Peter Ernst I. von Mansfeld

Portrait of Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld by an unknown painter after Antonio Moro , 16th century.

Peter Ernst von Manfeld's coat of arms with the Order of the Golden Fleece was painted for him around 1546; St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent

Peter Ernst I. Prince of Mansfeld (from 1594), Count von Mansfeld-Vorderort (born August 12, 1517 at Heldrungen Castle ; † May 25, 1604 in Luxemburg- Clause) was field marshal of the Spanish armies in the Netherlands and governor of the Spanish crown in Luxembourg and governor in the Netherlands for two years .

Family connections

Peter Ernst I from the house of the Counts of Mansfeld was a son of Count Ernst II of Mansfeld-Vorderort and his second wife, Countess Dorothea zu Solms-Lich . The Counts of Mansfeld were one of the oldest German aristocratic families and ruled their county directly from the empire , which, however, was divided into the three lines of Vorder-, Mittel- and Hinterort.

The father, Ernst II von Mansfeld-Vorderort (1479–1531), had 22 children, including Gebhard , who later became the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne . The division of the heavily indebted county among the many sons and the settlement of the daughters led to considerable controversy. In January 1546, Luther , accompanied by his three sons, traveled via Halle to Eisleben, his native town, to help settle the inheritance and legal disputes within the Mansfeld family of counts. He no longer took part in the final negotiations on February 17th, weakened by the winter trip and suffering from angina pectoris; However, the negotiations ended successfully: The eldest, Philipp, received Bornstedt Castle , Johann Georg received Eisleben , Peter Ernst the Friedeburg Castle , Johann Albrecht the Arnstein Castle , Johann Hoyer Artern , Johann Ernst the Heldrungen Castle , some sons had become clergymen many daughters were paid off. On February 18, the reformer died - in the presence of Count Albrecht VII von Mansfeld- Hinterort and his wife Anna von Honstein-Klettenberg - presumably in their house, the city palace (Markt 56), which is now the Hotel Graf von Mansfeld “Is located.

Peter Ernst I was married at least three times. His first wife was Margareta von Brederode († May 31, 1554), daughter of Reinhard III. von Brederode and Philippine de la Marck , who on February 22, 1562, succeeded Marie de Montmorency , Dame de Conde, († February 5, 1570), daughter of Joseph de Montmorency, Seigneur de Nivelle, and Anna von Egmont . His third marriage was with Clara von Châlon. There is no agreement among modern historians on a fourth relationship between Mansfeld and Mansfeld. As possible wife or lover, Anna von Eyken or Anna von Bentzrath come into question. What is certain is that his son, Count Peter Ernst II, came from this connection , who later became a Protestant military leader in the Thirty Years' War .

Also about the numerous children of Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld there is little or no guaranteed historical knowledge nowadays. The information on the number of his offspring, about whose mothers there are contradicting sources, vary widely.

• Friedrich (* 1542 - † April 26, 1559)
• Karl (* 1543; † 24 August 1595), from 1594 Prince von Mansfeld, imperial commander in Hungary

⚭ I: Diane de Cossé, daughter of Charles I. de Cossé, comte de Brissac

⚭ II: 1591 Marie Christine von Egmond, daughter of Count Lamoral I of Egmond

• Johann († 1575)
• Polyxena († between † September 17, 1591 and December 20, 1602), ⚭ Palamedes de Chalon, illegitimate son of Renés de Châlon
• Philipp Oktavian August Sigismund (* June 18, 1564; † June 10 (June / July) 1591)
• Dorothea († 1595), ⚭ 1578 Don Francisco Verdugo
• Peter Ernst II (* 1580; † November 29/30, 1626)
• Philipp (not guaranteed)
• Antony
• Ernst (d. J.)
• Karl (III.) (* 1590; † after 1653), never recognized as a legitimate child, Herr zu Bartringen and Strassen
• Anna, mistress of Bartringen and Strassen († after 1653)
• Philipp (* September 1603; † after 1623), illegitimate, but recognized
• Reinhard (Renaud)
• Christina

Military and political life

At the age of 14, Mansfeld came to the Hungarian royal court to educate the nobility.

In 1535 he took part in the campaign of Emperor Charles V against the Ottoman-occupied Tunis. After the end of the campaign, he made a military and political career in the imperial service.

The Château de La Fontaine in Clausen (Luxembourg) , built from around 1536 by Count Peter Ernst I as the governor's seat

1545–1604 Mansfeld was governor of the Spanish crown in Luxembourg. In 1576, after the death of the governor of the Netherlands Luis de Requesens, he presumably acted as military chief for the city of Brussels. 1592–1594 he was governor of the Spanish crown in the Netherlands.

