Nikolaus von Langenberg

Dedication of the dissertation of Nikolaus von Langenberg 1597

Nikolaus von Langenberg (* 1575 or 1576 in Wipperfürth / Oberbergischer Kreis ; † around 1627 ) was a German lawyer, diplomat and state philosopher in the service of the Electors of Brandenburg and the King of France.

Origin, family and early occupation

Nikolaus von Langenberg was the son of Wipperfürth council member and mayor Luther von Langenberg and his wife Sophia von der Leyen, whose alliance coat of arms can still be found on the market fountain in Wipperfürth, which was built in 1598. Socially, he was one of the council families of the four "capitals" ( Lennep , Düsseldorf , Ratingen , Wipperfürth ) in the Duchy of Berg . In his writings and in his extensive correspondence, it is evident that he had an excellent humanistic education with a very good knowledge of the Latin and French languages. In his own words, however, he had an impulsive character, which repeatedly led to considerable personal problems.

His brother Melchior and his nephew Gottfried von Langenberg, who like himself had a slaughtered rafter in their coat of arms since about 1615, were leaders in the organization of the Gimborn -Neustadt rule (now the cities of Gummersbach and Bergneustadt ) of Count Adam von from 1610-1823 Schwarzenberg active.

After a short military training, he studied law at the Collegium Juridicum in Cologne and received his doctorate at the end of 1596 in Würzburg under the criminal lawyer Johann von Driesch . He then entered the service of the Spanish governor of the Netherlands, Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria , took part in the military campaign of Francisco de Mendoza on the Lower Rhine as an assistant to the chief military judge ( auditor ) and became a military judge himself in the offices of Geldern and Straelen as well as in the Rheinberg fortress . As such, he wrote a pamphlet in 1601 against the conditions at the court of the Duke of Jülich-Kleve-Berg in Düsseldorf, was arrested there and imprisoned for several months in the Jülich Fortress . In 1616 he became a citizen of the city of Cologne, where he bought the court complex of the Counts of Nassau-Hadamar on the Rhine , which was sold by his sons to Count Sebastian von Hatzfeld (noble family) zu Crottorf in 1628 .

Marriage and children: Around 1598 he married Gertrud Degener, probably sister of Duisburg councilor Heinrich D. and daughter of the lawyer Dr. Stephan Degener from Wesel and his wife Sophia von Lintelo, whose nephew Timon von Lintelo was one of the most important rider guides in the first phase of the Thirty Years War ("Lintelosche Reiter"). From this marriage there were demonstrably at least ten children, among others

• Lotharius, who sold the house in Cologne with his brother Johann Wilhelm in 1628. Rittmeister in the army of Matthias Gallas , last proven around 1635 in Komotau / Northern Bohemia.
• Sophia Agnes von Langenberg , who entered the Poor Clare Monastery in Cologne against her father's will and was strangled as a witch in the palace of the Electors of Cologne in Lechenich in 1627 .
• Johann Friedrich, 1623 father's assistant in the war payments office in Emmerich , later presumably Count Palatine in Graz .

Activity as a Brandenburg diplomat and commissioner

After the Klevian ducal house died out in 1609 , Langenberg entered the service of Elector Johann Sigismund (Brandenburg) , became his councilor and took care of his interests until 1616 :

• 1609 Receipt of homage in the Duchy of Berg .
• 1610 Negotiations with Siegburg Abbey about their neutrality.
• 1611 negotiations with Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria in Brussels about the Jülich rule of Breskesand ( Flanders ) and Winnenthal ( Brabant )
• 1611 negotiator in the Aachen religious dispute, partly together with the French diplomat and state philosopher fr: Jean Hotman .
• 1612 mission to Paris, where he lectured at the royal court on religious relations in Jülich. This activity apparently earned him the title of "Privy Councilor of the Royal Majesty in France", which he led in 1616. After his return he had to defend himself against allegations that he had secret relationships with the Paris court preacher, the Jesuit Pierre Coton .
• 1612 Representative at the Coin Trial Day in Cologne ( Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Reichskreis ).
• 1613 Elaboration of a defense and watch order for the Duchy of Berg.

