Vöhlin
The Vöhlin were the most successful trading and patrician family in the formerly free imperial city of Memmingen . Already under Hans Vöhlin the Elder. J. (1423–1496) the house was certainly one of the largest southern German companies in the trade in goods, but also in the finance and mining sector. From the mid-1490s, the Vöhlin merged gradually with the Welsern , the Welser-Vöhlin-Handelsgesellschaft was created. When this company failed in 1614 and the Augsburg Welsers became insolvent, the Vöhlin had already withdrawn from the company and returned to Memmingen.
Family coat of arms
There are two very different interpretations of the family's coat of arms:
- The three characters are read as the letter "P" and are abbreviated Latin sentences:
"Piper Peperit Pecuniam,
Pecunia Peperit Pompam,
Pompa Peperit Pauperiem,
Pauperies Peperit Pietatem. "
Pugnantes per pontifice
- Which means roughly translated:
"The pepper brought the gold,
That made us pompously rich
That in turn soon makes us poor:
A reason to be pious! God have mercy
You ours, the merchant's name
Want to be honored. Amen."
Fighters for the Pope
- The Memmingen home nurse Walter Braun doubts that they were originally letters. He derives the name Vöhlin from “Veh” or “Feh” - a silver-gray squirrel that delivers (e) valuable fur goods. The popular skins of small fur animals, sewn together as a valuable coat of arms decoration , resulted in iron hat-like shapes under the collective term Feh (see helmet in the picture Hans Vöhlin the Elder). When the rich family had earned or bought a "speaking coat of arms", the name was shown in it, not as an animal, but as a fur ribbon that tells about the feud. The Swabian towns of Illertissen , Kammeltal , Frickenhausen / Lauben and Ungerhausen still have these characters / letters in their coats of arms.
Important family members
Memminger (Ungerhauser) line
The list only contains the most important / executive male family members and is not intended to represent a family tree!
- Konrad Vöhlin (* around 1284; † after 1353 in Memmingen)
- Name also Conrat
- Speaks right to Memmingen in 1340, owns a house on Wegbach in 1353
- Hans Vöhlin (* around 1311 in Memmingen, † after 1379 in Engelhartz)
- In 1379 he acquired real estate in Engelhartz near Memmingen
- Konrad Vöhlin (* around 1337 in Memmingen; † after 1406)
- He married Elisabeth HEILIGGRAB around 1365 in Augsburg
- Name also: "Chuontz the Old Velen"
- He settled in Memmingen in 1370
- Elisabeth Heiliggrab (* around 1342 in Augsburg)
- Erhard Vöhlin (* around 1365 in Memmingen; † before 1455)
- He married Margaretha Stoss
- Name also: "Velen"
- 1440 Church caretaker in Memmingen, Lord of Engelhartz and Stein
- Margaretha Stoss (* around 1368 in Ravensburg, † after 1425 in Memmingen)
- Hans Vöhlin the Elder Ä. (* around 1392 in Memmingen; † April 14, 1463 in Memmingen)
- He married Ursula Imhof around 1421
- Name also: "Hans Velin"
- Captain of the cities near Zug in den Hegau, 1437 hospital caretaker, 1442 to 1457 mayor 1449/50, lived around 1450 at Kräutelmarkt, sold his Engelhartz estate near Memmingen in 1455, co-owner of Burgstall, known as "the Stein an der Günz" (sold in 1448 ), Founder of the Ungerhausen line
- Ursula Imhof (* around 1403 in Nuremberg; 1450 in Memmingen)
- Hans Vöhlin the Elder J. (* 1423; † 1496)
- Married to Elisabeth Schad from Biberach
- since 1470 high municipal offices, several times mayor
- Konrad Vöhlin (* around 1455; † 1511)
- Married to Barbara Welser
- took over the city offices of his father in 1497 and was mayor five times from 1502 to 1511
- Barbara Welser (* 1460; † 1504)
- his sister Katharina Vöhlin (1460–1514) married Anton Welser
- Hans Vöhlin (* 1488; † 1556)
- was married three times: with Margarethe Möslin, Afra Hörwarth, Elisabeth Steinbrecher
- was councilor of the city in 1517 and 1519, gave up Memmingen's citizenship in 1526/1527 probably due to the Reformation and moved to Augsburg
- Hans Vöhlin (* 1526; † 1562)
- Married to Anna Lauinger from Augsburg (1543), thereby acquired Augsburg citizenship
Illertissener (Frickenhauser) line
- Erhard Vöhlin the Elder Ä. († 1484)
