Katharina von Zimmer
Katharina von Zimmer (* 1478 in Meßkirch ; † August 17, 1547 in Zurich ) was the last abbess of the Fraumünster Monastery in Zurich. During the Reformation she handed over the abbey to the city of Zurich at the end of 1524 and married Eberhard von Reischach .
family
According to the family chronicle, Katharina was born in Messkirch around 1478; she was the fourth child of Baron Hans Werner von Zimmer and Countess Margarethe von Oettingen . The barons von Zimmer belonged to the middle noble families of the southwestern German area and resided in Messkirch. They owed their rank above all to the service of princes, as they were close followers of the Habsburgs . Hans Werner was one of the most important advisors to Archduke Sigismund of Austria .
When Sigismund wanted to cede his lands to the Wittelsbacher in 1487 , Emperor Friedrich III disempowered . the Archduke. The Archduke's "evil counsels", including Hans Werner von Zimmer, were outlawed and persecuted as scapegoats. Hans Werner fled to federal territory; his family followed him in 1491 to Weesen am Walensee , where they lived in modest circumstances in Haus zum Bühl .
Only the sons of Hans Werner, who died around 1496, succeeded in rehabilitation and recovery of Messkirch in the Werdenberg feud after 1500. As the most visible sign of the rise, the brothers Katharinas were raised to the rank of imperial count in 1538.
Monastery life
On the run and with an uncertain future in mind, Hans Werner von Zimmer entrusted his two daughters Anna and Katharina to the Fraumünster Monastery in Zurich around 1491 - perhaps on the mediation of the dean Albrecht von Bonstetten . The noble abbey, founded by the Carolingian king Ludwig the German , experienced difficult times in the late Middle Ages despite its rank. The number of nuns was few and the economic situation was problematic; Discussions about the lifestyle of women were the order of the day. Nominal city mistress of Zurich, the abbess gradually lost her political influence; In the late Middle Ages, it was the Zurich Council that controlled the finances and thus indirectly also the activities of the convent women.
The two noble daughters did not enter the abbey entirely voluntarily and finally took the veil in 1494, which was connected with the extensive renunciation of the family inheritance. Just two years later, Katharina, around 18 years old, was elected abbess against the opposition of a fellow sister. Until the abolition of the monastery in the Reformation period at the end of 1524, she was in charge of the abbey, although much is known about her office today. As a princess she maintained an upscale lifestyle and was highly regarded. At the same time, she successfully took care of the economic restructuring of her convent, which remained small and consisted of hardly more than four to five women on average.
Promoter of art and culture
Katharina von Zimmer left lasting traces primarily as a builder and art patron. She not only took care of the contemporary furnishings of the monastery church, the Renaissance painting of the Marienkapelle around 1515, the foundation of a bell with a humanistic inscription from 1518/1519 and the modernization of the buildings. Above all, it is thanks to her that the perhaps most beautiful late Gothic interiors in Zurich are made: two representative, richly decorated rooms that can now be viewed in the Swiss National Museum . Erected in 1506/1508, these two abbess interiors contain, in keeping with the taste of the time, rich flat carvings with partly profane and frivolous motifs, but also with idiosyncratic motto friezes.
reformation
As a woman of education and respect, Abbess Katharina von Zimmer is likely to have experienced the theological discussions of her time up close. As one of her first official acts in 1496, she elected Heinrich Engelhard, a later partisan Ulrich Zwingli, as a people priest in Fraumünster. And Zwingli presented her with a Reformation pamphlet published in 1523 with a personal dedication.
It is unclear what part the abbess played in the church disputes. What becomes clear, however, is the narrow scope in an environment characterized by rural unrest and urban paternalism. The pressure of the circumstances as well as the inner conviction may have urged Katharina to take the last, decisive step: At the end of November 1524 she handed the abbey over to the Reformation-minded council of the city of Zurich. She justified her controversial renunciation of office and dignity with the “shape of the runs” and in order to avoid “great unrest and hardship” in the city of Zurich. In addition, she referred to her conscience and stressed the voluntary nature of her approach. This step, which was not taken for granted, was of great value to the Zurich Council; He awarded Katharina von Zimmer a large annuity and the right to live in the former monastery, which, like other places of worship, was converted into a municipal office.
Marriage and married life
Shortly after the abbey was dissolved, Katharina married Eberhard von Reischach, whom she must have known for a long time. His family, who came from Hegau , had been in contact with the barons of Zimmer for a long time; he himself was a close follower and mercenary leader of the Duke of Württemberg. Outlawed because of unauthorized military service in Zurich, Eberhard lived with Katharina first in Schaffhausen , later in Diessenhofen . In 1529 the couple moved back to Zurich thanks to an amnesty. At the side of Zwingli, Eberhard lost his life in 1531 in the battle of Kappel .
