Thurzo

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Family coat of arms of the Thurzos

The Thurzo or Turzo (also: Thurzo von Bethlenfalva (Ger. Von Bethelsdorf, Slov. Z Betlanoviec ); Hungarian Thurzó ; Slovak Thurzo / Turzo ) were a wealthy Central European merchant family of the early modern period .

history

Headquarters of the Thurzo in Betlanovce (Bethelsdorf) / Zips

The name appears for the first time in a Bavarian document from the middle of the 12th century , but connections to the Thurzo from the Zips are controversial and not clarified. Georg I. Thurzo († 1460) called himself Lord of Bethelsdorf since 1430. The family was one of the oldest of the "sedes decem lanceatorum" (nobilitas lanceati) in the Spiš, which was pledged to Poland from 1412 to 1772 by the Kingdom of Hungary . Its ancestral home was in the mountain town of Leutschau around 1430 (Slovak: Levoča , Hungarian: Lőcse , Polish: Lewocza ). From there, Johann I. Thurzo (Ján Thurzo) moved to Krakow, Poland , in 1464 , where he acquired citizenship in 1465, soon held the office of councilor and later became mayor.

City palace of the Thurzo in Levoča (Leutschau)
City palace of the Thurzo in Banská Bystrica (Neusohl)

Johann and some of his sons operated an extensive raw material trade all over Europe, especially with copper , silver and lead . They were extensively involved in mining, mainly for black copper ore (with silver components) in today's Slovakia (Upper and Lower Hungary, in the largest mines of Neusohl since 1475) and for lead and silver ore in Transylvania , Bohemia , Silesia and Lesser Poland . In addition to wealthy Krakow councilors, the Thurzo's financial and trading partners were primarily the Fuggers from Augsburg , who were also commercially involved in this area and became related to the Thurzos through marriage. In 1494 the company "Hungarian (Copper) Trade" was founded with Jakob Fugger, which was also called "Fugger-Thurzo-Society", which until 1526 united and monopolized the copper and silver mining of the countries in the national Saiger trade . For this purpose, large quantities of lead from Lesser Poland, Bohemia, Silesia and Transylvania were delivered to the company's Seiger smelters , where they were melted down in the relatively newly developed seven-stage process of segregation with black copper (copper-silver ore) from Upper Hungary and finally separated into copper, silver and lead . The three Seiger huts of the Fugger-Thurzo Society were in Neusohl , Moštenica and Mogiła . An economic empire emerged that reached into the west of the continent. While the silver and gold yields were traded on the European currency market, the copper yield (37,000 quintals per year in the 1520s) was mostly shipped via the Oder , Baltic and North Seas to the central European copper market in Antwerp , where it was sold to Portuguese, Dutch and English overseas trader was sold. The overseas discoveries opened up new markets in West Africa and India for copper, which is very rare there; in India it was more popular as the dominant coin metal than the more common precious metals. The Thurzo were among the richest merchants in Europe. At times they dominated economic life in cities such as Frauenbach (Roman: Baia Mare ; Hungarian: Nagybánya ), Neusohl (Slovenian: Banská Bystrica ; Hungarian: Besztercebánya ) and Kuttenberg (Czech: Kutná Hora ), but also in Lower Silesia Region of the Reichensteiner Mountains . Johann's sons Alexius Thurzo (Alexej Thurzo; Aleksy Thurzo) and Georg Turzo (Juraj Thurzo) expanded the empire as far as Lesser Poland ( Olkusz and Mogiła ), acquired the Upper Silesian principality of Pless for a time and, for a short time, the Lower Silesian Duchy of Wohlau and developed close contacts to the Polish kingdom . The sons John and Stanislaus, destined for the clergy, became bishops.

The family also appeared as a promoter of art and culture, among other things through close contact with Renaissance humanism and as a client of the Renaissance in East Central Europe.

Tombstone of George III. Thurzo in the Arwaburg chapel

Rising investment costs for planning, administration and especially for pumping technology against more frequent groundwater ingress, falling yields, the competition of Mansfeld copper and American silver, the rapidly increasing tax burden to finance the Turkish war of the Habsburgs against the Ottoman occupation of Hungary after the battle von Mohács and miners' revolts in Upper Hungary against falling wages, business deteriorated very quickly after 1525. The Thurzo got out of the Fugger-Thurzo Society in 1527 and withdrew to their estates in the Hungarian and Polish Spiš and in Upper Silesia. The Fuggers continued to run the company until 1546, when the Habsburgs, as kings of Hungary, withdrew their concession for the last poorly managed company and incorporated them into the royal Hungarian mining directorate.

Thanks to their wealth, the Thurzos rose to the rank of magnate in Hungary , George III. Thurzo was a Palatine of Hungary . They temporarily became the owner of the prominent Arwaburg on which Georg III. Thurzo is buried, the former royal Spis Castle , the Trenčín Castle , the castle Lietava , built the Renaissance Palace at the castle in Bytča , etc. In the first half of the 17th century died the main lines of the Thurzo family.

coat of arms

Divided; Above in red a golden, growing lion; Below in gold three (2, 1) red rose petals; Helmet: a crowned tournament helmet; Crest: a golden, growing lion. Helmet covers: gold, red.

Important members of the family

- All names are also spelled "Turzo" in German. -

Johann's sons:

Johann's nephew:

  • Sigismund Thurzo († 1512), Catholic bishop and humanist. Studied in Padua. 1503 Bishop of Neutra , from 1506 Bishop of Transylvania and Greater Oradine . His name is associated with the new building of the episcopal palace in Großwardein in the Renaissance style.

Johann's great-great-nephew:

literature

  • Karen Lambrecht: Opportunities for advancement and scope for action in East Central European centers around 1500. The example of the Thurzó family . In: Journal for East Central European Studies . Volume 47, 1998, pp. 317-346
  • Oskar Paulinyi: Johann V. Thurzo, Bishop of Breslau . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder . Volume 4, pp. 1-5, Breslau 1931.
  • Josef Joachim Menzel:  Johannes V. Turzo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 482 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Christoph Bartels u. a. (Ed.): History of German mining. , Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 254-255, 269, 317, 321, 496-497. ; Ian Blanchard: International Lead Production and Trade in the "Age of the Saiger Process" 1460-1560. Stuttgart 1994, pp. 15-74.
  2. ↑ Christoph Bartels u. a. (Ed.): History of German mining. , Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 496–497 .; Ian Blanchard: International Lead Production and Trade in the "Age of the Saiger Process" 1460-1560. Stuttgart 1994, pp. 15-74.
  3. ↑ Christoph Bartels u. a. (Ed.): History of German mining. , Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 421-423, 450-453; Ian Blanchard: International Lead Production and Trade in the "Age of the Saiger Process" 1460-1560. Stuttgart 1994, pp. 15-74.
  4. ↑ Christoph Bartels u. a. (Ed.): History of German mining. , Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 496–497.