Konrad Stürtzel

Konrad Stürtzel, Detail from the stained glass window in the Freiburg Minster (original 1528)

Konrad Stürtzel von Buchheim (also Stürzel , Stirtzel , Sturtzl , Sterczel ) (* around 1435 in Kitzingen am Main; † March 2, 1509 in Freiburg i. Br. ) Was a doctor of canon law , knight and court chancellor of Emperor Maximilian I.

origin

Konrad Stürtzel came from a middle-class family. Nothing is known about his school days, but it can be assumed that he attended the Latin school in his home town of Kitzingen . In 1453 he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg , which he left in 1458 as a Magister artium .

University professor in Freiburg

Stürtzel's city palace in Freiburg 1589 (later called ' Basler Hof ')

Window of the Stürtzel Chapel in Freiburg Minster

Group of figures from the Three Kings Altar made for Stürtzel in 1505

Building amulet from Stürtzel's city palace

In 1460 Stürtzel became one of the first teachers at the artist faculty of the young University of Freiburg i. Br. And in 1469, although only a master's degree, rector of the university for the first time . In addition to his teaching duties, he studied canon law , a subject in which he then received his doctorate. In 1478 his colleagues elected him again as rector. He enjoyed a great reputation and trust not only within the university, but also in the city of Freiburg. In 1476, for example, Master Connrat Stürczel was appointed by the city of Freiburg to a nine-member committee of inquiry to reorganize the budget and administration.

Political offices

In addition to his academic duties, Stürtzel had been Archduke Siegmund's advisor since 1474 . When the latter appointed him as a councilor in his government in 1481, he moved from Freiburg to the court in Innsbruck . In 1486 he became chancellor there . When the Tyrolean estates , dissatisfied with their sovereign's mismanagement, urged him to hand over control of his lands to King Maximilian , Stürtzel was instrumental in the transfer of sovereignty to Maximilian. The Tyrolean chancellor came into the service of the German king from 1490.

Maximilian subsequently entrusted the Innsbruck court chancellery not only with the affairs of his hereditary lands , but also more and more often with those of the Roman-German Empire , which increased the political importance of the court chancellor. Maximilian plan, with the help of his chancellor, the court chancellery to a Reich Chancellery expand, met with bitter resistance from the Archbishop of Mainz Berthold von Henneberg , who as Elector and Lord Chancellor pursued the kingdom part of Germany, the same goal. At the Worms Reichstag of 1495, the first since Maximilian's sole rule, the conflict between King and Empire became clear. The relationship between the imperial estates and the king was discussed for months . The result was the reform of the Worms Empire , above all the establishment of the Reich Chamber of Commerce and the collection of the common penny to finance it. The implementation of the Worms reform decisions also determined the agenda of the following diets in Lindau, Worms, Freiburg and Cologne. Stürtzel was one of the councilors who had the thankless task of negotiating on behalf of the often absent king. Maximilian was not satisfied with Stürtzel's conduct of the negotiations in Lindau because he had allowed the imperial estates to put himself on the defensive when raising the common penny. Nevertheless, none of the councilors knew as well as Stürtzel how to portray Maximilian's wars as a necessary defense of the empire and to show the great developments in the interests of the king. The disempowerment of Maximilian by the imperial estates after the loss of Milan to the French king also severely restricted the possibilities of the court chancellor. The Augsburg order dictated by the imperial estates deprived the court chancellor of all jurisdiction over imperial matters and Stürtzel resigned in 1500. At his own request Maximilian dismissed him in honor of the same year, with the right to use the title of court chancellor (among other titles) until the end of his life. His successor in the court chancellery was his previous deputy Zyprian von Serntein . Serntein helped Maximilian to regain the political initiative and after two years again carried the imperial seal. Stürtzel's other political activities for the court were no longer as extensive as before; after 1500 she concentrated on diplomatic missions, especially in the foothills , the Confederation and Strasbourg.

Stürtzel was also involved in numerous foreign policy missions from Sigismund and Maximilian as envoy . When Maximilian's great competitor, the French King Charles VIII, traveled through Italy in 1494/95 to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, Maximilian wanted to secure his imperial Italy and in particular the Duchy of Milan. Stürtzel was instrumental in the investiture of Ludovico Sforza , who was to be enfeoffed there as imperial prince. In addition, Stürtzel negotiated with the rulers of Geldern and Friesland as well as the Swiss .