Protest, imprisonment and submission

The withdrawal of the Spanish troops under Ambrosio Spinola and the Dutch troops acting on behalf of Brandenburg under Moritz von Oranien from the duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg, the County of Mark and the County of Ravensberg , as provided for in the Treaty of Xanten at the end of 1614 , did not take place. After the abbot of Siegburg handed over the monastery mountain to the Spaniards, Langenberg traveled to Berlin in the spring of 1615 and, in the Privy Council, called for Brandenburg to take measures to expel the Spaniards from the Lower Rhine territories. Since Langenberg's dispute with the Siegburg abbot escalated, he wrote a pamphlet ("Simple Discourse") at Easter 1616 in which he castigated the inactivity of the nobles in the Lower Rhine duchies and called on them to chase all foreign troops out of the country by force of arms.

When the two "possessed princes" Georg Wilhelm (Brandenburg) and Wolfgang Wilhelm (Palatinate-Neuburg) , who ruled the Lower Rhine, were mutually dismissed from mid-1616 , Langenberg was commissioned by the Klevisch-Brandenburg district administrators in August 1617 to to present himself to Johann Sigismund (Brandenburg) . In September 1617, Langenberg protested in front of the Elector in Königsberg with extremely sharp words against the conditions on the Lower Rhine and compared the measures taken by Prince Elector Georg Wilhelm with those of a tyrant. In June 1618 he ordered the arrest of Langenberg, whose attempt to escape from an "upper room" in Kleve failed and he was then temporarily incarcerated in the dungeon of the Klever Schwanenburg . Only after two and a half years imprisonment in Kleve was he released at the instigation of Minister Adam von Schwarzenberg , who had become powerful in Berlin .

In 1623 Schwarzenberg made him head of the Brandenburg War Pay Office in Emmerich, which was responsible for financing the Brandenburg troops on the Lower Rhine. Since this office acted independently of the Klevian government and consistently collected the war taxes, Langenberg came under strong personal pressure on site. At the end of 1624 the war pay office was closed. Langenberg was assigned to the Klevian court in Emmerich after a trip to Berlin, but pulpits on the Lower Rhine preached that he was wanted for embezzlement.

Langenberg then traveled to Paris in mid-1625, where he stayed at the royal court for ten months. Until Namur, as a companion of Prince Christian II , he returned to Emmerich in 1626 as the French "Councilor of the State in Germany", where his trace is lost. In the autumn of 1626, Elector Georg Wilhelm von Brandenburg inquired in vain from the Klevian government about his "loyal servant" Langenberg, who was involved in an inquisition procedure. This apparently meant the witch trial against his daughter Sophia Agnes von Langenberg .

State philosophy

Langenberg's state philosophy is clearly expressed in his writings and can be characterized by the terms tradition , religious tolerance and Stoa :

• The sovereign and estates decide together on all important questions for the good ("common good") of all subjects, in that the prince gets the advice of the estates. In principle, the sovereign is not bound by the views of the estates in his decisions, but he must not interfere with the privileges of the estates (e.g. right of self-assembly), nor the natural rights of all people. If the prince acts against these rights and privileges, he is a tyrant and can be eliminated by the law of the ranks.
• Religion is basically a private matter. Therefore the religious affiliation of the sovereign is also unimportant; this is to be accepted as prince by all subjects. Conversely, the prince may not discriminate against any subject because of his religion. Langenberg even rejects religious peace (e.g. the Augsburg Imperial and Religious Peace ), since such a peace already turns a religion into a party.
• The evils of human society, such as envy, hatred and resentment, have to be endured and bravely to stand up in public for the good and the right. Although God has already predetermined the course of the world, one must fight until one realizes that this is obviously pointless.

These views of Langenberg are primarily determined by his origin from the bourgeois upper class of an imperial territory ( Duchy of Berg ), in which, especially at the end of the 16th century, the cities occupied a strong position in the state parliament , on which the clergy were not represented at all. In addition, there was the importance of Erasmic thoughts on the Lower Rhine, especially through Konrad Heresbach . The influences of Neostoicism through Justus Lipsius are clearly recognizable in Langenberg's writings .

