Philipp von Helmstatt

Philipp von Helmstatt, detail of his epitaph in the Neckarbischofsheim Church of the Dead

Philip of Helmstatt (* 14. September 1496 , † 12. December 1563 ) was steward at Bishop Georg von Speyer and after his death in the service of his brothers, the Elector Ludwig V. and Friedrich II. Is on the launch of its church order of 1560 the Reformation of some places in the Kraichgau back.

Life

Alliance coat of arms of Philipp von Helmstatt and Margarethe von Neipperg from 1546 at the old Neckarbischofsheim Castle

Entry of the couple in the Zell brotherhood book, 1522. They donate two silver children, as thanks for the birth of their two daughters.

Philipp was the only son of Erhard von Helmstatt († 1515) from the Grumbacher branch of the Lords of Helmstatt . At the age of 19 he married the 15-year-old Margarethe von Neipperg (* 1500; † April 28, 1547) from the house of the Lords of Neipperg , who gave birth to two daughters: Anna Gisela and Anna Elisabeth. In 1522 the couple thanked the grave of Saint Philip of Zell , near Worms, for the birth of their two daughters during a pilgrimage . In the same year, Philipp Franz von Sickingen joined the Brotherly Association , which campaigned for the strengthening of the lower nobility against clerical and secular princes.

Philip was considered to be reformatory at an early age , which probably goes back to Nicolaus Renneysen, who preached at the headquarters of the Helmstatt main line in Bischofsheim , who preached against the abuses of the papacy as early as 1517, whereupon in Bischofsheim in 1525 or 1526 a new church order by Alexander I of Helmstatt was introduced. Around this time, at the latest in 1526, Philipp became Hofmeister to Bishop Georg von Speyer . After Philip put down a trial against a Lutheran preacher in Sinsheim , the bishop was challenged in 1528 to take action against his newly believing councilors and especially his court master Philipp von Helmstatt, which the bishop did not comply with. After the death of Bishop George Philip in 1529 was the new Bishop Philip of Flersheim released in 1530 and entered the service of George's brother, the Elector Ludwig V . Previously, Bishop Flersheim had commissioned him, together with the Provost Johannes von Ehrenberg , on January 6, 1530, to solemnly assign the municipal offices due to the diocese and to ask the Speyer council for public approval of the documented rights.

At the end of the 1530s, Philip's daughter Anna Gisela married the distantly related Johann von Helmstatt († after 1545 and before 1558) from the Dürrkasteler branch of the Bischofsheim main line. His father Johann II died shortly after this marriage in 1539. He and his wife had 19 children, ten of whom were still alive at the time the inheritance was divided. In 1543, Philipp von Helmstatt, his brother-in-law Bechtolf von Flersheim, Friedrich von Dalberg and later Wolf von Gemmingen († 1555) were commissioned to draft the contract of inheritance . The result of the division of the estate was u. a. that Philip's son-in-law Johann received his father's share in the castle and town of Bischofsheim and in Oberbüchelbach Castle. Immediately after the division of the estate, extensive construction work began on the later town church of St. Salvator in Neckarbischofsheim and, a little later, on Bischofsheim Castle , which shows the alliance coat of arms of Philipp von Helmstatt and Margarethe von Neipperg from 1546.

After Elector Ludwig V died in 1544, Philipp came into the service of his brother Friedrich II , who wanted to carry out the Reformation in the Electoral Palatinate. As early as 1545, Philipp had negotiated with Jakob Sturm about the accession of the Electoral Palatinate to the Schmalkaldic League and counted with the Electoral Palatinate Chancellor Hartmannus Hartmanni d. Ä. to the representatives of an anti-papal direction in the preparation of the fief day in Heidelberg 1546, on which Frederick II wanted to secure the support of his vassals in the upcoming change of faith. In the Schmalkaldic War , Philipp was a middleman between the Elector and Duke Ulrich von Württemberg and fought from August to November 1546 under the flag of the Electoral Palatinate in the Protestant army. In December 1546, he and Hartmanni again accompanied the elector to the reconciliation with the victorious Catholic Emperor Charles V at the Reichstag in Schwäbisch Hall .

Philip's son-in-law Johann died between 1545 and 1558, whereupon Philip took care of the grandchildren. Philipp's wife Margarethe died in 1547, he then married Agnes Marschallkin von Ostheim, widow of Philipp von Gemmingen , who died in 1544 , and after her death (1552 or 1553) the distantly related Agnes von Helmstatt, daughter of Adam von Helmstatt. After the death of Alexander II of Helmstatt († 1558) Philip also received the Alexandrian fiefdom from Bischofsheim. In 1560, Philip asked the Prince-Bishop of Worms that his fiefs should go to his grandson Johann Philipp von Helmstatt (1545–1594) after his death . In the same year Philip issued a new church order (a revised version of the church order from 1525/26) for the places under his rule ( Bischofsheim , Hasselbach , Flinsbach and Berwangen ) and thus formally carried out the Reformation there.

Philipp died on December 12, 1563 at the age of 67. He was buried in the Church of the Dead , where his grave monument and that of his first wife Margarethe von Neipperg have been preserved.

literature

• Peter Beisel: Philipp von Helmstatt, a small Renaissance prince in Bischofsheim , in: Villa Biscovesheim Neckarbischofsheim 988-1988 , ed. from the Association for Home Care, Neckarbischofsheim 1988

Individual evidence

1. ^ Konrad von Busch and Franz Xaver Glasschröder : Choir Rule and Younger Sea Book of the old Speyer Cathedral Chapter , Speyer, Historischer Verein der Pfalz, 1923, page 576