Matthias von Oppen (Dean)

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Matthias von Oppen

Matthias von Oppen (* around 1565 in Schlalach near Bad Belzig ; † April 11, 1621 in Halberstadt ) was an important church politician and economic reformer of the late 16th and early 17th centuries .

Live and act

As early as the beginning of 1590, just 25 years old, Oppen, who came from an old Brandenburg family, appeared as canon in Halberstadt . He quickly gained a great reputation for his rhetorical dexterity, legal skills and organizational skills - as early as 1591/1592 he participated as one of two ambassadors in the negotiations on the denominational future of the monastery with the postulated bishop Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig in Gröningen and was brief then episcopal council. Already in 1595 he received a dignity . By 1601 he had moved up to the fourth place in the chapter and, as director consilii, took on more and more the duties of the dean , whose post he also held at the beginning of 1605 and exercised it until his death. In the course of the suppression of the episcopal authority, this office had become more and more important compared to the increasingly representative dignity of the provost , so that the actual administrative management of the monastery was with him.

Schneidlingen Castle, which was rebuilt under Matthias von Oppen until around 1620.

Matthias von Oppen quickly realized the great and sometimes considerably untapped potential of the land of the cathedral chapter , which not only by the street from the medieval prebends was derived grain allocations to the canons of extraordinary importance. He took great care in setting up the farms, which he largely placed under his personal supervision. He took care of draining swamps, regulating watercourses, forestry, fish farming, beet cultivation, keeping beehives, growing grain and raising livestock, with pig fattening and horse breeding taking place in special farms.

In addition, under Oppen's leadership, extensive conversions of earlier castles in the Vorharz region were made into large agricultural estates (e.g. in Schneidlingen and Zilly ).

He promoted education and science by founding an important library (which fell victim to the devastating bombing of Halberstadt on April 8, 1945, one month before the end of World War II ) and a study scholarship for the poorly gifted. He donated a portal and a pulpit for the Halberstadt Cathedral . His coat of arms can still be found in the arcade spandrels of the Dompropstei built between 1592 and 1611 on Halberstädter Domplatz .

diary

Oppen reported in detail about his measures in his diary, which was accidentally rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century by the Magdeburg historian and archivist George Adalbert von Mülverstedt and published in 1894. It is one of the most important historical sources in Central Germany from the time immediately before the Thirty Years' War .

literature

  • Elmar Krautkrämer : Matthias von Oppen (1565–1621). Canon, porter and cathedral dean in Halberstadt . In: New family history evening. Volume 11, Halberstadt 2002, pp. 17-50.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julius Opel : The Halberstadt Abbey under Bishop Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig. In: Journal for Prussian History and Regional Studies. Volume 6, 1869, pp. 385-406.
  2. ↑ Heiner Schwarzberg : Investigations on the castle Schneidlingen. In: Castles and palaces in Saxony-Anhalt. 6. Notices from the Saxony-Anhalt regional group of the German Castle Association, 1997, pp. 90–111.
  3. ↑ Heiner Schwarzberg: On the building history of Zilly Castle in the early 17th century. From the diary of Matthias von Oppen. In: Castles and palaces in Saxony-Anhalt . 9. Announcements from the Saxony-Anhalt regional group of the German Castle Association, 2000, pp. 191–205.
  4. ↑ To summarize Oppen's construction activities: Heiner Schwarzberg: "Wollgebeßert" - The redesign of two late medieval castle complexes in the Halberstadt cathedral chapter into agricultural goods by the cathedral dean Matthias von Oppen . In: Adolf Siebrecht (ed.): History and culture of the Diocese of Halberstadt 804–1648. Symposium on the occasion of 1200 years of the founding of the Diocese of Halberstadt, March 24-28, 2004 . Log tape. Halberstadt, pp. 643-657.
  5. ↑ George Adalbert von Mülverstedt: The diary of the cathedral dean and porter of the Hochstift Halberstadt Matthias von Oppen. Magdeburg 1894.
personal data
SURNAME Oppen, Matthias von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church politician and economic reformer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1565
PLACE OF BIRTH Schlalach near Bad Belzig
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1621
Place of death Halberstadt