Ortenburg aristocratic conspiracy

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The so-called Ortenburg aristocratic conspiracy , also known as the Bavarian aristocratic conspiracy , was a conflict over the question of faith in the Duchy of Bavaria in 1563 and 1564 . The estates tried to peacefully introduce Protestantism alongside Catholic teaching . The sharpest adversary of the Bavarian Duke Albrecht V was Count Joachim von Ortenburg , who soon became the political leader of the Protestant movement in Bavaria.

prehistory

Development of Protestantism in Bavaria until 1563

At the beginning the followers of the evangelical teaching were to be found mainly in the urban lower classes and also in parts of the rural population. In the course of time, however, the evangelical faith developed in the middle and upper classes, soon also in the nobility.

The conclusion of the Passau Treaty and the introduction of the Reformation in the imperial cities of Augsburg and Regensburg in 1552 and a year later in Pfalz-Neuburg contributed to the upswing of Lutheran teachings . Furthermore, the imperial enclaves Hohenwaldeck-Miesbach (1553) and Haag (1559) introduced the Reformation. With the introduction of the Reformation in the county of Ortenburg in 1563, however, the situation escalated. With that, the self-confidence of the Bavarian nobility had reached its peak, and a trial of strength with the duke seemed inevitable.

Count Joachim von Ortenburg

Imperial Count Joachim von Ortenburg (* 1530, † 1600) was considered one of the most educated and influential personalities of his time.

Count Joachim had contact with Lutheran teaching at a young age . In 1557 he publicly confessed to the Lutheran faith for the first time, his parents Count Christoph and Anna Freiin von Firmian had already changed their faith in 1538. So he grew up with Protestantism and soon became an advocate of this doctrine. Thanks to his university education and his political contacts with the Roman-German King Ferdinand I and the Emperor Charles V , whose privy councilor he became in 1551, he was a strong political opponent of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria.

When he had already been the incumbent Count von Ortenburg for two years , he campaigned for the first time publicly in 1553 for complaints about church abuses . Joachim also campaigned for the Protestant side at the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1555. This is where the Augsburg Religious Peace came into being .

A year later, at the Landtag in Munich, Joachim sat at the head of some rural estates in the Duchy of Bavaria and asked for permission to have the Lord's Supper in church services in both forms (bread and wine). However, this was rejected and led to great outrage among the Bavarian bishops. Joachim stayed in contact with his political comrades by letter.

The Conspiracy

The Bavarian state parliament took place in Ingolstadt in 1563 . There the equality of the Lord's Supper was discussed again. The Bavarian Duke Albrecht V, however, was not prepared to tolerate any other religious denomination in addition to Catholicism in his domain . Joachim, who like other 50 sovereigns and families continued to insist, drew Albrecht's anger. The Duke, a devout Catholic, did not want to make such a decision, which would have far-reaching consequences, without the decision of a papal council. So he stuck to his decision and some sovereigns gave up their demands for the state parliament. Nevertheless, Joachim tried in retrospect to keep in touch with the sovereigns by letter and to encourage them further.

A secret report about the so-called confessionists was drawn up on behalf of the duke. In it the suspicion of a far-reaching conspiracy was stoked, which, in cooperation with foreign forces, is seeking to violently overthrow the political and ecclesiastical order in Bavaria .

Deeply hurt, Joachim went to the coronation ceremony of the future Emperor Maximilian II. On the trip from the ceremony home to his county, he used the time to devote himself to his thoughts. He realized that neither the duke nor most of the sovereigns were willing to introduce the Augsburg confession in full. So he made the decision to introduce the Reformation in his empire-free county. On October 17, 1563 Joachim had Johann Friedrich Coelestin hold the first public Protestant service and officially introduced the Lutheran faith in Ortenburg, based on the Augsburg Imperial and Religious Peace of 1555.

Even though the Ortenburg county had only 2000 inhabitants in an area of ​​just 1½ square miles, this was an extraordinary step. Because the Ortenburg counts were not only the most respected and influential imperial estate in the Duchy of Bavaria, but also the central location of the county, in the heart of the Catholic region of southern Germany, shows the potential for conflict in this decision. After the introduction of Protestantism in Ortenburg, crowds of people streamed into the town after a short time just to hear the new faith preached. Protestantism soon found new followers in the region, for example in Aidenbach and Passau . Some Bavarian Protestants even moved to Ortenburg.

Duke Albrecht could not allow this. He feared that, on the one hand, he was threatened with a religious conflict in the Lower Bavarian region, and on the other, that his subjects would increasingly emigrate to Ortenburg. He tried hard to incorporate the small county into the duchy and to suppress the Reformation. So he promoted a court case from 1549, in which the imperial immediacy of Ortenburg was challenged. Since this measure took a long time (and finally failed in 1573), Albrecht had to intervene directly in the situation in Lower Bavaria. Duke Albrecht referred to a so-called opening right of the Ortenburg palaces Alt- and Neu-Ortenburg , which came from the year 1391 and was created under the extortion of the then Counts Georg I and Etzel . Joachim saw no reason to stop the services. Thereupon the duke had the two evangelical pastors arrested in Ortenburg and expelled from the country. However, despite the right to open, he had no legitimation for this, as Ortenburg was an imperial fiefdom and independent of Bavaria. Count Joachim complained about this to Emperor Ferdinand I and King Maximilian I and sued the Imperial Court of Justice. Duke Albrecht still asked Joachim to stop the Protestant services.