- acquired the village of Frickenhausen in 1460
- Leonhard Vöhlin († 1495)
- Erhard Vöhlin II. D. J. (* 1487; † 1557)
- marries Helene von Albersdorf in 1510
- buys the imperial direct rule Illertissen for 30,000 fl from Schweickhart von Gundelfingen in 1520 , gives up the citizenship of Memmingen
- Christoph Adam Vöhlin von Frickenhausen (1668–1730)
- imperial chamberlain , electoral Palatinate privy councilor and head stable master
- Electoral Chamberlain and Captain of the Electoral Life Guard in Mannheim
history
Time of the Vöhlin Society
The family probably originally came from St. Gallen . The first reliable mention of the Vöhlin in Memmingen comes from the year 1340: Konrad is a judge in the court of arbitration between Heinrich von Isenburg and the hospital master Conrat for some goods in Holzgünz - his house and garden on the Weppach in Memmingen are mentioned in 1343 and 1353. Up to the middle of the 15th century there is no clear information about the activity. However, this should already have been on the market.
In the business with salt, wine, iron, scythes, and barchents , various long-distance traders from Memmingen already had intensive connections to Vienna and Styria , the Swiss Confederation and Venice in the first half of the 15th century . In this environment, the Vöhlin family became the most successful wholesale and patrician family. The money business was already linked to the wholesale of goods at this time. In addition to the credit, attention had to be directed to the transport of money, which in turn was associated with the exchange business. Soon the company was to assume an important position in international payments. As early as the middle of the 15th century, the Vöhlins began to invest the profits from the trade in land ownership and rights to rule. The family branched out early on into two branches, which were later named Frickenhauser and Ungerhauser lines after their country estates . Unfortunately, the exact composition of the lines has not yet been proven. However, for a long time both lines were involved in the joint trading business.
One does not go wrong, Hans Vöhlin the Elder. Ä. to address as the founder and first head of the Vöhlin Society , as Westermann did. He was probably the head of the society until 1463, the time of its establishment cannot be precisely determined, it is only possible to determine the source of the society in 1453, but it was probably created earlier. Since he was hospital nurse in 1437, master guild master in 1441 and mayor in 1442 and continuously held the highest offices in the city, he must have had partners and factors at his side. These probably belonged to both family lines and by marriage with other Memmingen merchant families. After his death, Erhard d. Ä., After his death Erhard d. J. (a brother of Hans the Younger) and after his death in turn Hans Vöhlin the Younger. J. the management of the company. During this time, the Vöhlin-Gesellschaft had a network of factories and business relationships that stretched from the Netherlands to the most important trading and trade fair cities in central and southern Germany, to Switzerland, France and Italy, and possibly also to northern Spain. The company combined an extensive and varied trade in goods - with spices, textiles, metals, furs and leather goods - with bills of exchange and credit transactions. Anton Welser (married to Katharina Vöhlin) and Jakob Welser were working in the Memmingen company at the time. Hans Vöhlin d. J. had held high municipal offices since 1470 and was repeatedly mayor. As envoy of the imperial city, he stayed at Duke Sigismund's court in Innsbruck in 1483 and at the city council of the Swabian Confederation in 1486 . After Hans Vöhlin's death in 1496, his son Konrad not only succeeded him in business, but also advanced to the municipal offices that his father had held: in 1497 he was elected to the council and between 1502 and the year of his death in 1511 he served five times as Mayor of Memmingen. He was married to Barbara Welser. In 1503 he bought the village and estate of Ungerhausen, which became the country seat of the Memminger / Ungerhauser line.
