Maria Kunigunde of Saxony
Maria Kunigunde Dorothea Hedwig Franziska Xaveria Florentina of Saxony (born November 10, 1740 in Warsaw , † April 8, 1826 in Dresden ) was Princess of Poland, Lithuania and Saxony from the house of the Albertine Wettins and later the Order of the Star Cross , canon in the Münsterbilsen monastery and last Princess Abbess of the free worldly imperial monasteries Essen and Thorn .
Life
youth
Maria Kunigunde was born as the 15th and youngest child of the Polish King and Elector of Saxony , Friedrich August II (1696–1763) and his wife Maria Josepha of Austria (1699–1757). Her father liked to organize hunts, often went to the opera, looked after his extensive art collections and showed a great sense of family - he neglected the day-to-day business of government and left them to his first ministers, Brühl and Sulkowski . The parents attached great importance to a good upbringing of their children, also for the princesses. Maria Kunigunde received lessons in Latin, French, Polish, philosophy, geography, religion, drawing, music and dance. Maria Kunigunde worked as a young girl at the Dresden court in operas and singing plays ; so she sang the lead role in the opera Leucippo by Johann Adolph Hasse in a performance .
Marriage candidate
As the daughter of a ruling family, Maria Kunigunde should first strengthen the political relations of the Wettins. The Habsburg Archduke Joseph (1741–1790), who later became Emperor Joseph II , did not want to marry again after the early death of his beloved first wife Isabella von Bourbon-Parma (1741–1763), but had no heir and was therefore under pressure to to enter into a second marriage. In particular his mother, Maria Theresia (1717–1780) urged to secure the succession. Joseph first thought of Isabella's younger sister, Maria Luisa of Parma (1751–1819), but she was already engaged to the Spanish Infante Karl, later King Charles IV (1748–1819). Joseph's wish failed because of the refusal of Charles III. (1716–1788) to have his son resign from the engagement. The empress and the court chancellery offered the widower a princess from Saxony and one from Bavaria to choose from. In 1764 the heir to the throne left Vienna for the bridal show.
At the Saxon court in Dresden, a marriage of Princess Maria Kunigunde in the direction of Vienna was favored; If only because the Saxon finances were not exactly the best. So in Vienna and Dresden a meal was arranged in the Bohemian town of Bad Teplitz . However, the princess could hardly utter a reasonable word at this meeting. Disgusted by the shyness of the Saxon princess, the Archduke was happy to leave and took Maria Kunigunde's cousin (1st degree) Maria Josepha of Bavaria (1739–1767) as his bride, who in his eyes was not pretty, but more self-confident.
Maria Kunigunde was spared an unhappy marriage with Joseph, as it was now developing for Maria Josepha, but the outcome of the “secret” meeting in Bohemia got around like wildfire in Europe's royal houses. As a result, marrying Maria Kunigunde became almost impossible for the Saxon court.
Election to abbess
Political background
One of the political goals of the Wettins was to increase their influence in the north-western part of the Holy Roman Empire , that is, in the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Empire . As compensation for the failed marriage plan, Dresden demanded that Vienna procure Princess Maria Kunigunde the dignity of a ruling princess abbess in a respected women's monastery . The imperial court promised the princess compensation for the loss of marriage prospects with the heir to the throne. But the problem was finding a suitable pen. The Saxon court rejected the position of coadjutor and designated successor to the abbess in the women's monastery founded by Empress Maria Theresa on the Hradschin , as this was only subject to the Bohemian crown and therefore not directly imperial , which seemed to be under the dignity of a royal and Electoral Saxon princess. As early as 1766, the Münsterbilsen , Essen and Thorn monasteries were set as their goal in Dresden .
Münsterbilsen
In Münsterbilsen, the Saxon court failed in 1766 when it tried to install Maria Kunigunde as abbess. The incumbent, Antoinetta von Eltz-Kempenich , would have been ready to abdicate, but the chapter of the monastery offered bitter resistance to the request of the Saxon and imperial courts by insisting on compliance with all the rules of life in the monastery . For example, Sofia von Stadion-Tannhaussen demanded that Maria Kunigunde, in addition to submitting an ancestral test confirmed by two electoral princes, princes or imperial counts, adhere to the strict residence - customs that the Saxon court refused to accept, although they were not uncommon for ladies' pens. The demand for an ancestral test was felt to be an affront . Only after a papal dispensation from the residence obligation had been obtained and Joseph II had even arrested the property of the monastery, i.e. legally confiscated it, did the stubborn Münsterbilsen canonesses bow and accept Maria Kunigunde as canoness. In the meantime, it was no longer a question of paving the way for Maria Kunigunde to become abbess, but rather of preserving the reputation of the imperial court. It was long since a done deal there to install Maria Kunigunde in Essen and Thorn.