In 1545 Philip II (then still regent) made him Knight of the Golden Fleece , which gave Mansfeld's governor's office an additional counter-Reformation accent.

Mansfeld made a significant military experience in 1552: It was about the town of Damvillers, the center of a small Luxembourg enclave on French territory. French troops were returning from the so-called "voyage d'Allemagne", the "German campaign" undertaken by King Henry II of France to take the French-speaking dioceses from Charles V. In the course of this campaign, at the end of May, the French advanced via Rodenmacher (Rodemack) to St. Johannisberg (Dudelange) and Zolver and destroyed the castles there. Mansfeld resisted the intruders. He personally led the defense of the beleaguered Yvoix (later called "Carignan"), then Luxembourgish, today French (Département des Ardennes), but had to surrender as a result of the mutiny of his German mercenaries and was captured by the French on June 23, 1552. He was not immediately released by Spain, but was imprisoned for five years. He was not released until 1557 after paying a very large sum of money.

Peter Ernst von Mansfeld on an engraving by Dominicus Custos

After this experience, the Dutch rebellion against Spanish rule offered Mansfeld a new opportunity to find his political role: In 1566, the Spanish King Philip II made it clear that he was fighting the resistance in the Dutch provinces with increased military engagement under Duke Alba wanted to; William of Orange as a representative of the Dutch high nobility felt compelled to discontinue the partial political cooperation with the governor-general Margarethe von Parma . Mansfeld also initially belonged to the aristocratic opposition to Orange, especially against Cardinal Granvelle , who had directed and controlled the governor-general with direct instructions from the Spanish king. But after Granvelle was recalled to Spain, Mansfeld took the side of Orange's sharp opponents "probably for personal career reasons" and "pleaded for rigorous action against his former allies. For them, in turn, he now took on the role of the anti-freedom villain one that Granvelle had previously taken. With the difference, of course, that the xenophobic argument was not used against him. Rather, he stood for the advancing polarization within the Dutch elite themselves and thus for a massive intensification of the conflict in the country. "

In 1572 Mansfeld was appointed field marshal of the Spanish armies in the Netherlands. In the political and military struggles of the late 1970s and 1980s, he was consistently found on the Spanish side.

The brilliant military career of Peter Ernst von Mansfeld did not prevent the economic and political decline of the House of Mansfeld: When the heirs of Ernst II again divided the ownership of the Vorderort line in 1563, this called the Mansfeld creditors into action. The count's family was heavily in debt due to the rich blessings of children, numerous wars and feuds, the upturn in the copper economy and excessive waste. In 1566, their creditors obtained the appointment of a commission by Emperor Maximilian II to settle debts, which, at the instigation of Elector August of Saxony, was replaced by agents from Saxony, Magdeburg and Halberstadt. These determined total debts of the counts in the amount of 2.75 million guilders, which in 1570–1579 finally resulted in the sequestration and permutation recession between the three feudal lords. The brothers were forced to consent to the county sequestration in 1570. Saxony took advantage of the location of the Mansfelder and, after lengthy negotiations, achieved the end of the efforts they had made to mediate the previous imperial fief. Three fifths of the county fell to the Electorate of Saxony , the other two fifths to the Archbishopric of Magdeburg . In 1580 Mansfeld was no longer an imperial county and the entire house no longer belonged to the imperial estates , since sovereignty over the regalia was no longer exercised by the emperor, but by the respective sovereigns. In the course of the compulsory administration, they immediately set up their own administrators, who officially acted on behalf of the counts, but actually represented the interests of their clients.

In gratitude for his many years of loyalty to the Catholic imperial family, Peter Ernst was appointed Imperial Prince of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Rudolf II on March 4, 1594 , which, however, was only a mere title due to the lack of territorial territory. He retired from all public affairs three years later at the age of 80. With the Dutch-born, German-speaking Baroque poet Aegidius Albertinus (1560-1620), who also clearly positioned himself against William of Orange, against the Dutch uprising and for the Spanish crown in general, Mansfeld earned Latin praise in a poem for his loyalty to the central power . "

Peter Ernst I. von Mansfeld died on May 23, 1604 in Luxemburg-Clausen and was buried in the chapel of the monastery of the Récollets in Luxemburg. The chapel was destroyed by French revolutionary forces in 1806, and few relics of it remain today. Mansfeld's bones are not one of them.

