Margarethe von der Saale

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Margarethe von der Saale

Margarethe von der Saale , also known as Margarethe von der Sahla (* 1522 in Schönfeld , † July 6, 1566 in Spangenberg ) was the second wife of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse (1504–1567).

Life

Wolkersdorf Hunting Lodge, 1625

Margarethe was born as the daughter of Anna von Miltitz and Hans von der Saale. Landgrave Philipp, who had been married since 1523, met the then 17-year-old in 1539. He described his marriage to Christine von Sachsen as shattered from the start: he had “had no love or heat, how much she sust from, but he was sust unfriendly, hesitant, and smelled bad too. “On the other hand, they had at least nine children born between 1527 and 1547, so that the quoted statement is more likely to be seen as an attempt to justify his second, bigamistic marriage.

His intention to morganatically marry Margarethe stemmed from the fact that, on the one hand, he kept himself excluded from the Lord's Supper as long as he lived “in sin” with someone other than his wife. However , he did not want a divorce , be it for religious or political reasons. He sought the reformer Martin Luther for an assessment and at the same time referred to the legend of the Count of Gleichen attached to the letter . Luther wrote back on December 10, 1539. Luther did not further contradict this presentation and argumentation for an exception and stated that between the two evils divorce and bigamy, the latter was probably the lesser. Luther let Philip do it and agreed not to disclose it. The reformer Philipp Melanchthon was also present at the wedding. The wedding took place on March 4, 1540 in Rotenburg Castle in the presence of Martin Bucer and Philipp Melanchthon by Dionysius Melander . After the wedding, Margarethe first lived in the Wolkersdorf hunting lodge in what is now Bottendorf near Frankenberg . In 1542 a half-timbered house on the market square in Spangenberg (corner of Burgstrasse-Klosterstrasse) became her residence. In 1565 she acquired the castle seat Spangenberg and had the manor house built. One year after her death, her son Ernst von Diez sold the castle seat to the city of Spangenberg.

She was never admitted to court in Kassel - even after the death of Landgravine Christine († 1549).

children

The marriage resulted in nine children, the later " Counts of Diez from the House of Hesse":

  • Philipp (1541–1569), entered French service in 1557
  • Hermann (1542–1568)
  • Christoph Ernst (1543–1603)
  • Margarethe (1544-1608)
  • Albrecht (1546–1569)
  • Philipp Conrad (1547–1569)
  • Moritz (1553–1575)
  • Ernst (1554–1570)
  • Anna (1557–1558)

In his will of 1562, Landgrave Philipp gave the seven brothers and their surviving sister Margarethe the title "Born from the House of Hesse, Counts of Diez and Lords of Lißberg and Bickenbach". He gave the brothers, jointly owned and with full sovereign sovereignty, the lordships and offices of Umstadt , Bickenbach and Lißberg , Ulrichstein Castle and Office , Schotten City and Office , Stornfels Castle and Office , City, Homburg Castle and Office and the Hessian part of the Dorfs Dehrn in the old county of Diez . Margarethe was resigned with financial resources.

Philip's four properly born sons - Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel , Ludwig IV of Hesse-Marburg , Philip II of Hesse-Rheinfels and Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt - only reluctantly accepted and achieved this diminution of their inheritance in May 1568 that Emperor Maximilian II confirmed to them the refusal of the full sovereignty of the Counts of Diez. When the last of her half-brothers still living in freedom died in 1575, they confiscated the property of the Counts of Diez.

Political Impact

Philip's marriage to Margarethe von der Saale led to a decisive weakening of the Reformation . To avoid being charged with bigamy , Philip had to make political concessions to the emperor in the Regensburg Treaty . The 1546 account of the conquest of the Duchy of Braunschweig with imperial ban took Landgraf was with the other Protestant princes in the Schmalkaldic War beaten and then jailed for five years.

literature

  • Jürgen Wagner: The ancestors of the 'left landgrief' , in: Brandenburgisches Genealogisches Jahrbuch 2017, pp. 65–70.
  • Jürgen Wagner: Four unknown foster daughters of D. Martin Luther? , in: Genealogy 2017, pp. 414–433.
  • Lydia Laucht: Margarethe von der Saale (1522–1566). Second wife of Landgrave Philipp von Hessen . In: Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck, Landeskirchenamt (Ed.): Giving a memory to faith. Life pictures from the church history of Kurhessen-Waldeck . Evangelischer Medienverband Kassel, Kassel 2007, ISBN 978-3-89477-871-2 , p. 76-77 .
  • Sabine Köttelwesch: lovers, wives and mistresses. Ten women's fates from the area around the Kassel Fürstenhof . In: The history of our homeland . tape 41 . Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies eV 1834 Kassel, branch association Hofgeismar, Hofgeismar 2004.
  • Gerhard Müller: Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse . In: Hans D. Betz, Don Browning, Bernd Janowski, among others (eds.): Religion in past and present. Concise dictionary for theology and religious studies. Vol. 6: N-Q . 4th edition. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-16-149514-4 , p. 1270 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margaret of the Sahla. In: Großenhainer Pflege (= values ​​of the German homeland . Volume 70). 1st edition. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-09706-6 , p. 151.
  2. ↑ The saga of the Count von Gleichen , accessed on: November 19, 2015.
  3. ↑ Marriage for three - The wives of Count von Gleichen , accessed on: November 19, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Margarethe von der Saale
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Margarethe of the Sahla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse
DATE OF BIRTH 1522
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönfeld (District of Meissen)
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1566
Place of death Spangenberg