The vote
During the term of office of Abbess Franziska Christine von Pfalz-Sulzbach (1696–1776), Maria Kunigunde was elected coadjutor in 1775 with the right of succession (as abbess). The election was unanimous, which is not surprising, given that 45,000 guilders had flowed from Vienna and Dresden to the canons and canons in Essen and Thorn who were eligible to vote. After the death of the ailing predecessor Franziska Christine von Pfalz-Sulzbach, who was 79 years old when Maria Kunigunde was elected, Princess Maria Kunigunde assumed the office of abbess in Essen and Thorn on July 16, 1776. As princess abbess in Essen and Thorn, she had a seat and vote in the Reichstag , all rights and duties of an imperial princess (such as lower jurisdiction , tax law , legislation , coinage and army succession ), and enjoyed immunity from secular violence .
Life as abbess
When Maria Kunigunde took office, the Essen Abbey was highly regarded, but unsuitable for holding court following the example of the Saxon court or the court of her brother Clemens Wenzeslaus in Koblenz , where Maria Kunigunde had mostly lived since 1769: the Essen abbey buildings were so damp that that the Wettiner envoy, who oversaw the election of abbesses, did not want to spend the night in it, the town was very small and provincial, the road conditions were catastrophic, and there was practically no cultural life. Maria Kunigunde did not enter Essen with pomp and splendor until October 8, 1777, long after her election, but left again the next day.
At the court of her brother, the Elector of Trier , Maria Kunigunde was an influential figure, as Clemens Wenzelaus did almost nothing without his sister. Maria Kunigunde had a great influence on domestic politics. Although she seldom stayed in her pens, she also looked after her own territories from afar. Like her predecessor, she came into conflict with the women's chapter on several occasions because she was unfamiliar with the common rights of the monastery and her adviser, the government director Johann Jakob Schmitz, wanted to realize his political idea of an enlightened, absolutist state, which was based on the rights of the chapter , the estates and the city collided.
A judicial reform in 1781 ran smoothly, the conflict finally escalated in 1786, when the estates under the auspices of the first estate, namely the canons, due to the princess's action in issuing a “Hochfürstl. Forest and Hunting Ordinance "called the Reich Chamber Court. All parties were aware that the process did not offer a permanent solution. After Schmitz accepted a professorship at the University of Bonn in 1792 and therefore left Essen, representatives of the estates and the Princess finally showed themselves willing to compromise in 1793. After long negotiations, an agreement was reached on September 17, 1794 on the land comparison, the first written constitution of the monastery, in which the competences of the abbess and the estates were defined and delimited from one another. The land comparison ensured a better understanding between Maria Kunigunde, who was last in Essen in 1792, and the chapter.
In addition to the national comparison and the judicial reform, a ban on abortion, an ordinance on the activities of surgeons and a midwifery order arose under Maria Kunigunde's government . In addition to health care, Maria Kunigunde campaigned for compulsory schooling , a girls' school for older daughters and the reduction of public holidays. After Franziska Christine von Pfalz-Sulzbach was very lavish with the monastery property, Maria Kunigunde met opposition from the chapter when it came to spending. Maria Kunigunde's plan to expand Borbeck Castle failed due to the resistance of the estates. The estates did not approve a loan for the construction of a road that would connect the Prussian mark with the also Prussian Wesel across the monastery territory and significantly improve traffic in the monastery area. Maria Kunigunde then had this road built from private funds.
With the Prussian occupation on August 3, 1802, secularization under imperial law began . The abbess Maria Kunigunde lost her political and secular powers, but remained in possession of her spiritual sovereignty. In her contracts with the Kingdom of Prussia , she was guaranteed the surpluses from the abbey until the end of her life; for Essen, this was 6,500 Reichstaler .