Already in 1488 Stürtzel was together with his brother Bartholomäus by Emperor Friedrich III. raised to the hereditary nobility. His son King Maximilian confirmed this three years later, as a result of which Konrad and his brother were allowed to call themselves Stürtzel von Buchheim (Sturtzl von Buchen) after they had bought several villages in the Mark Buchheim ( March ).

family

Konrad Stürtzel was first married to Elisabeth Griesser, who came from an influential family from the non-aristocratic upper class of Freiburg and was the widow of the chief guild master Konrad Münzmeister called Frowenberg. If there were children from Konrad's first marriage, they probably did not reach adulthood. After Elisabeth's death, Konrad married Ursula Laucher (Loucher, Locher) from Freiburg in the late 1470s. Four sons and two daughters are known from this marriage:

• Konrad Stürtzel from Buchheim the Elder J. (* approx. 1478, † 1530), theologian, doctor of rights, legal successor to the father, Imperial Councilor in Ensisheim
• Georg Stürtzel (* approx. 1484, † before 1509), canon in Thann
• Christoph Stürtzel († 1524), canon in Waldkirch
• Maximilian Stürtzel the Elder Ä. (* approx. 1490, † after 1516), clergyman
• Anna Stürtzel, marriage to Michael von Blumeneck
• Elisabeth Stürtzel, 1510 marriage to Wolf Wilhelm von Andlau

During his activity at the court , Stürtzel managed to amass a considerable fortune. On the one hand the position of court chancellor was highly endowed, on the other hand he knew how to invest his money profitably, whereby his position and his influence helped him. So he lent the always numb Maximilian considerable sums. Stürtzel invested a large part of his money in real estate. In the 1480s he bought seven neighboring houses in Freiburg near the cathedral, which he combined in the 1490s to form a building complex with an inner courtyard. His city palace was the largest private building in Freiburg at the time. From 1587, the building was owned by the Basel cathedral chapter as the Basler Hof and after 1651 the seat of the government of Upper Austria. In addition, in 1491 Stürtzel bought from David Landeck zu Wiesneck the villages of Buchheim , Hochdorf , Holzhausen and Hugstetten im Breisgau with large and small jurisdictions, all rights and subjects.

When the new cathedral choir was built in 1505 , Stürtzel acquired the first chapel on the south side as a family burial place. The two glass windows in the Stürtzel Chapel were not completed until 1530 and show the adoration of the kings on the left and the court chancellor kneeling at the feet of St. Nikolaus, male and female family members in separate lanes on the right. The drawing template for the windows and thus also for the portrait of the Chancellor was created by Hans Baldung a few years after his death . A copy by Fritz Geiges from 1910 can be found in the cathedral today . The original windows are in poor condition and are in the archive of the Augustinian Museum . Also in 1505, Stürtzel had a three king altar carved by Hans Wydyz for the house chapel in his city palace , the group of figures of which is now also in the Freiburg Minster . The three associated figures (Jesus, Maria, John) are in the Augustinian Museum.

Appreciations

His hometown Kitzingen honored him by naming a street after him (Kanzler-Stürtzel-Straße), as did the city of Freiburg (Stürtzelstraße). Also in Buchheim (March) , where Konrad and his descendants were landlords for a long time, a street at the church was named after him (Konrad-Stürtzel-Straße).

death

Chancellor Konrad Stürtzel died in Freiburg in 1509. After his death in 1509, all fiefdoms passed to his son Konrad. The widow received the town house and an annual pension of 300 guilders. She died in 1518. It is still unclear whether the chancellor's grave is in the Stürtzel Chapel in the Münster or in the Martinskirche , where his second wife is buried.

Apart from his legitimate sons, Stürtzel had no other male descendants. The family of the Stürtzel von Buchheim survived in the line of his brother Bartholomäus Stürtzel von Buchheim († 1508) seven generations and died in 1790 with the Freiburg Commander of the Teutonic Order Alexander Joseph Carl Thadäus Stürzel (1722-1790) in the male line.