Time of the Welser-Vöhlin Society
From the middle of the 1490s, the Vöhlin merged gradually with the Welsern, who had also been active in long-distance trading for a long time. The union between the two families was prepared through the above marriage connections. As a result of the merger, the company's headquarters were relocated to Augsburg and the Ungerhauser branch of Vöhlin also moved to Wertachstadt. The name of the new company Anton Welser, Konrad Vöhlin und Mitverwandte shows that these two held a managerial position, but there were up to 16 other partners who also had voting rights in business decisions. First of all, the merger of the company laid the foundation for further expansion of business activities. Already in 1505/06 the Welser-Vöhlin took part in a Portuguese expedition to India in order to be able to enter the pepper trade as close as possible to the growing area. Overseas companies achieved their greatest importance under Bartholomäus V. Welser (1484–1561), born in Memmingen in 1484 , the grandson of Hans Vöhlin the Elder. J. With him, society reached out to the New World. She founded a branch in Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, participated in the extraction of cane sugar and in the slave trade, recruited German miners and finally obtained the right to colonize what is now Venezuela in 1528. On behalf of the Welser-Vöhlin, German “conquistadors”, among them the Ulm Ambrosius Ehinger and Nikolaus Federmann , explored the primeval forests and savannahs on the ultimately unsuccessful hunt for gold and other treasures. However, it was not the failure of the Welser-Vöhlin's ambitions in South America that was the main cause of the noticeable decline of society in the second half of the 16th century. Rather, it was her close ties to the House of Habsburg that led to colossal, no longer recoverable outstanding debts from the Spanish crown. The Augsburg Welser were driven into insolvency in 1614.
Back in Memmingen, or move to Illertissen
Until Konrad Vöhlin's death in 1511, Memmingen remained the second company headquarters as the seat of one of the two company managers. Then there were violent disputes that lasted for years, at the end of which several partners withdrew from the company in 1517 and partly founded new companies in Nuremberg and Augsburg. In this phase, the Vöhlin also withdrew from the joint company. The Ungerhaus branch returned to Memmingen in the second half of the 16th century and died out a few generations later.
The Frickenhauser Vöhlin settled in Illertissen . Erhard II has so much capital free that in 1520 he can buy the Illertissen estate and invest it elsewhere. He was raised from the merchant to the territorial lord and in 1536 to the nobility by Emperor Charles V. As a consequence, he gives up Memmingen's citizenship. This began a 236-year era of the Vöhlin in Illertissen, which only ended in financial bankruptcy and the sale of the rule in 1756.
Foundations, piety, reformation
The most important and for the city of Memmingen most historic foundation of the family was probably in 1479 that of a predicature on the altar of a chapel that they had built nine years earlier in the Memmingen parish church of St. Martin . After the first holder of the title, Dr. Jodokus Gay, who died at the end of 1512, had the patron saint of the preaching, Erhard Vöhlin zu Frickenhausen, left it to the Memmingen council to propose a candidate for the position of preacher. After a trial sermon before the council, Christoph Schappeler was elected by the council in February 1513 and proposed to the patron saint. He then presented it to the bishop, who solemnly installed it in March. From around 1522 Schappeler preached against the prevailing church doctrine, which was first supported by the council. But after he lost the support of the town council in the peasant uprising, he had to flee the town in 1525. It was not until August 1526 that the predicature was given a preacher again with the book lover Johannes Mack. After years of disputes in the turmoil of the Reformation (the city of Memmingen had become Protestant, the Vöhlin family remained Catholic), the heir of the donors, Erhard II, signed a contract with the mayor and city council in 1543, in which he granted them the To use income from the predicature foundation for a purpose determined by them. The predicature was thus extinguished.