However, the count did not follow him. Albrecht V then blocked all entrances to the county with his soldiers in 1564. All Bavarian subjects who wanted to go to Ortenburg or who came from Ortenburg were prevented from entering the county. Furthermore, Albrecht withdrew all Ortenburg fiefs on Bavarian land in May. They were thus cut off from all sources of income. He also had all possessions opened and confiscated. So the Duke got the entire correspondence of the Count, which was in Mattighofen Castle .

After this was sighted, the duke believed to have found evidence of a conspiracy. As a result, numerous Bavarian aristocrats were charged with high treason, including Wolf Dietrich von Maxlrain , Pankraz von Freyberg , the lords of Laiming , Pelkofer, Fröschl and the Paumgartner patrician family. In June 1564 the trial began in Munich. However, it soon became apparent that the charges were untenable. But Albrecht's goal, that the Bavarian sovereigns would not make any public demands for Protestantism, was successful.

On May 10, 1566, Count Joachim and his co-defendants signed a declaration at the Reichstag in Augsburg that none of them had any intention of revolt. The defendants were acquitted and allowed to return home. Joachim was temporarily given back the Bavarian fiefdom. The Ortenburg aristocratic conspiracy had failed with this declaration for the duke, and the conflict with the sovereign princes was also ended for him. But the conflict with Ortenburg would continue in the following decades.

Effects

Even if Duke Albrecht V did not win this conflict brilliantly, he was a role model for other European states in the struggle against the Reformation in their empire. Despite the lost trial in 1564, Albrecht managed to get the Bavarian sovereigns to fall silent on the question of equality between the two faiths during his term of office, as well as during that of his successor. This was to remain so until the Thirty Years War .

The Bavarian-Ortenburg conflict with Joachim, who died in 1600, and his empire-free county around Ortenburg continued into 1602. Ortenburg was to continue to be a place of refuge for many Protestants. During the 17th century, so-called secret Protestantism was widespread in Austria. Many residents from the country above the Enns and even from the Goiserer Tal made a secret pilgrimage to Ortenburg for the Last Supper. During the Thirty Years' War, after the forced emigration of Protestants from Austria, the county also offered many refuge and shelter and for some also a new home.

In 1563, Nicholas III. von Salm-Neuburg , a nephew of Passau Bishop Wolfgang von Salm , started the Reformation in the county of Neuburg am Inn. In contrast to the nearby Ortenburg, Neuburg could not maintain the Lutheran faith because it was a Habsburg fief. After the increased re-Catholicization in Austria from 1620, the Reformation was also reversed in Neuburg. For the Duchy of Bavaria as a whole, the Ortenburg aristocratic conspiracy resulted in the Counter Reformation becoming very pronounced and Bavaria remaining catholic in the long term. The Ortenburg market is one of the few places in old Bavaria whose population is Protestant to this day .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Heinz Pellender: Tambach. From the Langheim monastery to the Ortenburg county. History of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle. 1990, p. 28.

literature

  • Christian Wieland: The Bavarian noble conspiracy of 1563. Event and self-interpretations. In: zeitenblicke 4, (2005), no. 2, [28. June 2005] ( online ).
  • Friedrich Hausmann : The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, as well as their branch lines . In: East Bavarian border marks. Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde . No. 36, Passau 1994 (pp. 9-62).
  • Heinz Pellender: Tambach. From the Langheim monastery to the Ortenburg county. History of the Count's House of Ortenburg, the monastery office and Tambach Castle. 2nd edition revised and expanded in terms of title, text, illustration and design. Graflich Ortenburg headquarters - Tambach Castle, Weitramsdorf-Tambach 1990.
  • Hans Schellnhuber : The Reformation in the imperial county of Ortenburg. In: 400 years of Evang.-Luth. Kirchengemeinde Ortenburg 1563–1963, Ortenburg 1963 (pp. 6–42).
  • Eberhard Graf zu Ortenburg-Tambach: History of the imperial, ducal and counts' entire house of Ortenburg. Volume 2: The Count's House in Bavaria. Rückert, Vilshofen 1932.
  • Leonhard Theobald : The so-called Bavarian nobility conspiracy of 1563, in: Contributions to Bavarian Church History, Volume 20, Erlangen 1914 (pp. 28–73).
  • Leonhard Theobald: The introduction of the Reformation in the county of Ortenburg, Leipzig 1914.
  • Walter Goetz , Leonhard Theobald: Contributions to the history of Duke Albrecht V and the so-called aristocratic conspiracy of 1563. (Letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century, Volume 6), Munich 1913.

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