The couple had at least two children, an unnamed son and daughter Anna, who later married the Schaffhausen Junker Hans Heinrich von Mandach. The couple's efforts to obtain financial compensation from Katharina's brothers were of little fruit. Rather, the latter insisted on earlier inheritance contracts and were not prepared to support Katharina in any way. It was not until shortly before the death of the former abbess that her brother, Count Gottfried Werner von Zimmer , showed an understanding and recognized an arbitration award by Zurich that awarded the former abbess a large sum of money.
Death and appreciation
After the death of her husband on the battlefield, Katharina lived secluded in Zurich. In exchange for a severance payment, she waived her right to live in the Fraumünster complex in 1536 and bought the house at «Bracken» before purchasing the house at «Mohrenkopf» on Neumarkt in 1540. She was still in high regard; so she belonged to the Constaffel Society and took over the sponsorship of baptisms in the upper class, where she was still referred to as "Abbess" in 1545. She died on August 17, 1547 at the age of about 70. Her inheritance went to the daughter Anna, but was also claimed, in vain, by a second (?) Daughter who was married to Vinzenz Spiegelberg from Schaffhausen.
For a long time, the image of the Abbess of Fraumünster was shaped by the not very advantageous description in Zimmer's chronicle . The story writer Froben Christoph accused his aunt of having "unwillingly" renounced the abbey and then married outside the class without the knowledge and will of the brothers. In Zurich, however, the abdication in 1524 naturally met with great recognition; the person behind, however, was slowly being forgotten. In connection with an ecumenical church project, Katharina von Zimmer was only rediscovered in 1988 and then widely appreciated. The memorial by the artist Annemarie Bauer in the former cloister of the Fraumünster Abbey , initiated by the Katharina von Zimmer association, has been a reminder of the long-serving Zurich abbess.
Honor
Katharina von Zimmer was honored by the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster on the occasion of the annual women's honor at Sechseläuten 2000 . Her memorial plaque is on the house "Zum Mohrenkopf" at Neumarkt 13 in Zurich, where she lived between 1540 and 1547.
literature
- Barbara Helbling: Katharina von Zimmer. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Karl August Barack : Zimmer Chronicle . According to the edition by Barack ed. by Paul Hermann. Hendel, Meersburg / Leipzig 1932 (4 vol.), Reprint of Barack's 2nd edition
- Christine Christ-von Wedel: The abbess, the mercenary leader and their daughters - Katharina von Zimmer in the political tension of the Reformation. With the collaboration of Irene Gysel, Jeanne Pestalozzi and Marlis Stähli. TVZ, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-290-18255-7 .
- Hansmartin Decker-Hauff , Rudolf Seigel (ed.): The chronicle of the counts of rooms . Manuscripts 580 and 581 of the Princely Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek Donaueschingen. 3 volumes. Sigmaringen 1964 ff.
- Irene Gysel, Barbara Helbling (ed.): Zurich's last abbess. Katharina von Zimmer 1478–1547. NZZ-Verlag, Zurich 1999.
- Regine Abegg: Late Gothic parlors and flat carving friezes from the courtyard of the Fraumünster abbess Katharina von Zimmer in the Swiss National Museum. With a contribution by Rachel Kyncl: Analysis of the sayings in the former premises of Abbess Katharina von Zimmer. (Ed. By the Katharina von Zimmer association). Typescript, Zurich 2008.
- Casimir Bumiller, Bernhard Rüth, Edwin Ernst Weber (eds.): Patrons, collectors, chroniclers. The Counts of Zimmer and the culture of the Swabian nobility. Belser Verlag, Stuttgart 2012.
- Peter Niederhäuser, Dölf Wild (ed.): The Fraumünster in Zurich. From the royal abbey to the town church ( communications from the Antiquarian Society in Zurich, vol. 80). Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2012.
- Peter Vogelsanger : Zurich and its Fraumünster. An eleven hundred year history (853–1956). NZZ Libro, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-85823-515-6 .
- Susann L. Pflüger: New Year's Gazette of the Fraumünster Society for 2017 (Eleventh Edition), Edition Gutenberg Volume 11, No. 11, Zurich 2017, ISSN 1663-5264 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Katharina von Zimmer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Katharina von Zimmer on Frauen-und-reformation.de
- Irene Gysel: Our lady Katharina von Zimmer - wife from July – August 2017. IG Feminist Theologians
Individual evidence
- ↑ The reception room of Katharina von Zimmer and the private chamber of Abbess Katharina von Zimmer in the online collection of the Swiss National Museum, accessed on November 3, 2019.
- ^ Place of memory of Katharina von Zimmer. On the artist's website, accessed on November 3, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zimmer, Katharina von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | last abbess of the Fraumünster monastery in Zurich |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1478 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Messkirch |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th August 1547 |
| Place of death | Zurich |