Known students

• Johann Geiler from Kaysersberg
• Jakob Locher
• Ulrich Molitor
• Jakob Wimpfeling

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matriculation in 1453 at the University of Heidelberg
2. ↑ Tom Scott, The Freiburg Enquete from 1476, Verlag Stadtarchiv Freiburg, 1986
3. ^ Letter to the nobility of January 24, 1488, Freiburg State Archives, Archive of the Barons of Mentzingen - Hugstetten lordship documents, signature U100 / 2
4. ^ Letter of nobility of July 4, 1491, Austrian State Archives in Vienna, House, Court and State Archives, Reichsregisterbücher Volume FF, fol. 66-68
5. ↑ Foundation inscription of the stained glass window: Conrat sturtzel Von buochenn Erbschenck of the Lantgrofschaft Elsess (Alsace) Knight docktor RKM [Roman Royal Majesty] Hof Kantzler and sin gemachel Frauw Ursula born loucherin de [nen] [g] ot genod Anno XV And in the finften . (1505)

literature

• Konrad Stürtzel in the German biography
• Klaus Arnold: Konrad Stürtzel (around 1437 - 1509) . In: Publications of the Society for Franconian History. Row 7 A, Fränkische Lebensbilder. 23 (2012), pp. 41-60.
• Georg Buchwald : Konrad Stürtzel von Buchheim from Kitzingen, Doctor of Canon Law, Chancellor Emperor Maximilian I, inheritance from the Landgraviate of Alsace. A description of his life and work according to archival sources , Leipzig B. Richter 1900. New edition Kitzingen Högner 2011
• Jürgen Bücking: The Stürtzel family of Buchheim (1491-1790). An attempt on the social and economic history of the Breisgau nobility in the early modern period . In: "Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine", Vol. 118 (NF 79), 1970, pp. 239-278
• Cora Dietl: The dramas of Jacob Locher and the early humanist stage in southern Germany . Sources and research on literary and cultural history, 37 = (271). Berlin: de Gruyter 2004. online at books.google.de
• Fritz Geiges: The medieval window decorations of the Freiburg Minster, its history, the causes of its decay and the measures to restore it; at the same time a contribution to the history of the building itself , Breisgau-Verein Schau-ins-Land, 1931, p. 141, p. 153–158
• Hans Jensen: The shoe without a tip. A picture of Conrad Stürtzel's life from Buchheim , Karlsruhe Badenia 1966.
• Ernst Kemmeter (archivist of the city of Kitzingen): A walk through the history of the city of Kitzingen , Bücherstube Högner, Kitzingen 1968
• Dagmar Kraus: Archive of the Barons of Mentzingen - Hugstetten Castle Archive: Urkundenregesten 1357–1827 , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1999. [Darin u. a. Documents from the Stürzel von Buchheim, Andlau-Birseck families and related families]
• Dieter Mertens : Konrad Stürtzel . In: “Freiburger Universitätsblätter”, Issue 137, 1997, pp. 45–48. PDF
• Dieter Mertens : Konrad Stürtzel, Court Chancellor and Councilor of Emperor Maximilian I. In: Journal of the Breisgau History Association Schau-ins-Land, vol. 130 (2011), pp. 13-33. Online edition
• Irmgard Rannacher: Dr. Konrad Stürtzel von Buchheim in the service of Emperor Maximilian I from 1490 to 1509 , dissertation, Graz 1976
• Joseph Schlippe: The Basler Hof in Freiburg , special print from the magazine "Schau-ins-Land", 84./85. Annual booklet of the Breisgau History Association, Freiburg 1966/67
• Heinrich Stürzl, Rosa Marschall: Family Chronicle Stürzl. Origin and distribution of the surnames Sterzl and Stürzl in southern Germany . Cardamina, Weißenthurm 2016.
• Heinz Erich Walter: The book from Buchheim. 769-1969. The local register of Buchheim id March (Freiburg i. Br. District) , Walter-Ortsbuch, No. 10, HE Walter, Ludwigsburg 1969

Web links

Commons : Konrad Stürtzel von Buchheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Pedigree of Konrad Stürtzel
• Publications on Konrad Stürtzel in the Baden-Württemberg State Bibliography
• Publications on Konrad Stürtzel in RI-Opac