Seraphin II of Taxis

Seraphin II von Taxis (* 1538 ; † in January 1582 in Augsburg ) was Augsburg postmaster on the Dutch postal route during the time of General Postmaster Leonhard I von Taxis . He was the progenitor of the Augsburg postmaster dynasty.

Career

Seraphin II, a son of Anna Mais and Bartholomäus von Taxis, was born in 1538. As the designated successor, he took over the Spanish-Dutch post office in Augsburg after the death of his childless uncle Seraphin I von Taxis in 1557. Since he was still a minor at the time, his mother and brother Georg leased it to Christoph von Taxis for six years on July 16, 1557 . Seraphin himself went to Milan to train and worked there under the postmaster Simon von Taxis († 1563), who was appointed as the successor to Janettos von Taxis in 1519 as head of the Taxis clan as " procuratore generale della famiglia e società di Tassi " . Seraphin II of Taxis married Isabella, daughter of Simon von Taxis, on January 23, 1558.

Litigation

Augsburg Poshaus around 1616

On July 10, 1559, Emperor Ferdinand I confirmed Seraphins II's claim from Taxis to the Spanish-Dutch post office in Augsburg. Seraphin's local representative was the Italian Montenegro. After the lease expired in July 1563, Christoph von Taxis refused to hand over the post office to Seraphin. The Brussels postmaster general Leonhard I von Taxis initially campaigned successfully for Seraphin with the support of his brother Johann Baptista. After Emperor Ferdinand's death , he signed a contract with the new Emperor Maximilian II on August 24, 1564. The two post offices in Augsburg were merged, should be paid for by Leonhard I and run by the Füssen postmaster Innozenz von Taxis instead of Seraphin . Seraphin II sued this decision. Margarethe von Parma , the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, wrote to the council in Augsburg on August 16, 1567 that she would decide the legal dispute between Leonhard and Seraphin according to the law. Seraphin was right and was appointed Augsburg postmaster in 1567. The emperor's protest at the Augsburg council was unsuccessful.

The tensions between Leonhard and Seraphin II von Taxis were additionally fueled by a postage dispute. On August 13, 1566, the postmaster general in Brussels brought a lawsuit about insufficient payments from the post offices in Rheinhausen and Augsburg, which were subordinate to Seraphin . The counterclaim took place on November 28, 1566. Seraphin rightly argued that the income for the Roßhaupten (Rochapt) post stations near Scheppach and Diedelsheim had been withdrawn by relocating to Scheppach and Knittlingen , respectively, so that he no longer had any income there. The taking of evidence in Brussels on February 20, 1568 produced no winner.

Post insolvency

In 1565 a Spanish bankruptcy led to the bankruptcy of the Dutch tax authorities. Thereupon Leonhard von Taxis stopped paying the post office owners. In the autumn of 1568 the post office owners from Rheinhausen to Augsburg protested unsuccessfully to Georg Ilsung , the head of the Reichspfennigsamt in Augsburg, about payment arrears. Then there was a slow strike. On August 30, 1569, Emperor Maximilian II wrote a reminder letter to Leonhard I von Taxis. Maximilian II had to pay more than 400 guilders to the striking post office keepers to ensure the transmission of information from the Reichstag in Speyer (May 22 to December 11, 1570) to Vienna.

In the next few years Leonhard von Taxis in Brussels and Seraphin II in Augsburg and Rheinhausen were able to stabilize the connection to the Netherlands again. The Dutch struggle for independence with the coup d'état of 1576 led to Leonhard's flight at the end of January 1577. This means that Brussels was no longer the headquarters. Seraphin II reacted in November 1577 by setting up a post office in Cologne to reach Antwerp directly from Augsburg. The Augsburg merchants also responded. From March 4, 1578, a competing mail relay of the municipal messenger service rode from Augsburg via Frankfurt am Main and Cologne to Antwerp.

In December 1577, Johann Hinckart was appointed as the new Dutch Postmaster General by the rebels. This meant that the Antwerp postmaster Johann Baptista von Taxis was also no longer a contact person. Since Seraphin von Taxis did not recognize the postmaster Himckart, the enforced cooperation on the route between Antwerp and Augsburg was slow. When the dispute between Seraphin and the Augsburg merchants over the delivery of mail intensified, Emperor Rudolf II appointed Georg Ilsung from Augsburg as arbitrator in 1578 . At the end of 1579, Emperor Rudolf convened a postal commission with Hans Fugger, Georg Ilsung and Anton Christoph Rellinger to reform the postal system. The financial situation on the Dutch postal route eased for a short time due to the reinstatement of Leonhard I von Taxis as Dutch postmaster general on October 25, 1579.

Dispute about the postmaster general office

In 1580 both Seraphin II and Leonhard I von Taxis applied for the post of general postmaster in the empire. Seraphin traveled to Milan and agreed with his brother-in-law Roger von Taxis to finance the course between Augsburg and Milan. His application to the Augsburg Postal Commission initially failed due to an objection from the Tyrolean Archduke Ferdinand . In the end, however, the Augsburg commission also proposed Seraphin II von Taxis as postmaster general. The emperor never made a decision because of Seraphin's sudden death in January 1582.

progeny

• Johann Alphons, Spanish captain († 1593)
• Franz
• Cisterna
• Anna Viktoria
• Maria Magdalena, nun
• Joanna, nun
• Genoveva († after January 14, 1628) ∞ with the later General Postmaster Lamoral von Taxis
• Octavio (1572-1626), Seraphin's successor. ∞ with Susanna Jakobe von Stauding († 1656)

Successor as Augsburg postmaster

1582/95 to 1626	Octavio von Taxis (* 1572; † July 6, 1626), (Guardian until the age of majority Seraphin's widow Isabella)
1626/38 to 1672	Grandson Johann Baptista von (Thurn und) Taxis (* July 7, 1613 or 1623; † November 20, 1672)
1657	(Elevation of the Augsburger Thurn and Taxis the hereditary imperial baron status)
1672 to 1706	Great-grandson Sebastian Franz von Thurn und Taxis (* January 20, 1647 - December 7, 1706)
1701	(Elevation to the hereditary imperial count status)
1706	The Augsburg postmaster dynasty ends with the death of Sebastian Franz

literature

• Wolfgang Behringer: Thurn and Taxis. Munich 1990 ISBN 3-492-03336-9
• Wolfgang Behringer: In the sign of Mercury. Göttingen 2003 ISBN 3-525-35187-9
• Martin Dallmeier: Sources on the history of the European postal system. Kallmünz 1977
• Engelbert Goller: Jakob Henot. Inaugural dissertation, Bonn 1910
• Ludwig Kalmus: World History of the Post. Vienna 1937
• Otto Lankes: The Post in Augsburg. Dissertation, Munich 1914
• European family tables. Volume V, plate 143