Ruprecht (Pfalz-Veldenz)

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Painting by Ruprecht von Pfalz-Veldenz

Ruprecht von Pfalz-Veldenz (* 1506 in Zweibrücken ; † July 28, 1544 at Castle Gräfenstein ) was Count von Veldenz and founder of the Veldenz line of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken family .

Life

Ruprecht was the younger son of the Count Palatine and Duke Alexander von Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1462-1514) from his marriage to Margarete (1480-1522), daughter of Count Kraft VI. from Hohenlohe in Neuenstein . In his will, Alexander had stipulated the right of birthright for the principality of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, which thus fell to Ruprecht's older brother Ludwig II of Pfalz-Zweibrücken . Ruprecht was intended for the clergy. He became canon in Mainz , Cologne and Strasbourg . In addition to these dignities, his brother gave him the income from the provost of St. Remigius with the Michelsburg in 1524 , and the Lauterecken office in 1526 . In 1529 he declared his renunciation of all spiritual dignity.

After the death of his brother Ludwig, Ruprecht ran the affairs of state for his underage nephew Wolfgang von Pfalz-Zweibrücken from 1533 to 1543, initially together with Wolfgang's mother Elisabeth of Hesse and from 1540, when she remarried, alone.

Like his brother Ludwig, Ruprecht was inclined to the Reformation . Ruprecht represented the ideas of the Reformation more decisively than his brother. He commissioned Johann Schwebel with the creation of a new church order for Pfalz-Zweibrücken and ordered the use of the German language in services.

In 1540 Ruprecht acquired the rule of Grevenstein (today's Graefensteiner Land ) from Count Palatine Johann II von Pfalz-Simmern , where he also introduced the Reformation.

In the Marburg Treaty of October 3, 1543 , Wolfgang von Pfalz-Zweibrücken , who had just been declared of legal age, left the offices of Lauterecken and Veldenz to his uncle and previous guardian Ruprecht and his descendants , as well as the office of Remigiusberg near Kusel and the Jettenbach court as their own rule. This established the Principality of Pfalz-Veldenz , which was expanded in the Heidelberg Succession Treaty in 1553 to include the County of Lützelstein , half of Guttenberg and two thirds of Alsenz , and existed until 1694.

Ruprecht died in 1544 at his Gräfenstein Castle and was buried in the Alexander Church in Zweibrücken .

Marriage and offspring

Ruprecht married Ursula (1515–1601) on June 28, 1537 , daughter of the Wild and Rhine Count Johann VII zu Salm-Kyrburg , with whom he had the following children:

⚭ 1558 Margrave Karl II of Baden-Durlach (1529–1577)
⚭ 1563 Princess Anna Maria of Sweden (1545–1610)
⚭ 1578 Count Wirich VI. von Daun-Falkenstein (1539–1598)

literature