Thun (Swiss aristocratic families)

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Under the name of Thun there were two noble families in the Bernese Oberland in the 12th and 13th centuries , one free class and the other as ministerials of the Counts of Kyburg . The barons of Thun are said to come from the environment of the Counts of Rapperswil , while the von Burgistein knights also emerged as a side branch from the von Thun knight family .

Barons of Thun

The Barons of Thun had their seat in a castle in Thun, which is not identical to today 's Thun Castle . They owned land on the right bank of Lake Thun and in the valley to Grindelwald . There was an older, now questioned idea about their origins, according to which the family was derived from the High Burgundian Counts of Bargen . The assumption that it was a side branch of the Counts of Kyburg was also rejected. A more recent assumption is made by a group of aristocrats from eastern Switzerland that gained a foothold in Thun around 1200. The brothers Werner (exp. 1130–1146) and Ulrich von Thun (exp. 1133) belong to the first known generation. The last known generation consisted of the three brothers Burkhard, Konrad, and Heinrich. Burkard was Lord of Unspunnen from 1221 to 1236. His brother was the 16th abbot of the Einsiedeln monastery from 1213 under the name Konrad I; he died on May 13th or 14th, 1234. Since only monks from baronial families were accepted in Einsiedeln, the status of these three has been proven by Thun with certainty. The third brother, as Heinrich II of Thun, had been Bishop of Basel since 1216.

Ministerials of Thun

At the beginning of the 13th century, a knight Ulrich von Thun (exp. 1224–1233) is named as the first representative of the low-nobility family. Heinrich von Thun (exp. 1236–1239) was also a knight. Jordan the Elder of Thun was the father of Jordan I and Rudolf von Thun (adult 1246). More is known about the knight Jordan I von Thun (ext. 1236–1271), as he acquired ownership of the village of Burgistein around 1260 with an exchange of goods from the Interlaken monastery. There, perhaps in place of a previous building, he built a castle, after which his son Jordan II of Burgistein named himself (ext. 1266; died before 1309). Jordan I exercised the office of mayor of the city of Thun in 1260 and was therefore a servant of Count Hartmann V the younger of Kyburg. When he died in 1263, the employment relationship was transferred to his widow Elisabeth von Burgund, Countess von Kyburg, and the heiress Anna von Kyburg. As a ministerial, Jordan I von Thun owned a permanent house on the castle hill .

Ulrich von Thun, abbot of Frienisberg from 1280 to 1285 , and Heinrich von Thun, chaplain of the Zofingen monastery in 1286 , are also included in the ministerial family because of the same first names .

See also

→ Noble family von Thun and Hohenstein originating from Castel Thun in South Tyrol (not related to the barons and ministers of Thun)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. So Aegidius Tschudi around 1500 in his Liber Eremi .
  2. Konrad von Thun. IV. The monks of the 13th century. Abbot book, person ID 1069. In: Professbuch. Einsiedeln monastery archive, accessed on September 8, 2012 .
  3. Urs Martin Zahnd: Burgistein, from. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .