Philipp Ludwig von Baumbach the Younger

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Philipp Ludwig von Baumbach the Younger (* around 1560; † 1618 in Homberg (Efze) ) was a Hessian court official. He rose at the court of Landgrave Ludwig IV. Of Hessen-Marburg to the steward on, holding office from 1593 to 1603, but fell by Louis IV. Death in 1604 when his nephew and heir, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt , in disgrace. He was accused of adultery with the landgrave's wife Maria and subjected to an embarrassing trial, then released in 1605, but lost all his fiefdoms.

origin

He was the youngest of three sons of Philipp Ludwig von Baumbach the Elder (* 1532; † 1610/11), court official of Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel, and from 1580 to 1583 steward of Landgrave Philip II of Hesse-Rheinfels and after the death of his father in 1552, he founded the first Binsförth line of the Lords of Baumbach . His brothers were Ewald Jost († 1637), who under Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel was his council and chief forest and land hunter master as well as governor of the Fulda, and Friedrich, who in 1592 in Kassel during a feast with friends of Heidenreich from Boyneburg was stabbed.

Life

Career at the Marburger Hof

After Landgrave Philipp von Rheinfels died in 1583, his territory had been divided among his three brothers who ruled in Kassel , Marburg and Darmstadt and his court had been dissolved, Philipp Ludwig the Elder left. Ä. back to Kassel and his ancestral castle Tannenberg near Nentershausen , while Philipp Ludwig the Elder. J. entered the service of Landgrave Ludwig IV. In Marburg as court squire, where he soon became a chamberlain and a favorite of the landgrave. After the landgrave's wedding to the 24-year-old and therefore 30 years younger Countess Maria von Mansfeld- Hinterort, who showed keen interest in the young man, he was appointed court master of the women's rooms and, in 1593, as the successor to Johann Scheuertschloss zu Hachborn, who died in November of this year, as the court master .

A sensational close relationship quickly developed between Baumbach and the fun-loving landgrave, which Ludwig IV either did not notice or did not want to notice. When the Landgrave gave his wife the Rodenhof at the castle wall in Marburg in 1597, Baumbach immediately moved from his city apartment to the Rodenhof and thus in the immediate vicinity of the Landgravine on Maria's orders. The house burned down in March 1598 due to the carelessness of the servants , but was immediately rebuilt at Maria's instigation, and Baumbach lived in it until 1605, when he was not in Hachborn (from 1602).

Baumbach was given plenty of gifts not only by the Landgravine, but even more so by Landgrave Ludwig IV. In particular, after the death of the last lord of Scheuenschloss, he received his fiefdom in Hachborn in 1602, the former Hachborn monastery with all the estates, which the previously virtually incapable courtier quickly and magnificently expanded and furnished at the expense of the landgrave and landgrave. He is also said to have received the Scheuenschloss castle seat at Brauerschwend between Alsfeld and Lauterbach in 1602. Baumbach had many of his valuable gifts gradually brought to his parents for safekeeping at Tannenberg Castle.

Baumbach's unusually close relationship with the young Landgrave had long aroused sensation and envy among the Marburg courtiers and displeasure among the Landgrave's relatives, only Landgrave Ludwig himself seems to have remained unaffected. It is unknown whether Ludwig was ultimately urged by his nephews to put his wife's favorites in certain places; in any case, at the beginning of June 1603, Baumbach was replaced as steward by Hans (Johann) Philipp von Buseck . However, Ludwig did not drop his favorite and even issued him with relevant “letters of justification”.

process

When Ludwig IV died in 1604 without descendants entitled to inheritance, the northern part of his landgraviate fell to his nephew, Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel, and the southern part to the Darmstadt nephew Ludwig V. Both were careful, their inheritance not through Ludwig IV. To have extremely generous gifts to his young wife or to their supposed lover diminished, and Maria her Wittum and Baumbach denied his fiefdom. From 1591, Mary's Wittum comprised the town and office of Butzbach, which was already assigned to her as a morning gift (the morning gift of 5000 guilders was prescribed for the city and office of Butzbach), the castle , town and office of Grünberg with an annual pension of 3000 guilders, and from 1598 also the castle Merlau with all accessories, from 1601 also the entire Bingenheim office including the Fulda Mark , as well as a large part of Ludwig IV's fortune in money, jewelry, other valuables and furniture.

Immediately after Ludwig IV's death, Landgrave Moritz had all silver and gold pieces and other valuables that Baumbach had brought to Tannenberg inventoried . In addition, Baumbach denied his formerly Scheuenschloss ownership. In order to put the initially unyielding Maria under pressure, Baumbach was accused of having had an improper relationship with her during Ludwig IV's lifetime. The landgrave widow was placed under custody and her servants and chambermaids were detained and threatened with charges of various offenses. Likewise Baumbach.

These measures called the relatives of the widow, in particular the Guelph dukes August the Elder and August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, and other advocates of Mary on the scene, who vigorously advocated her. Even Emperor Rudolph II took them under his protection and threatened Moritz and his Darmstadt cousins ​​on May 2, 1605 with a fine and even an imperial ban if they withheld their legacy from the landgrave widow or continued to harass her.

Since Maria initially fought vehemently for her Wittum, the trial against Baumbach was pushed forward all the more eagerly. In particular, pressure was exerted on Maria's servants, from whom it was hoped that incriminating statements in the matter of adultery would be obtained. Faced with this threat to her reputation, Maria became more indulgent. Darmstadt's Landgrave Ludwig V , who had less to gain or lose, was less persistent than Moritz, and the servants were eventually released. Under the pressure of circumstances, Maria agreed to a settlement with Landgrave Moritz on March 27, 1605 : For a sum of 54,500 guilders, less than half of the actual value, she waived Moritz's claim to her Wittum for herself and her descendants ( Grünberg, Merlau, Butzbach, Fuldische Mark, Rodenhof in Marburg and all prescriptions from their deceased husband). A corresponding comparison with Ludwig V of Hessen-Darmstadt soon followed.

However, Baumbach's procedure dragged on even further. On April 14, 1605, Landgrave Moritz had him imprisoned in the Ziegenhain Fortress . There he was in June 1605 by a court chaired by the Marburg court judge Johann Schwertzell the Elder . Ä. (1549–1614) (assessors were two knights and four legal scholars) subjected to an embarrassing process in which he u. a. Adultery, witchcraft , poisoning and unlawful eviction from the country of alleged accomplices or witnesses of his reprehensible relationship with the landgrave were accused. None of the charges were based on conclusive evidence or testimony, and Landgrave Moritz and his cousins ​​in Darmstadt were more concerned with the widowhood of the Landgrave widow and Baumbach's property than with Baumbach himself.

Baumbach was released after Maria Ludwig's heirs Moritz and Ludwig V had given their extensive Wittum comparatively cheaply and after the first court was held on him on June 5, whether on the basis of a settlement or because no guilty verdict was foreseeable, is no longer known. He received his confiscated movable property back, but not Hachborn and the other goods with which Ludwig IV had enfeoffed him; these were confiscated by Moritz. All later attempts by Baumbach to get her back on the path of grace were not heard.

The End

Philipp Ludwig von Baumbach married Louise von Bran a little later, settled in Homberg (Efze) and died there in 1618. On April 16, 1625, his brother Ewald Jost , the Hessian chief forestry and land hunter, gave up all claims against compensation on Hachborn.

At the age of 44, Maria married the 22-year-old Count Philipp V von Mansfeld zu Bornstädt six years later.

literature

Footnotes

  1. ^ Daughter of Count (Hans) Johann I von Mansfeld-Hinterort and Margarete von Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Celle , daughter of Duke Ernst I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg .
  2. ↑ Reinhold Drusel: A castle and 13 courtyards: A historical report from Marburg's forgotten history . epubli, Berlin, 2012, pp. 22-25
  3. ↑ Johann Schüstenschloss von Hachborn died on November 2nd, 1593 as the last male representative of his sex and Hachborn fell as a settled fiefdom to Landgrave Ludwig IV, who gave it as a fiefdom on August 1st, 1602 to Baumbach. ( Peter Unglaube: Das Haus Hachborn; A lost castle in the Marburger Land . In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History , Volume 106, 2001, pp. 59–85 )
  4. ↑ Landau, p. 134
  5. ↑ Rommel, p. 59
  6. ↑ Rommel, p. 52
  7. ↑ Rommel, p. 53
  8. ↑ Rommel, p. 57
  9. ↑ With the exception of Reichelsheim , which belonged to Nassau-Weilburg- Saarbrücken as a Fulda fief .
  10. ↑ Rommel, p. 56
  11. ↑ Rommel, p. 59
  12. ↑ Landau, p. 134
  13. ↑ Rommel, p. 62
  14. ↑ Landau, pp. 135-136
  15. ↑ Rommel, p. 63
  16. ↑ Rommel, pp. 60-61
  17. ↑ Landau, p. 136
  18. ↑ Landau, p. 137
  19. ↑ Peter Unbelief: Das Haus Hachborn; A lost castle in the Marburger Land . In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History , Volume 106, 2001, pp. 59–85
personal data
SURNAME Baumbach, Philipp Ludwig von the Younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baumbach, Philipp Ludwig von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Steward of Hessen-Marburg
DATE OF BIRTH around 1560
DATE OF DEATH 1618
Place of death Homberg (Efze)