Matthias von Held

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Matthias von Held (* around 1490 in Arlon ; † 1563 in Cologne ) was a lawyer and Imperial Vice Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of Charles V. He advocated an uncompromising policy towards Protestantism.

Life

Little is known about his origins and training. The father was Niklas Held. Together with his son, the title of nobility conferred by Emperor Maximilian was confirmed on December 14, 1532, and an improvement in the coat of arms through a union of coats of arms with that of the extinct Beger family was approved. In the literature, however, the elevation to the imperial nobility is only given for 1536.

Held must have studied law, since he had been assessor at the Imperial Court of Justice since 1527 on the presentation of the Electorate of Brandenburg . During this time he proved to be an uncompromising defender of Catholicism and a legal fighter against the Reformation movement. He was one of the authors of the religious trials against the Protestants, which had to be stopped after the Nuremberg decency in 1532.

After the death of Balthasar Merklin in 1531, he succeeded him as Vice Chancellor. In this function, Held became one of the most important advisors to Emperor Charles V. He also remained responsible for all processes connected with the Reformation before the Reich Chamber of Commerce.

He refused to accommodate the Protestant estates. He considered the Schmalkaldic League to be a potentially aggressive alliance. In contrast to his later successor Johann von Naves , he considered violent crackdown on Protestantism to be indispensable.

In 1536 he was entrusted with an important mission to the German imperial estates. The Emperor gave him so-called German and French instructions. The German instruction was about winning the ranks for aid payments against the Ottomans and a possible misappropriation against France. He should also move the princes to give their participation in a council hosted by the Pope to restore church unity. It was also about the interpretation of the Nuremberg decency as well as the procedure of the Reich Chamber Court in lawsuits with Reformation backgrounds. In the French instructions, Held was supposed to sound out to Ferdinand and Cardinal Kles of Trient how to proceed if the Pope did not want to take part in a council. Ferdinand demanded that Held combine both orders and avoid a final break with the Protestants.

In 1537 Held was present at the Bundestag of the Schmalkaldic League. There he rejected the wishes of the members so uncompromisingly that the Schmalkaldic League joined forces even more closely than before. Against this background, the Protestant estates refused to participate in a papal council.

This result confirmed Held in his negative assessment of the covenant and instead suggested the establishment of a Catholic covenant. Only in this way did he think that peace could be preserved. Im succeeded in winning King Ferdinand over to this plan. And so on June 10, 1538, the Catholic Defensive League was founded in Nuremberg . Participation in this, however, was comparatively low.

An official imperial confirmation did not take place until 1539, because Karl, in view of the difficult foreign policy situation, did not support the uncompromising line of Held and pursued an equalization policy that led to Frankfurt decency and was a prerequisite for the religious talks that Held rejected.

After this defeat, Held was ousted from office by personal and political opponents. He was succeeded in 1541 by Johann von Naves, who stood for a policy of compromise.

Held withdrew into private life and from then on lived in Cologne. His fortune acquired in office was so considerable that he was able to acquire the rule of Zähringen in 1549. He lived with the former maid Magdalena Brandis, with whom he had five children. He married her only a year before his death in 1563.

Matthias von helds daughter Margaretha Heltin († 1600) continued the Cologne City Counsel Dr. jur. utr. Wilhelm Hackstein († 1623) became the sole heir and bequeathed her house "Im Großer Spiegel" in Filzengraben to the " Poor Clares " who were expelled from Brielle in Holland and from Zealand in 1578 . The late Gothic St. Lucia Chapel was built on the Held property in 1612/13; it was laid down in 1857 and converted into the Trinity Church .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the Austrian State Archives
  2. ↑ See historical archive of the city of Cologne (Reichskammergericht inventory 310H, A 47 and others).
  3. ↑ Cologne Syndic since 1585, 1608 to 1622 mayor.
  4. ↑ See Historical Archives of the City of Cologne (holdings of 223 Jesuits; A 439, A 896, A 897 and U 2/445).
  5. ↑ See Historical Archives of the City of Cologne (Reichskammergericht inventory 310G, A 28; inventory 310H, A 46).
  6. ↑ Cf. Leonard Ennen: The Reichsvicekanzler Dr. Matthias Held . In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine, especially the Old Archdiocese of Cologne 25 (1873), p. 150f.
personal data
SURNAME Held, Matthias von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hero, Matthias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Reich Vice Chancellor
DATE OF BIRTH around 1490
PLACE OF BIRTH Arlon
DATE OF DEATH 1563
Place of death Cologne