Maria Gertrud Schenk von Castell

Building inscription "MGSVCA MDCXCI" (= "Maria Gertrud Schenk von Castell 1691") above the entrance door of the former administrative office and forest administration

Maria Gertrud Schenk von Castell (* between February 15, 1636 and February 15, 1637 in Romanshorn ? † February 15, 1709 in the Urspring Monastery , Schelklingen ) was a Benedictine and abbess of the Urspring Monastery .

Live and act

Maria Gertrud was a daughter of Ulrich Christoph Schenk von Castell, councilor of the St. Gallen monastery and carer in Romanshorn, and his wife Maria Cleophe von Wolfurth (Wolfurth Castle was in Vorarlberg). The ancestral seat of the Schenk von Castell was near Tägerwilen in the Swiss canton of Thurgau near Konstanz . The parents married on May 20, 1622, from which twelve children emerged. Gertrud was baptized with the first name Maria Susanna , Maria Gertrud is her religious name .

Together with her sisters Rosamunde and Francisca, Maria Gertrud was destined to live in the monastery and on June 10, 1650 - around the age of 14 - she was handed over as a novice to the women’s convent. Rosamunde fled the monastery life soon (before 10 August 1654), Francisca whereas on 10 August 1654 final vows ( vows ) took off. She must have died between 1654 and 1670 (beginning of the Urspringen death record). Maria Gertrud took her religious vows on November 25, 1654. Between November 1654 and December 1664 she became prioress of the convent and thus deputy to the reigning master. After the resignation of master Anna Sibylla von Gemmingen on December 1, 1664, Maria Gertrud was elected master and appointed master on December 5, 1664. On December 30, 1664, the confirmation was given by the Abbot of St. Georgen. She was the first to assume the title of abbess.

A brother of Maria Gertrud, the hereditary marshal of the Hochstift Eichstätt Johann Willibald Schenk von Castell (* 1619, † 1697 or 1706), acquired Oberdischingen in 1661 from the barons of Stotzingen . In 1662 he got the rule Dischingen with Trugenhofen Castle through his marriage . A relative of Maria Gertrud, Marquard Schenk von Castell (* 1605; † 1685), Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt since 1630 , intended to give the family additional property (as a pledge). Since he had done some service to the emperor , in 1681 he received pledge rule over the dominions of Berg and Schelklingen for his relative Johann Willibald Schenk von Castell. The Schenk von Castell now played the dominant role in both Urspring Monastery and Schelklingen. They acquired large estates in Schelklingen, including the Stauffenberg Castle as a permanent apartment, and were temporarily based in Schelklingen.

Maria Gertrud was particularly keen to remedy the disorganization of the monastery administration caused by the Thirty Years War and the impoverishment of the monastery and the monastery subjects. The debt level had risen sharply as a result of war contributions. In addition, u. a. the new building of the care yard in Ehingen a. D. (for the administration of the free float in Upper Swabia), the enlargement of the property through acquisitions, the reallocation of farmer loans and the control of the tax receipt. In order to be able to move on a secure basis in the future as far as property ownership was concerned, Maria Gertrud had the property of the monastery completely re-recorded in 1685/1686 using stock books . The last stock book was from 1595, well before the Thirty Years' War , and the holdings had changed a lot as a result of the war. While the possession of 1595 could still be described in a single thick volume, a whole series of stock books totaling six volumes was now necessary.

To improve the administration, she probably also created the office of clerk and forest administrator , the first documented clerk Franz Xaver Schalch held office from 1705/1706. In 1691, according to the inscription above the entrance portal, she had the building erected, which was later referred to as the “clerk's office and forest management” and was inhabited by the clerk. The building stands outside the enclosure on the north wall and adjoins the upper office building of the monastery to the west. It was recently restored and has a beautiful stucco ceiling in the entrance hall.

The Thirty Years War was barely fifty years over, when the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) threatened to devastate all of southern Germany again. In 1702 the abbess fled with most of the convent to neutral Switzerland, to Karrersholz Castle near Rorschach on the south bank of Lake Constance . A boat overturned while translating and valuable treasures and archives were lost. It was not until 1704 that the convent returned to Urspring. Her successor in office, Abbess Franziska Giel von Gielsberg, had the Sacred Heart Chapel built on the Lützelberg near Schelklingen in 1708 as thanks for the happy outcome of the war for Urspring.

Maria Gertrud resigned because of her old age on October 20, 1707 (70 years old). She died in the Urspring Monastery on February 15, 1709 at the age of 72. It is not known whether she was buried in Urspring or elsewhere.

literature

• Immo Eberl: History of the Benedictine convent Kloster Ursprung near Schelklingen 1127–1806: External relations, convent life, property . Müller and Gräff, Stuttgart 1978.
• Immo Eberl with Irmgard Simon and Franz Rothenbacher: The families and civil status cases in the parishes of the town of Schelklingen (1602–1621, 1692–1875) and Urspring Monastery (1657–1832) . 2. verb. and exp. Ed., Self-published, Mannheim 2012.
• Ursula Erdt: Gertrud von Schenk-Castell: Abbess of the Urspring Monastery near Schelklingen from 1664 to 1707 (1636–1709). In: Rainer Brüning and Regina Keyler (eds.): Lebensbilder aus Baden-Württemberg , Vol. 25, W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2018, pp. 50–62.
• Eugen Schübelin: Origining Monastery. In: Leaves of the Swabian Alb Association . Vol. 13, No. 8, 1901, columns 321-332.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The main sources for this article are Erdt 2018 and Eberl 1978, passim.
2. ↑ Eberl 1978, p. 351.
3. ↑ Schübelin 1901, column 331. The inscription reads: "MGSVCA MDCXCI" and means: "Maria Gertrud Schenk von Castell 1691". She used the same abbreviation "MGSVCA" on her seal.
4. ↑ Eberl 2012, No. 1438f p. 343.