Sigmund When

Sigmund Wann (* approx. 1395 ; † May 11, 1469 ) was a personality of the city of Wunsiedel in the Middle Ages and a founder and founder of the foundation .

Descent and youth

When came from a wealthy and influential Wunsiedler bourgeois family. His grandfather, councilor Hans I. Wann, was one of the Wunsiedler citizens , who between 1388 and 1404 bought their own rights to farms and farming villages from the local nobility. Tin tin, Hans II. Wann, Sigmund's father, was also given a number of farms as fiefs between 1394 and 1403. There is no news about Sigmund Wann's youth, he is said - following the tradition of his family - to have learned the blacksmith's trade and the manufacture of tinplate . On his journeyman hike, he is said to have come to Venice and there married a “Wahlin”, an Italian woman, who knew how to “separate precious metals from minor ones”. In this context he is mentioned in historical texts about the Giant Mountains as the third mineral seeker alongside two Veniceers.

As a sheet metal tinner and mining company in Wunsiedel

In 1431 Sigmund Wann can be traced back to Wunsiedel as head of a tin mill and soon as a mining entrepreneur. Due to his ample liquid funds, Sigmund Wann soon assumed a special position in his hometown. Especially in the years after the Hussite Wars , which had badly affected the Fichtel Mountains and the local mining industry , he had large amounts of cash at his disposal and was able to lend the city of Wunsiedel in 1438 the sum of 1000 guilders and the city of Eger even 4000 guilders. In the following year he gave Margrave Friedrich I of Brandenburg a loan of 300 guilders, in 1440 he donated a mass on the St. Elisabeth Altar with 700 guilders, in 1441 with 100 Schock Meissner groschen the "Divine Corpus Christi" and in 1443 with 512 guilders Mass on the Twelve Messenger Altar in the Wunsiedler parish church. In 1440 he appeared as a councilor and in 1442 he was elected as one of the four mayors .

Relocation to Eger

In 1444 he bought 3500 guilders from Margrave Johann Alchymista zu Brandenburg, permission to withdraw his fortune from the country, two years later bought a house in Cheb and settled there as a citizen. When he left Wunsiedel, he donated his house to his hometown as the new town hall.

Foundation of the Wunsiedler Hospital

The most important foundation of Sigmund Wann, through which he has remained in the memories of the Wunsiedlers to the present day, is the Spital und Bruderhaus . In 1449 the Margraves Johann Alchymista and Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg gave him permission for his foundation. On April 12, 1450, Sigmund Wann established the foundation in detail and had the Wunsiedler city council give him a documentary confirmation that the hospital and brother house would continue to operate according to its provisions even after his death. He founded a monastic institution for twelve lay brothers , who were to be chosen by the council from among the "poor and honorable men". As the basis of his foundation, Wann put on February 1, 1451 an amount of 8,000 guilders at the city of Eger. Of the annual interest of 330 guilders, 300 guilders were to be used for food, clothing and accommodation for the hospital brothers and 30 guilders for the salary of the hospital priest. On February 6, 1451, Sigmund Wann had the actual deed of foundation drawn up.

Sigmund Wann's death

When Sigmund Wann died in Eger on May 11, 1469, he left only a modest fortune. The foundation of the Wunsiedler Spital, the construction of the hospital building with the church and three houses of the mass priests as well as the considerable sums that he spent as “church father” in Eger for the expansion of the parish church of St. Niklas and for other social foundations had the largest part of his wealth had almost eaten up. He found his last rest in the Egerer St. Niklas Church in front of the cross altar that he donated.

Later fate of the Wunsiedler Hospital Foundation

For over 170 years, the council of Eger paid the interest to the city of Wunsiedel punctually every year from the capital invested by Sigmund Wann for the foundation of his hospital foundation. In 1629, however, the people of Eger refused to make any further payments because the “hospital was founded on the Papal and not the Protestant religion”. The dispute between the two cities lasted until 1641, until the Egerers made a binding declaration at the Reichstag in Regensburg on October 10 of that year that they would pay the Wunsiedlers 10,000 guilders in capital and 5300 guilders in interest. In order to invest the money profitably again, the Wunsiedler council decided to purchase the Oberhöchstädt manor . On January 8, 1644, it was acquired by the Wunsiedler Hospital Foundation for 6200 guilders. While the historic buildings of the manor were sold to private individuals in 1982, the approximately 70 hectares of agricultural land, together with the income from other house and property ownership, still forms the economic basis of the hospital foundation managed by the city of Wunsiedel, which currently operates a retirement home .

The Sigmund-Wann-Realschule in Wunsiedel is named after the founder.

literature

• Elisabeth Jäger : Wunsiedel 1163–1560. Volume I, a history of the castle and city of Wunsiedel . Wunsiedel 1987, pp. 97-106, 222-232
• Harald Stark : The Oberhöchstädt manor . In: Archive for the history of Upper Franconia, vol. 78, Bayreuth 1998, pp. 41–112

Web links

• Fichtelgebirgsmuseum special exhibition Sigmund Wann
• Biography at the Sigmund-Wann secondary school in Wunsiedel