the "supplement" were promised to the count, but only at a point in time that the wife's mother liked.

It can be assumed that the Gallerin wanted to postpone the consummation of the marriage of her daughter, since the payment of the dowry was due on the day after the wedding night. The wedding finally took place in January 1659.

The widow Gallerin and her second marriage to Colonel Baron Detlef von Kapell

Despite the hopes that she placed on the support of her son-in-law, in 1660 she married Colonel Baron Detlef von Kapell (born in Brandenburg), who was under imperial service.

But with that she made her administrator Urban von Grattenau an enemy. It is not known whether he was disappointed in not becoming the husband of the Gallerin himself and thus lord of the castle. In any case, he began to intrigue with her daughter Regina and her husband against the lady of the castle. As a result, numerous lawsuits were carried out which brought the Gallerin into a critical position.

Disputes between the son-in-law Purgstall and the administrator Grattenau broke the alliance and Johann Ernst Graf von Purgstall tried to portray the former administrator as the sole culprit and himself as a betrayed tool to harm his mother-in-law.

In 1664 Detlef von Kapell fell against the Turks in the battle of Mogersdorf .

The widow Gallerin and her third marriage to the owner of Schloss Kornberg

In 1666 she married a third time. Groom was the 25-year-old Hans Rudolf von Stadl , owner of Kornberg Castle . It is not known whether it was the age difference or because of different characters. In any case, the marriage was a disaster for the Gallerin. After three years of marriage, she filed for divorce. A highly unusual step for the time!

The Gallerin listed 37 points in the list of reasons for divorce she had prepared. Among other things, she complained that her husband had not been with her for more than 5 or 6 days, that he had beaten her staff, that he got drunk every day and, out of sheer sacrilege, ate meat on fasting days.

In February 1669 a comparison between the two finally came about. Johnsdorf Castle , which the Gallerin had specially expanded for the honeymoon, came into his possession. It remained in the possession of the von Stadl family until 1675.

The quarrel with the clergy

In 1655 the Gallerin received the sole right of patronage over the parish Riegersburg and the eight branch parishes . The clergy did not recognize this decision, as it was feared that the rulers, i.e. the Gallerin, would use parish funds for their own purposes and would not take care of the maintenance of the churches and the payment of the pastors and protested violently.

When Gallerin found out that Pastor Strobel had been caught in bed with his cook, she became active again. With 20 armed men, she stormed the rectory and arrested the cook to hand her over to the Feldbach district court .

Pastor Strobel then complained to the government. In response to this, the Gallerin wrote a long list of complaints that Strobel's subjects had brought to her knowledge.

The clashes lasted eight years, in which the governor, the Salzburg archbishop and two emperors, Ferdinand III. and Leopold I. were involved.

Since then the lawsuits against her own family began, in which it was a question of their property and thus their existence, in 1661 she reached a settlement with Pastor Strobel in which she waived the right of patronage over the branch parishes and compensated him for the attacks.

On February 12, 1672, Elisabeth Katharina Freifrau von Galler, née Wechsler, died. She was buried in St. Martins Church in Riegersburg. The exact location is unknown, however, as she did not include a tombstone in her will.

reception

Joseph von Hammer, born in Graz in 1774, wrote a book about Katharin Freifrau von Galler . Under the condition that he would henceforth bear the name Purgstall, he inherited Hainfeld Castle after the death of the last Purgstall. He used the numerous documents about the Gallerin that came into his possession through this inheritance to write a 2,000-page novel Die Gallerinn auf der Rieggersburg .

The Slovenian writer and psychologist Zlatka Rakovec-Felser published a novel in 2017 with the title "Vražja Liza: čarovnije v zraku" (The Devil Lisa: Magic in the air), in which she depicts the life of Galler in fiction.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ilse Korotin (Ed.): BiografiA. Lexicon of Austrian Women , Volume 1, Vienna 2016, p. 969.
  2. ↑ Ilse Korotin: biografiA: Lexicon of Austrian women . Böhlau Verlag Wien, 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 ( google.de [accessed on March 7, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Galler, Elisabeth Katharina Freifrau von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES the Gallerin; the bad Liesl; Elisabeth Katharina Wechsler
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian nobles
DATE OF BIRTH around 1607
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1672
Place of death Riegersburg