Rochus Merz von Staffelfelden

The knight Rochus Merz von Staffelfelden († January 17, 1563 ) was active in the Upper Austrian administration, later imperial council. He acquired the Lordship of Staffelfelden and Schramberg through purchase .

Life

Rochus Merz came from a town bourgeois family in imperial service, he himself was active in the administration of Upper Austria and in fact rose to the knighthood in 1536 by improving the coat of arms . This was followed by an interlude in the service of Abbot von Murbach and the acquisition of the rule of the castle and village of Staffelfelden in Upper Alsace (1541). Rochus Merz then bought the imperial direct rule of Schramberg from the Lords of Landenberg with a contract dated April 20, 1547 . He modernized this with the resources of the administration; the Merzsche Urbar belongs here as well as the Schramberg Market (1547).

Even as Lord of Staffelfelden and Schramberg, Rochus Merz remained connected to the Habsburg- Austrian dukes and emperors. Reference is made to an opening and umbrella treaty concluded with the Habsburgs in 1551, to his position as a committee member of the imperial knighthood in the Neckar-Black Forest district (1560/62) and as an imperial council. With the Protestant Württemberg , the Lord von Schramberg was largely able to come to an agreement in the Tennenbronn Treaty of July 23, 1558, as a sovereign unbundling of the Schramberger from the Württemberg territory a. a. has been agreed by an exchange of goods.

Rochus Merz stood on the ground of the old church-Catholic order, but tried to develop an autonomous, centralized church system within his territory. That he came up against his limits, proves u. a. the resulting denominational division of Tennenbronn, which was divided between the rule of Schramberg and the Württemberg monastery office of St. Georgen. In his will, drawn up on January 11, 1563, a few days before his death on January 17, Rochus Merz also considered the church and the poor, while in the absence of a son his wife Anna Merz von Staffelfelden († 1571) took over the rule of Schramberg.

Merzsche's land register

The Merzsche Urbar is originally preserved as a 497-sheet paper manuscript in folio format and was written by the scribe Johann Reiseisen on behalf of Rochus Merz. As the "Basic Law" of the Schramberg rule, the Urbar recorded the property and rights of the Lords of Schramberg in and in front of the Black Forest. The so defined (and idealized) "freyherrschetzt Schramberg" in the camp book was then divided into six offices and bailiffs, namely: Schramberg, Aichhalden, Lauterbach-Sulzbach, Mariazell, Tennenbronn and (at times) Langen-Kirnbach. The offices and bailiffs were headed by the “amptleut” as the official of the territorial lord; at the lower end of the social scale, the “resident corporal leütten” and “hindered” can be found in the land register. The land register was not only used as an inventory, but also offered opportunities to increase the manorial income through the resulting transparency. Separate inventory registers were created for free float outside of the actual Schramberg rule. B. for the feudal estates in Trossingen , Aldingen , Deißlingen , Lauffen, Seitingen and Weigheim , which were mostly located on the Baar and connected with the office of Meier von Trossingen.

literature

• Oskar Dambach: Schramberg. Place and rule. From the oldest times to the present. Maier, Schramberg 1904, OCLC 78400079 .
• B. Rüth: The free rule Schramberg (1526–1583) - territorialization and denominationalization. In: Schramberg. Dominion - Markflecken - industrial city. Edited by Schramberg Museum and History Association and the large district town of Schramberg. Schramberg 2004, ISBN 3-9807406-3-3 , pp. 115-136.