Margaretha von Neipperg

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Family coat of arms of Neipperg

Margaretha von Neipperg (* around 1515; † after 1591) was a noblewoman from the family of the Knights of Neipperg , Benedictine and last abbess of the Seebach monastery near Bad Dürkheim .

Parentage and family

Alleged father's epitaph
Epitaph of the alleged mother

According to Franz Xaver Remling , she was born as the daughter of "Junker Georg von Neipperg" . This is likely to be Georg Wilhelm von Neipperg, called "the black one" († 1520 or 1527 at the age of 52), who was married to Anna Barbara von Schwarzenberg († 1533). He officiated as Obervogt in Zabergäu and is buried with his wife in the Johanneskirche in Schwaigern . Epitaphs with full figures of both have been preserved there.

Live and act

Seebach Monastery Church, Bad Dürkheim

Margaretha von Neipperg became a Benedictine in Frauenalb Abbey . In the summer of 1563 she was elected as the successor to her late sister Elisabeth von Neipperg as abbess of Seebach Monastery. The election took place under the advisory supervision of the Speyer vicar general Andreas von Oberstein , who had been commissioned by Bishop Marquard von Hattstein .

Both the Counts of Leiningen as patrons of the monastery and the mighty Electoral Palatinate had meanwhile become supporters of the Reformation . Both threatened the convention with its dissolution. Since the abbess and her conventuals were faithful to the old beliefs and clinging to monastic life, provoked incidents occurred again and again. On a Saturday in September 1567, the abbess was asked to send a wagon to Frankenthal immediately because the Countess von Leiningen wanted a beer. Since all the wagons were busy with the harvest and Margaretha von Neipperg therefore refused the short-term demand, the coach, horses and wagoners were confiscated by force and led to the Hardenburg , where the abbess only got them back after a long request. On Sunday, June 27th, 1568, the Hardenburg Jägermeister stormed the convent with 10 armed servants and demanded that the monastery dogs be handed over for hunting. Since the nuns needed the animals for their protection and refused to hand them over, the Count of Leiningen threatened to forcibly dissolve the monastery with the help of the Electoral Palatinate.

At the Speyer Diet of 1570, the abbess therefore asked Emperor Maximilian II to protect the empire. Since she received an imperial letter of protection, she had renovation work carried out again and put the monastery building in a good state. However, the Electoral Palatinate blocked the income of the convent from its properties there and in 1571 the nuns were forced to inspect a secular conductor named Hannes Lorenz on.

Since Seebach had previously been subordinate to the Limburg monastery , whose patronage Palatine Johann Casimir had taken on, he asked the nuns in 1579 to pay homage to him as patron, forcibly had all goods and the inventory of the monastery recorded and forbade the acceptance of further conventuals. So it came about that in 1588, apart from the abbess, only one choir sister lived in Seebach. As the actual patron, the Count of Leiningen complained to the Reich Chamber of Commerce . Regardless of this, on May 26, 1589, Johann Casimir sent the Neustadt Vice-Cathedral Thomas Blarer with a horse troop to the Seebach Monastery and, under threat of plunder, again demanded the homage which the abbess made under duress. As a now "recognized" patron, he had the monastery permanently occupied by 20 mercenaries, which made further convent life impossible. The abbess then withdrew to Speyer , receiving a pension , and the spiritual life in Seebach died out. A legend reports that Margaretha von Neipperg burned the debt register before the handover of the monastery and thus saved the monks from payments to the new masters. A ballad was written about this story in the 19th century.

Count Palatine Johann Casimir took possession of the complex and leased it in 1591 as an agricultural property to the Dürkheim citizen Hanns Stern; He compensated the Count of Leiningen in 1593. Church, cloister and convent building largely fell into disrepair; Significant parts of the former have been preserved, the Seebach monastery church .

Margaretha von Neipperg died after 1591, probably in her exile in Speyer.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Claus Peter Clasen: The Anabaptists in the Duchy of Württemberg and in neighboring dominions , Kohlhammer Verlag, 1965, p. 119, footnote 3; (Detail scan)
  2. ↑ Damian Hartard von und zu Hattstein: Die Hoheit des Teutschen Reichs-Adels , Volume 2, 1740, p. 231; (Digital scan to parents)
  3. ^ Ballad about the dissolution of the Seebach monastery , in: Palatinate sheets for history, poetry and entertainment , No. 132, from November 4, 1853
personal data
SURNAME Neipperg, Margaretha von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Noblewoman, Benedictine, abbess in Seebach Monastery
DATE OF BIRTH around 1515
DATE OF DEATH after 1589