Katharina von Spaur

Katharina von Spaur, Pflumb and Valor (* 1580 ; † 1650 in Biberach an der Riß ), also known as Katharina von Spaur, Pflaum and Vallier , was from 1610 as Katharina II the 27th princess abbess of the free worldly Buchau monastery in today's Bad Buchau am Federsee .

family

Katharina von Spaur was the daughter of Leo von Spaur. The Spaur were a noble family from Tyrol attested as early as the 12th century . She had three sisters. The younger Maria Clara , Abbess of Essen, Anna Genevra, Abbess of Sonnenberg and Veronica, mentioned as canoness in Buchau in 1605, later married to Count Alwig von Sulz . Her brother Leo II von Spaur was initially a colonel in the imperial army, inheritance of Tyrol and later Tyrolean governor .

In the pen

Buchau town and monastery in the 1st half of the 17th century

In September 1594, coming via Zeil , she entered the monastery on a recommendation from Truchseß Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil . She was elected abbess on June 7, 1610. The election was confirmed on July 14, 1610. The consecration was repeatedly postponed because the then Bishop of Constance Jakob Fugger demanded an examination from her , which she only protested about herself endured. The consecration took place on November 21, 1610.

Spaur remained loyal to this behavior towards the persons placed above her, the Bishop, Archduke of Austria and the Count's College throughout her term of office. Within the monastery, it stood out for the idiosyncratic design of the management. The other canons also resented her that her brother Christoph had moved into an apartment with a large number of servants within the monastery during a visit. Your critics gathered behind Dorothea von Mörsberg and the secretary Gabriel Leuthold.

Thirty Years' War

At first she benefited from her relations with the imperial army through her brother's position. As the war lasted, it became more and more difficult for the residents of the war zones to distinguish between friend and foe. The imperial army, for example, often plundered through Upper Swabia in search of food. So in 1628 she was forced to travel to the court in Vienna to protest against the activities of the army in person with the emperor. In the letters there is even a plan by Wallenstein to eliminate the commander in chief of the imperial army. In 1632 she fled to Rapperswil with the convent and cattle and stayed there for a year. At the end of her stay, she donated a silver-gold-plated cup with the inscription “1633 CAZBZS” (Catharina Abbess of Buchau zu Spaur) to the community. The subjects of her correspondence with the court in Vienna, the Count's College or the Bishop of Konstanz revolved around the sparing of the monastery area, which was sometimes more or less war, epidemic or famine.

In 1643/45 she asked to move to Biberach, where she fell ill in 1648 and died in spring 1650. There is no epitaph of her in the collegiate church.

literature

• Gerhard Deutschmann: Katharina, abbess of Buchau am Federsee and other Spaur women religious . In: Hohenzollerische Heimat. 60th year 2010, issue 2, pp. 25-30
• Bernhard Theil: The free worldly women's monastery Buchau am Federsee . Ed .: Max Planck Institute for History (=  Germania Sacra . NF 32). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1994, ISBN 3-11-014214-7 , pp. 422 .

predecessor	Office	Successor
Eleanor of Montfort	Abbess of Buchau 1610–1650	Franziska von Montfort