Nicolaus Wilhelm Beckers

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Nicolaus Wilhelm Becker's
copperplate engraving by Johann Alexander Böner
Memorial stone with Becker's coat of arms in the Walhorn Church

Nicolaus Wilhelm Beckers (Freiherr von und zu Walhorn and Schönkirchen) (* around 1630 in Walhorn in the Duchy of Limburg (now Belgium); † March 14, 1705 in Vienna ) was a doctor from the Spanish Netherlands and personal physician to various princes.

Life

Nicolaus Wilhelm Beckers was the son of a lay judge at the Walhorn high bench. He attended the Marianum high school in Aachen . After graduating from high school, he joined the Spanish-Dutch army, in a regiment led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria . As a soldier, he took part in the battles of Lens (1648), Gravelines (1652) and Dunkirk (1653). Beckers quit his military service after about five years and stayed in Brussels with the pharmacist of the governor of the Spanish Netherlands. A year later he traveled to Rome to take up a medical degree, which he could not begin due to a lack of funds. He was employed in Rome by Prince Michael Kasimir Radziwiłł as a pharmacist for the duration of a trip to Italy. Then he had the means to study medicine in Rome. After a year he continued this in Vienna. Due to another lack of funds, he became steward of the Hungarian Count Erdödy in Tyrnau in 1655 , who was mainly in Vienna. So Beckers was able to continue his studies. In 1657 he wrote his dissertation, which he defended on June 30th. The award of the doctorate did not come about because he could not afford the costs. It was not until 1658 that Beckers had the means to do his doctorate in Padua. Under great splendor (“ met grooter splendor ende magnificentz as someone in 50 years ”) Beckers was proclaimed a doctorate from the University of Vienna on September 4, 1659 in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna .

In 1659, the year of his doctorate, he married Anna Barbara Huber, the wealthy widow of a superintendent of the Privy Council of State. Through this marriage he became wealthy and gained access to the upper classes of Vienna, so he also came to the imperial court. In 1662 he became court physician and in 1669 imperial personal physician and was appointed to the board of the medical faculty. During this time Beckers dealt intensively with the teachings of the ancient Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galenus and in 1674 published his major work "Florilegium Hyppocraticum et Galenicum", dedicated to the emperor. In 1675 Becker became Imperial Councilor before he was appointed the first personal physician in 1677.

In his function as personal physician, he had Emperor Leopold I (HRR) , who had no sons from his first two wives, to marry Eleonore Magdalene von Pfalz-Neuburg , daughter of Philipp Wilhelm, Count Palatine of the Rhine, the later Elector Philipp Wilhelm ( Pfalz) advised. This became the mother of the two subsequent emperors, Joseph I (HRR) and Charles VI. (HRR) . After the birth of the first son, Beckers rose to such an extent in favor of the emperor that the emperor raised him to the royal Hungarian knighthood in 1678 and otherwise showered him with graces. In 1682 he was raised to the rank of imperial knight and received the title of baron von Walhorn. After he had bought the Schönkirchen estate northeast of Vienna from the Duchess of Aremberg in 1694, he called himself "Freiherr von und zu Walhorn Schönkirchen". In order to secure the continued existence of the rank of nobility, Beckers obtained that the title passed to his nephew Peter Deodat, the son of his brother Heinrich, who also received the rule of Schönkirchen.

After the death of his second wife, Beckers bequeathed the remaining fortune to various churches and monasteries. The capital of these foundations was in part only devalued in the 20th century by various inflations. In 1688 a memorial was erected to him in the left aisle of the Augustinian Church in Aachen . A memorial stone in Walhorn also commemorates the local son. In Vienna 's St. Stephen's Cathedral there is an epitaph from 1677 dedicated to his first wife. He also donated two side altars in the cathedral, the Franz Xaver Altar (1690) and the Katharinen Altar (1701). Both altars have corresponding inscriptions. Nicolaus Wilhelm Beckers was buried on March 14, 1705 in St. Stephen's Cathedral.

literature

  • Viktor Gielen: Walhorn , Markus Schroeder Verlag Eupen, 1963, pp. 117–118.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Beckers, Wilhelm Nicolaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beckers, Wilhelm Nicolaus Freiherr von Walhorn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Personal physician of Emperor Leopold I.
DATE OF BIRTH around 1630
PLACE OF BIRTH Whale horn
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1705
Place of death Vienna