Nicolaus Rehdiger the Younger

Nicolaus II. Rehdiger , also Rudiger , Rüdinger or Rehdinger (born February 13, 1525 in Breslau , Lower Silesia , † June 28, 1587 ibid) was a Silesian wholesaler, banker, governor of the principality of Wroclaw and patron .

Life

The family's origins are still unexplored. The genealogist Witzendorff-Rehdiger has not proven a descent from the hereditary bailiffs from Kreuzburg in the Principality of Oels . He was the son of Nicolaus Rehdiger (?? - 1553), a wholesaler in Breslau, and his second wife Anna Morenberg von Schönborn (1500–1573). As the eldest son, he took over the trading company at the age of only 28 after the death of his father and had to run it on his own, as none of the brothers wanted to participate. As a merchant he was not only more successful than his father, but also the most important of his sex. Rehdiger participated in the emerging mining industry and bought alum , copper and gravel mines . At the same time he expanded his company into a major bank (according to the standards of the time).

After the youngest brother Jakob had come of age, Rehdiger paid out their inheritance to all siblings in accordance with his father's will and was now officially the sole owner of the company. He invested the company's profits in land ownership. In addition to his father's estate, Schliesa (now part of Żórawina ) in the Wroclaw district, he bought the neighboring goods Wangern (now part of Wińsko ) and Pollogwitz (now part of Żórawina). In 1567 he bought Striese and the neighboring Schebitz and in 1571 the Rux estate, all located in the Trebnitz district. He paid the required purchase prices all in cash. In 1575 he bought the Zedlitz and ½ Güntherwitz estates. He also owned several houses in Breslau.

Rehdiger was also involved as a local politician. In 1555, at the age of 30, he had already been elected as aldermen to the city ​​council of Wroclaw. He held this office until 1560 and from 1564 to 1567. From 1561 to 1563 and from 1568 to 1569 he was city ​​treasurer , from 1572 deputy council president ( mayor ) and from 1573 to 1587, i.e. for 14 years, he was council president and thus governor of the principality of Wroclaw. In the meantime, Rehdiger had succeeded in linking his younger siblings to the most important patrician families in Wroclaw through a clever family and marriage policy , so that he had the greatest influence on events in Wroclaw.

For years he fought against Emperor Rudolf II in Vienna to maintain the state governance of the Wroclaw Principality near the city of Wroclaw. For a payment of 15,000 Reichstalers in 1585, this status remained unchanged for half a century.

As a devout Christian, Rehdiger was benevolent, donated to schools, students, craftsmen and the needy and was involved as a patron in science and art. The cartographer Martin Helwig dedicated the first map of Silesia from 1561 to him, as Rehdiger had provided substantial financial support for this work in the years 1558 to 1561. He also founded a scholarly circle. He also corresponded with the reformer and writer Kaspar Schwenckfeld (1490–1561).

Rehdiger married on November 3, 1552 in Augsburg Rosina Herbrot von Rätz (* 1534 - † June 3, 1601 in Breslau), the daughter of the then wealthy Augsburg fur trader and financier Jakob Herbrot , who in 1564 was completely indebted in the debt tower in Neuburg an der Donau ( Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg ) and Marina (Maria) Kraffter (actually "Crawford" from the Scottish noble family of the "Earls of Crawford"). The couple had eleven children, including seven sons and four daughters.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans-Jürgen von Witzendorff-Rehdiger: The Rehdiger in Breslau . In: Yearbook of the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University in Breslau . Volume 2, 1957, pp. 93-106
2. ↑ Kazimierz Kozica: Martin Helwig's map of Silesia from 1561 - an unknown edition from 1612 . Description (Engl.) ( Memento of the original dated 2 March 2012 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Erdmann K. Sturm : The young Zacharias Ursin. His path from Philippism to Calvinism (1534–1562) , Neukirchener Verlag, 1972, page 112, ISBN 3788703148 and ISBN 9783788703141 . abstract

literature

• Oskar Pusch : The Breslau city councils in the period from 1241 to 1741 , Volume 3, Pages 306f., In: Publications of the Research Center for East Central Europe at the University of Dortmund (Ed .: Johannes Hoffmann), Series B - Volume 38, Dortmund 1988 , ISBN 3-923293-25-9