Nicholas II Scholl

Nikolaus II. Scholl (* 1474 in Grafenrheinfeld ; † October 27, 1551 ) was abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Münsterschwarzach from 1540 to 1551 .

Münsterschwarzach before Scholl

Three opposing developments shaped the time before Abbot Nikolaus Scholl took office. On the one hand, the abbey flourished because it had been organized in one of the great monastic groups, the Bursfeld Congregation , since the 1580s . As a result, Münsterschwarzach gained more freedom vis-à-vis its masters, the Würzburg prince-bishops . At the same time, the abbots' enrichment in the monastery property took on ever more terrifying forms.

Another development was the split in the church that had been triggered by the Reformation . The Protestant princes in the vicinity of the monastery became a threat. After extensive destruction in the German Peasants' War in 1525, when the monks had to leave the monastery, reconstruction began under Scholl's direct predecessor Johannes Büttner . He was also the first abbot since the 15th century who no longer attended the meetings of the Bursfelders because they felt abandoned by the federal government.

Life

Nikolaus II. Scholl was born in 1474 in Grafenrheinfeld in Lower Franconia near the imperial city of Schweinfurt . Very little is known about his family. Scholl's father worked as a shipman on the Main . Nor is the education of the young Nicholas mentioned in the sources. Only when he enters the Münsterschwarzach monastery does he become tangible again. After Scholl had made his vows, he spent sixteen years in Cologne , during which he probably studied.

After returning to Franconia , Scholl rose quickly within the monastery. He held the office of cellar for 26 years and was one of the candidates for the abbot election in 1505. However, he gained too few votes and lost to Georg Wolfsbach . It was not until 1540, after the death of Johannes Büttner, that Scholl was elected abbot. The election took place on March 10, 1540 in the presence of several members of the Würzburg prince-bishopric.

On Kirchweihfest the Abbey, on 12 September 1540, the abbot of Würzburg Bishop Augustin Mayer was benediziert . Abbots Georg von Aura and Heinrich von Theres traveled to Münsterschwarzach as assistants. The reason for the many prelates in the monastery was the rededication of the church, cloister and altars, which had been destroyed in the Peasants' War and which had taken several decades to rebuild.

The major construction work was also the reason for the high debt that the abbey had accumulated. Scholl soon started to remove it, but failed after a short time. In his distress he had to sell a farm belonging to the monastery in Krautheim . Soon afterwards several rights followed in Schwarzenau , Dettelbach , Bibergau, which the monastery master, the prince-bishop of Würzburg, received. Despite these efforts, however, much of the debt remained intact.

In addition, there was the destruction in the Schmalkaldic War , which reached its climax on July 26, 1546: A Hessian and Saxon army of around 30,000 men plundered the monastery villages around the abbey. Most of the annual harvest was lost. In total, this resulted in damage of around 5,000 guilders. The old abbot was then resign to place the reconstruction in younger hands. The convention refused. On May 27, 1551, Nikolaus II. Scholl died at the age of seventy-seven.

literature

• Kassius Hallinger: Chronology of the abbots of Münsterschwarzach a. M. (1390-1803). In: Abtei Münsterschwarzach (Ed.): Abtei Münsterschwarzach. Works from their history. Münsterschwarzach 1938.
• Johannes Mahr: blossom in ruins. Life and work of the Münsterschwarzach abbot Johannes Burckhardt (1563–1598). In: Münsterschwarzacher studies. Volume 46. Münsterschwarzach 1998.
• Johannes Mahr: Münsterschwarzach. 1200 years of a Franconian abbey. Münsterschwarzach 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mahr, Johannes: Münsterschwarzach. 1200 years of a Franconian abbey. P. 24.
2. ↑ Hallinger, Kassius: The chronology of the abbots of Münsterschwarzach. P. 99.
3. ↑ Mahr, Johannes: Bloom in ruins . P. 29.

predecessor	Office	successor
John III Buttner	Abbot of Münsterschwarzach 1540–1551	Leonhard Gnetzamer