Kunz from Kauffungen

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A charcoal burner saves the stolen Saxon princes ( Bernhard Rode 1781)
Coat of arms of the Kaufungen family from Siebmacher's coat of arms book from 1605
Stone head of Kunz von Kauffungen at the head of the Freiberg town hall oriel
Town hall oriel , so-called gaff head

Kunz von Kauffungen , also Kunz von Kaufungen , actually Konrad von Kaufungen , (* around 1410 in Kaufungen ; † July 14, 1455 in Freiberg ) was a Saxon nobleman. He went down in Saxon history as the initiator of the Altenburg prince robbery .

Life

Kunz came from the von Kaufungen family , a lower Saxon noble family. He was Burgvogt von Altenburg , owner of the Wolkenburg Castle , the Stein Castle and the owner of Bohemian lands. In the Saxon Fratricidal War he fought on the side of Elector Friedrich the Meek . When his estate in Thuringia was devastated, Frederick II compensated him with the Schweikershain estate , which previously belonged to a follower of Wilhelm. As part of the right to feud , he attacked (as a robber baron) trade caravans in order to harm Wilhelm . Kunz then became a prisoner of the Bohemians, who fought on Wilhelm's side, and was released after two years with a ransom payment of 4,000 guilders .

Following an imperial warning, the fratricidal war was settled on January 27, 1451 when peace was concluded at Pforta . An article of the peace treaty provided for all confiscated goods to be returned to their rightful owners. Kunz now demanded compensation from the elector for the ransom, for the destruction of his property in Thuringia and the expropriation of his manor in Schweikershain, which he was supposed to hand over without adequate compensation. The elector rejected the demands, however, arguing that Kauffungen had entered the war as a free knight at his own risk and, in turn, made an invoice to Kunz. After years of debate, it was finally decided in 1455 that an arbitration tribunal would review it. The courts in Magdeburg and Friedberg gave Kunz von Kauffungen right, but the court in Leipzig, Saxony, gave the elector right, and this judgment ultimately counted. Kunz felt that he was being treated unfairly and began planning the prince robbery in order to have some leverage against the elector.

In the early morning hours of July 8, 1455, the knights Kunz von Kauffungen, Wilhelm von Schönfels and Wilhelm von Mosen kidnapped the two Saxon princes Ernst and Albrecht from Altenburg Castle . The intention of the kidnappers to go to Bohemia with the two princes to his possessions under the feudal rule of the Bohemian king and to negotiate a ransom from there failed on the first day. Kunz with Albrecht and his helpers with Ernst parted on the run. Kunz was arrested near Waschleithe and transferred to the Grünhain monastery . Mosen and Schönfels came with the other prince via Zwickau into the Hartensteiner Flur. There they hid Prince Ernst in the Prinzenhöhle . After Mosen and Schönfels realized that their plan was doomed to failure (everyone was talking about the establishment of Kunz von Kauffungen), they started negotiations with the Hartenstein castle lord Friedrich von Schönburg and achieved impunity and free withdrawal with subsequent exile in Exchange against the other prince. The governor of Zwickau then brought Kunz to Osterstein Castle for a day (not to the Altenburg crime scene). Kunz was beheaded a week later in Freiberg .

The paving stone on the Freiberg Obermarkt

The place where the severed head is said to have rolled is still marked today with a black cobblestone. The eyes of the stone head on the town hall oriel (see photo) are focused on this point.

The corpse was first buried in the Freiberg Cathedral at the instigation of the Meissen bishop Caspar von Schönberg , who was an uncle of Kauffungen . The elector had it removed from there. Kauffungen is said to have found his final resting place in the church in Neukirchen, a district of the municipality of Reinsberg . There he is said to be buried near the tower inside the church.

Kunz's possessions were confiscated, his family castle razed. His last stay before the prince robbery, Wolfsburg in Wolftitz near Frohburg , was razed in 1457. His brother was beheaded and his children were raised by the King of Bohemia .

family

Kunz von Kauffungen was married to Elisabeth von Einsiedel . Her children Katharina († before 1501) and Hildebrand († 1497/98) were brought up at the court of the Bohemian King George of Podebrady . His son Heinrich d. Ä. pledged in 1477 the Hildebrand of Kauffungen since this year the county Glatz belonging domination Hummel with the Castle Country Fried as a fief. Kunz von Kauffungen's widow Elisabeth lived there, as can be seen from her will of December 4, 1490, in which she designated her son Hildebrand as the sole heir. The witnesses were Duke Heinrich the Elder. Ä. and the Wroclaw Canon Apitius Colo. Further news from her life are not known.

Neukirchen village church , where Kunz is said to be buried

literature

Web links

Commons : Kunz von Kauffungen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Websites of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sachs  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.htw-dresden.de  
  2. ^ Chronicle of the places Wolftitz and Stretwald
  3. ↑ http://geo.viaregia.org/testbed/pool/editmain/T1_87_Kauffungen.kurz.html
personal data
SURNAME Kunz from Kauffungen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Initiator of the Altenburg prince robbery
DATE OF BIRTH around 1410
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaufungen
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1455
Place of death Freiberg