Fonts

printed

• 1594: De eo quod metus causa gestus erit . Cologne (Petreus Keschedt). Disputation thesis of the Collegium Juridicum of the University of Cologne; Bayer. State Bibl. Munich, 4 Diss. 1332 Beibd. 14th
• 1596: De maleficis conclusiones octo, iuncta conclusione una cum suis fundamentis membratim explicata, de collectando . Würzburg (Georgius Fleischmann). Dissertation of the jurist. Faculty of the University of Würzburg; Württ. Landesbibl. Stuttgart, Jur. Diss. 4059.
• 1616: One-off discourse in it, the Gülische Landt und Leutte sadly and dangerously appropriately briefly presented, and on the abbot of Syberg, recently given in truck, so much the Chur: and princely councilors and commissaries with it uncomfortably dressed, as it were answered after emergency . Kleve (without specifying the printer). Online edition
• 1617: Detailed Discvrs of the Gülchische Landen and people highly sad and completely dangerous condition: Also necessary answer to the abbot of Syberg recently given in open print, in which the Chur and Princely Councilors and commissaries are uncomfortably attracted. Reprinted from the Clevish copy . o. O. (without specifying the printer). New ed. and edit by Franz Josef Burghardt with index in: "... none of the worst places in a" contribution to the history of the city of Wipperfürth. Festschrift for the 25th anniversary of the Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Wipperfürth e. V., publisher. Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Wipperfürth e. V., Wipperfürth 2006. pp. 45-100.

handwritten

• 1617: Lecture and advertising Like the same, for the most lucid, high-born of my most gracious lord, Marggraven zue Brandenburg [...] first orally, afterwards filed with the utmost in writing and handed over ... Regarding the Gulischen and Clevischen Landtschafften dangerous course, indefinite state. Koenigsberg i. Pr. New ed. and berarb. by Franz Josef Burghardt, The complaint of the Klevisch-Mark district administrators to Elector Johann Sigismund in Königsberg 1617 . In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine 212 (2009), pp. 235–265.
• 1619: Supplication D. Langenbergen . Kleve March 22, 1619; Go StA PK Berlin, I HA, Rep. 34, No. 64h (unfollowed), 50 sheets. New ed. and edit by Franz Josef Burghardt, That the world obviously wants it differently. The petition of the Council Nikolaus von Langenberg to Prince Elector Georg Wilhelm von Brandenburg in 1619 . In: Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch 81 (2011), pp. 23–66.

literature

• Erich Kahl: Our market fountain. The history of the Wipperfürth “Stadtkump” . Wipperfürth 2003.
• Franz Josef Burghardt : The beginnings of the Schwarzenberg rule Gimborn-Neustadt 1610–1624. In: Contributions to Oberbergische Geschichte, Vol. 9 (2007), pp. 33–44.
• Franz Josef Burghardt : Brandenburg and the Lower Rhine Estates 1615–1620 . In: Research on Brandenburg and Prussian History NF 17 (2007), pp. 1–95
• Franz Josef Burghardt : The Langenberg from Wipperfürth in the 16th - 18th century. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein 101 (2009), pp. 21–69.
• Franz Josef Burghardt : Tradition - Tolerance - Stoa. On political philosophy in the northern Rhineland on the eve of the Thirty Years War. In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 75 (2011), pp. 171–202.
• Hermann Josef Dahm: detailed discourse of the Gülchische Landen and people in a very sad and very dangerous state. Handout for a better understanding of the 2nd edition from 1617 (Ed. Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Wipperfürth e.V.), Wipperfürth 2012.

Web links

• Franz Josef Burghardt , Nikolaus von Langenberg (1575 / 76-1626 / 28)
• The return of Nikolaus von Langenberg (PDF file; 1.33 MB)
• Sophia Agnes von Langenberg as "false saint" (French)
• Families Degener and von Lintelo