Relation to art

La Fontaine Castle in Luxembourg-Clausen

Mansfeld built up an art collection. His La Fontaine Castle, which was begun in 1563 and was never completely finished, at the gates of Luxembourg - also known as Palais (de) Mansfeld or my Pfaffendahl - contained numerous antique art objects and a valuable collection of paintings. The count bequeathed the castle and its art collection to the Spanish Habsburgs Philip III. and Isabella . However, his daughter Polyxena asserted in court that she or her children received part of the inventory. The art objects that fell to the Spanish crown were shipped to Rotterdam and from there to Spain just five years after Mansfeld's death .

literature

• Reinhard R. Heinisch:  Mansfeld, Peter Ernst I., Prince of. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 79 ( digitized version ).
• Gustav Janssens: Le Comte Pierre Ernest de Mansfeld, loyal serviteur de Charles V. et de Philippe II. Et la guerre aux Pays-Bas. In: Hémecht. Journal of Luxembourg history. No. 4, 2004, ISSN  0018-0270 .
• Joseph Massarette: The Luxembourg governor Count and Prince Peter Ernst von Mansfeld (1517-1604). A contribution to the Luxembourg-Belgian history in the 16th century. Beffort, Luxembourg 1925.
• JA Massard: Damvillers, Mansfeld and son: Ambroise Paré, the father of surgery, and Luxembourg . In: Lëtzebuerger Journal 2007 . No. 74 (April 17), pp. 11–12 ( PDF ; 298 kB).
• Musée national d'histoire et d'art: Pierre Ernest de Mansfeld (1517-1604). Un prince de la Renaissance. 1st edition. Luxembourg 2007, ISBN 978-2-87985-960-6 .
• Renate Seidel: The Counts of Mansfeld. History and stories of a German noble family. 1st edition. Fouqué Literaturverlag, Engelsbach 1998, ISBN 3-8267-4230-3 .
• Andreas Tacke, Markus Trunk : Un prince da la Renaissance: Pierre-Ernest de Mansfeld (1517-1604). In: Art Chronicle. Vol. 61, No. 7, p. 339 ff.

Web links

Commons : Peter Ernst I. von Mansfeld-Vorderort  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jochen Vötsch: Peter Ernst I, Prince of Mansfeld-Friedeburg (1517-1604) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Selected bibliography on Peter Ernst I. von Mansfeld ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Volkmar Joestel: Luther's death
2. ↑ ^{a b} Renate Seidel: The Counts of Mansfeld. History and stories of a German noble family . 1st edition. Fouqué Literaturverlag, Engelsbach 1998, ISBN 3-8267-4230-3 .
3. ↑ Unless otherwise noted, the following information on family connections comes from Renate Seidel: Die Grafen von Mansfeld. History and stories of a German noble family . 1st edition. Fouqué Literaturverlag, Engelsbach 1998, ISBN 3-8267-4230-3 ; as well as from Detlev Schwennicke : European family tables . New episode . Volume XIX. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-465-03074-5 , plate 86.
4. ^ JA Massard: Damvillers, Mansfeld and son: Ambroise Paré, the father of surgery, and Luxemburg . In: Lëtzebuerger Journal 2007 . No. 74 (April 17), pp. 11–12 ( PDF ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice .; 298 KB). 
5. ↑ Olaf Mörke, Wilhelm von Oranien (1533-1584) - Prince and "Father" of the Republic, Stuttgart 2007, p. 108 f.
6. ↑ Bernd Feicke: The permutation recesses at the end of the 16th century in the county of Mansfeld. In: Zs. F. Heimatforschung, H. 17 (2008), pp. 19–24.
7. ↑ "In Belgio omnia vastat civile bellum / Mansfeldus & bello & pace fidus perpetuus / Aequitatis custos, aequissimi Regis legatus / Hanc provinciam in fide continent servatque / Illaesam cum summo populi commodo, & hilari / Securitate, unde Mansfeldi nomen apud Gentem Lucenburgam per secula charum manebit. "; cited in: Regenier C. Rittersma, Egmont da capo - a mythogenetic study , Münster a. a. 2009, p. 108, footnote 12. (Translation: In Belgium a civil war ravages everything. (However :) Mansfeld, loyal to war and peace, eternal guardian of the right measure and envoy of the exceedingly compensatory king: he holds this province together and preserves them unchallenged with the greatest benefit for the people and in pleasant security; hence the name Mansfeld will remain cherished by the Luxembourgish family over the centuries.)

predecessor	Office	successor
Alessandro Farnese	Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands 1592–1594	Ernst of Austria