Melchior Khlesl

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Engraving with the portrait of Melchior Khlesl from the Theatrum Europaeum from 1662
Signature Melchior Khlesl.PNG
Coat of arms as the bishop of Wiener Neustadt
Cardinal Khlesl's grave in the bishop's crypt of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna

Melchior Cardinal Khlesl , also Klesl and Klesel (born February 19, 1552 in Vienna ; † September 18, 1630 in Wiener Neustadt ) was Bishop of Vienna from 1598 to 1630, Bishop of Wiener Neustadt from 1588 to 1630, Chancellor of Emperor Matthias and one the main representative of the Counter Reformation .

Life

He was the son of a baker and grew up as a Protestant , but the Jesuit Georg Scherer converted him to the Catholic faith in 1573 . He studied theology in Vienna and Ingolstadt . In 1579 he was ordained a priest and shortly thereafter received the post of Provost of St. Stephen in Vienna.

Khlesl was one of the main representatives of the Counter Reformation . Because of his influence, the college's college consisted of only Catholics and every student had to make the Catholic creed. He also became vicar general of the Bishop of Passau and, as such, carried out cleansing operations in the parishes and monasteries of Lower Austria . As Chancellor of Emperor Matthias, however, he was pragmatic and interested in a compromise with the Protestants at the imperial level .

In 1588 he became Bishop of Wiener Neustadt and in 1598 Bishop of Vienna. The episcopal ordination donated to him on March 30, 1614 in the monastery Kremsmünster the nuncio in Austria Placido de Marra , Bishop of Melfi .

On December 2, 1615, Pope Paul V Melchior elevated Khlesl in pectore to cardinal status , which was made public in the consistory on April 9, 1616. He was assigned as the titular church of Santa Maria degli Angeli , in 1623 he moved to the titular church of San Silvestro in Capite . In order to further advance the Counter Reformation, he encouraged the settlement of several orders in Vienna. His increasing power was a thorn in the side of many people, which is why he was arrested on July 20, 1618 at the instigation of Archdukes Maximilian the German Master and Ferdinand , as well as the Bishop of Brixen , Ferdinand's brother Karl of Austria , and brought to Tyrol . After staying in Schloss Ambras and the Innsbruck Hofburg , he was transferred to St. Georgenberg in 1619 , which meant a transfer from secular jurisdiction to ecclesiastical custody, which was initiated by the extraordinary papal nuncio Fabrizio Verospi . On October 21, 1622, Khlesl was brought to Rome . In 1627 he was able to resume the office of bishop in Vienna.

He is buried in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, but his heart was buried in the Cathedral of Wiener Neustadt .

Appreciation

The Khleslplatz in Altmannsdorf in Vienna's 12th district is named after him because on his travels between Vienna and Wiener Neustadt he liked to stop in the Augustinian hermit's farm yard at today's Khleslplatz. In Wiener Neustadt, too, a small lane is named after him next to the Domplatz.

Trivia

A Protestant joke popular at the time was linked to the cardinal's name (in the spelling Clesel ):

“The riddle. Cardinal Clesel took Professor Taubmann with him at the table of the Elector of Saxony . The latter, in order to avenge himself for the undeserved offense, asked the cardinal how one could write 150 donkeys in one word? After the cardinal declared that he did not know, Taubmann wrote on the table to the general laughter: CL donkey . "

- Mustard seeds. Anecdotes and stories to cheer up in troubled times. Leipzig 1845, p. 7.

literature

Web links

Commons : Melchior Klesl  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Rainer:  Klesl, Melchior. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 51 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ↑ On this coup of the Archduke: Ritter, Deutsche Geschichte III ( History of the Thirty Years War ), p. 8; Krüssmann, Ernst von Mansfeld , p. 129.
  3. ↑ Mustard seeds. Anecdotes and stories to cheer up in troubled times. Leipzig 1845, p. 7 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
    The oldest version of the story can be found in: Taubmanniana. Or the witty Wittenberg professor Friedrich Taubmann from Wansen's life ideas and. Writing samples. Johann Wilhelm Meyer, Frankfurt / Leipzig 1704, p. 124 ( PDF on uni-halle.de).
    On the witty and hostile dispute between Khlesl and Taubmann, cf. Leopold Schmidt: Melchior Khlesl in the contemporary Schwank anecdote. In: Yearbook for regional studies of Lower Austria. New episode 30, 1949/52, pp. 170–176 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
predecessor Office successor
Johann Caspar Neubeck Bishop of Vienna
1598–1630 		Anton Wolfradt
Martin Radwiger Bishop of Wiener Neustadt
1588–1630 		Matthias Geissler
personal data
SURNAME Khlesl, Melchior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klesl, Melchior; Klesel, Melchior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Vienna and Chancellor of the Emperor Matthias
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1552
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1630
Place of death Wiener Neustadt