Stephan Kienlin

Stephan Kienlin (* around 1500 ; † May 27, 1570 in Tübingen ) was a tanner and mayor of Tübingen. Stephan Kienlin was the ancestor of the influential and charitable Tübingen Kienlin family.

Stephan Kienlin's wooden epitaph (formerly in the Jakobuskirche in Tübingen )

St. Stephen on the lost epitaph of Stephan Kienlin

Life

The Kienlin family originally came from Dusslingen . There is no information about his youth. He was a tanner by trade and married to Elisabeth Hiersch. In the last 20 years of his life he has become a public figure with increasing responsibility. From 1550 to 1562 he was a hospital nurse. From 1558 he was related to the court and from 1561 until his death he was mayor of Tübingen. In 1561 he also acted as a city sealer and since 1563 he was a member of the Engern Committee of the Landscape.

Stephan Kienlin lived in his house on Hirschgasse on the Ammer Canal at the point where house 10/12 is now. He was the ancestor of the influential and benevolent Kienlin family, who lived in Tübingen until the 18th century. Evidence of their willingness to donate are, for example, the two silver communion jugs for the Tübingen churches, which can now be seen in the permanent exhibition of the city ​​museum , and the Kienlinglocke donated in 1682 (see below).

Kienlin wooden epitaph

For the Tübingen Jakobuskirche his wife (1585), a timber after the death epitaph donated to the couple. The epitaph measured about 7 by 4 shoes , which is 2 by 1.15 m. Between two decorative strips there was a square picture panel depicting the martyrdom of St. Stephen . He was slandered and stoned for blasphemy. On each side of this panel there was a double door that could be opened and closed and also locked. When the double doors were open, the viewer saw Stephan Kienlin and his sons on the left, his wife and daughters on the right. A skull marked the children who had already died before their parents. On behalf of the Strasbourg merchant Jean-Christophe Kienlin (1747–1812), Stephan Kienlens descendant in the 7th generation, the epitaph was renovated in 1788/89 by the pedigree painter Jacob Daniel Schreiber (son of Johann Gottfried Schreiber ). At that time he also made a faithful 36 × 22 cm copy on handmade paper . It is only thanks to this copy that the appearance of the epithas is known today, because it was removed from the church during renovation work in 1870 - like all other wooden epitaphs, by the way - and has been lost since then.

Kienlin bell

Since the second half of the 17th century, efforts were made to compensate for the numerous losses of the bells in the Thirty Years' War with new bells. That also applied to Tübingen. In 1682 a bell was donated by Stephan Kienlin's descendants to commemorate him and which still hangs on the tower of the Tübingen collegiate church . The bell was cast by bell- makers from Lorraine who came to Württemberg to meet the great demand. For example, the Rosier family of wandering founders from Lorraine settled in Rottenburg around 1650 . Like most bells of that time, the Kienlin bell does not reach the quality of medieval bells.

Sons

• Stephan († before 1583, ⚭ 1558 Maria Kaiser from Entringen )
• Joseph († 1619, ⚭ 1566)
• Sixt († 1608, ⚭ 1. 1570, ⚭ 2. 1572)

Daughters

• Maria (* around 1540 Tübingen, ⚭ 1564 Tobias child's father, from Giengen an der Brenz , pastor of Reutlingen )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Rudolf Seigel: judgment and advice ... . Pp. 226/227
2. ↑ This original copy is owned by the family in France. The Tübingen City Museum now has a copy of it.
3. ↑ The lost Kienlin epitaph from the Jakobuskirche ( Memento from February 20, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Christoph Schapka: History of the development of the bell and history of the church bells on the hardships

literature

• Rudolf Seigel: Court and Council in Tübingen. From the beginnings to the introduction of the municipal constitution 1818–1822 , Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1960 (= publication of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg)
• Mathilde Sinner: The confessional or Kienling bell and its co-founder Mayor Kienlin . In: “Tübinger Blätter” 36, p. 46ff