In addition to the predicature, the Vöhlins made a number of other important foundations in Memmingen since the middle of the 15th century. Their first larger foundation was in 1463 a sacrament house for the Frauenkirche, which Hans Vöhlin the Elder. Ä. made by the Memmingen artist Ivo Strigel . Soon after the predicature, Erhard d. Ä., Hans d. J. and Erhard d. J. a new organ on the gallery of St. Martin, and in 1487 the Frauenkirche also received a new organ. Three years earlier, the three founders of the award had again donated a second mass for themselves and their trading company on the altar of the Vöhlin family chapel near St. Martin and endowed the associated measurement pledge with an annual income of 20 Rhenish guilders from a foundation's assets of 600 fl . The last significant foundation from the Vöhlin family in Memmingen was a house for six prayer sisters, the so-called “Vöhlins Klösterle”, which Elisabeth Lauginger, the widow of Erhard the Elder, Ä., Donated in 1496 and endowed with a fortune of 1400 fl. It was thus the financially most expensive Vöhlin foundation according to the predicature. It is still one of the 10 foundations administered by the city of Memmingen and is mainly dedicated to outpatient nursing through the Evangelical Diakonie Foundation .
Individual evidence
- ^ Aufschwörbuch der Augsburger Domkapitulare; Paul Zetl: Leych- and Praise-Predig Weyland of Frey-, Reichs-, Hoch- und Wohlgebohrnen women, women Catharinae Mariae Vöhlin von Frickenhausen , Körner, Dillingen 1713
- ↑ Walter Braun: The coat of arms of the Memmingen family Vöhlin . In: “Memminger Geschichtsblätter” 1970, ISSN 0539-2896 , pp. 35-40
- ^ Ascan Westermann: Die Vöhlin zu Memmingen , In: "Memminger Geschichtsblätter" 9, 1923, November 1923, pp. 33-44
- ↑ Mark Häberlein: The Welser Vöhlin Society. Long-distance trade, family relationships and social status at the turn of the Middle Ages to the modern age . In: Wolfgang Jahn et al. (Ed.): "Money and Faith". Life in Protestant Imperial Cities , catalog for the exhibition in the Antonierhaus, Memmingen May 12 to October 4, 1998. House of Bavarian History, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-927233-59-5 , pp. 17–37 (= publications on Bavarian history and Culture 37)
- ↑ Benjamin Scheller: "So then something umb das Gelt and the donor's sake Beschech ..." The dispute over the implementation of the Vöhlin preaching at St. Martin in Memmingen after the Reformation (1526–1543) . In: Michael Borgolte (ed.): Foundations and Foundation Realities. From the Middle Ages to the Present , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-05-003491-2 , pp. 257–278 ( Foundation stories 1)
literature
- Raimund Eirich: Memmingen's economy and patriciate from 1347 to 1551. An economic and social historical study of the Memmingen patriciate during the guild constitution , commission publisher Anton H. Konrad, Weissenhorn 1971.
- Mark Häberlein: The Welser Vöhlin Society. Long-distance trade, family relationships and social status at the turn of the Middle Ages to the modern age . In: Wolfgang Jahn et al. (Ed.): "Money and Faith". Life in Protestant Imperial Cities , catalog for the exhibition in the Antonierhaus, Memmingen May 12 to October 4, 1998. House of Bavarian History, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-927233-59-5 , pp. 17–37 (= publications on Bavarian history and Culture 37).
- Michael Borgolte (Ed.): Foundations and Foundation Realities. From the Middle Ages to the Present , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-05-003491-2 (= Foundation Stories 1).
- André Christoph Arnold: The trading companies of the Vöhlin and Welser in Swiss cities, approx. 1490–1530 . In: Annales Mercaturae 4 (2018), pp. 31-66.
- Mark Häberlein: Cloth, leather and common good. An edition of documents on the relations between the city of Freiburg im Üechtland and the trading companies of Vöhlin and Welser (1493–1521) . In: Annales Mercaturae 4 (2018), pp. 115-134.