The business woman
The Saxon Princess Maria Kunigunde also showed an unusual business acumen in view of her origins and upbringing. After the estates refused to raise money for the construction of the Prussian Chaussee from the Mark to Wesel, Maria Kunigunde personally took out a loan to have the Chaussee built and operated this toll road connection in the monastery area as a private entrepreneur. The road brought her an annual profit of 1,700 Reichstalers. As a private company of the princess, the road was later not affected by the secularization of the clerical monastery. Maria Kunigunde sold the road in 1803 for 45,000 Reichstaler to the Kingdom of Prussia, which wanted to own the most important road connection through its newly acquired territory.
Maria Kunigunde can also be considered a pioneer of heavy industry in the Ruhr area . The importance of the lawn iron ore lying just below the surface of the Emscherbruch was recognized in the middle of the 18th century. The first ironworks were built and Maria Kunigunde took part in several smelters as a private investor. With the help of her court chamber, a society for the smelting of iron stone was formed in the Essen monastery in 1789, which was granted permission to build an ironworks "Neu-Essen" on January 23, 1791. As early as 1787, Maria Kunigunde had a share in the “Gute Hope” hut, and in 1796 she also bought the “ St. Antony ” hut . Maria Kunigunde, who was personally interested in iron production, brought in Gottlob Jacobi from Koblenz, who was also a co-shareholder from 1799, as the smelter. The ironworks as private companies were not affected by the secularization. On May 24, 1805, Maria Kunigunde sold her share of the works to the Haniel brothers for 23,800 Reichstaler . Since they also acquired the “Gute Hope” hut through their brother-in-law Heinrich Arnold Huyssen , the ventures of Maria Kunigunde formed the beginning of what would later become Gutehoffnungshütte .
Death, burial and testament
Even after the secularization of the Essen monastery (Thorn monastery had already been abolished in 1795), Maria Kunigunde lived in the company of her brother Clemens Wenzeslaus, mostly in the Bavarian town of Oberdorf , where her brother, in his capacity as the former prince-bishop of Augsburg, still had a right of residence in the prince-bishop's palace Marktoberdorf retained. In 1812 Clemens Wenzeslaus died, Maria Kunigunde left Oberdorf before the funeral and returned to Dresden to live with her nephew Friedrich August III. to live. Maria Kunigunde died on April 8, 1826 in Dresden and was buried three days later in the New Crypt of the Catholic Court Church in Dresden. In her will, written in 1821, which was only rediscovered in the Saxon State Archives in 2001 , it becomes clear that, even if she had not been in Essen after 1792, she was still interested in her former principalities and servants: numerous people, from the chief steward of Asbeck, through his secretary, the cook, the canvas administrator, court cook, personal physician Georg Brüning to the coachman and pioneer, received legacies that the main heir, a nephew of Maria Kunigunde, had to pay out "in good money".
ancestors
literature
- Ute Küppers-Braun: women of the high nobility in the imperial-free-worldly ladies' monastery Essen (1605-1803) . Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-402-06247-X .
- Ute Küppers-Braun: Power in women's hands - 1000 years of rule by noble women in Essen . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2002, ISBN 3-89861-106-X .
- Ute Küppers-Braun: Your jewelery box was a portable cemetery - comments on the will of the last Essen prince abbess Maria Kunigunde of Saxony. In: The Minster on Hellweg. Bulletin of the Association for the Preservation of the Essen Minster, 56 (2003), pp. 129–143
- Martin Persch : Maria Kunigunde of Saxony. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 822-823.
- Alfred Pothmann: The abbesses of the Essen monastery. In: The Minster on Hellweg. Bulletin of the Association for the Preservation of the Essen Minster, 40 (1987), pp. 5-10
- Pauline Puppel: “Mon mari” - “Ma chère femme”. Abbess Maria Kunigunde von Essen and Archbishop Clemens Wenzeslaus von Trier, in: Koblenzer Contributions to History and Culture NF 15/16 (2008), pp. 43–66.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Maria Kunigunde of Saxony |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Maria Kunigunde Dorothea Hedwig Franziska Xaveria Florentina of Saxony |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of Saxony and Poland, Abbess of Essen and Thorn |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 10, 1740 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 8, 1826 |
| Place of death | Dresden |