Gersdorff (noble family)

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Family coat of arms of those of Gersdorff

Gersdorff (also Gersdorf ) is the name of a noble family with the same name headquarters in Gersdorf in the Oberlausitz that the German nobility counts. Individual branches of the von Gersdorff family were raised to barons and imperial counts .

history

Origins, possessions and ramifications

The sex of the von Gersdorff was mentioned for the first time 1,241th The unbroken lineage begins with the first mentioned on April 25, 1301 Christian von Gersdorff (dominus Christianus aduocatus provincie Gorlicensis dictus de Gerhardisdorff) , the multiply the office of bailiff of Görlitz province exercised. At the same time his brothers Jencz and Ramfold are named as gentlemen on Gersdorf and Reichenbach / OL .

In the Middle Ages and in the early modern period , the Gersdorffs were mainly based in Upper Lusatia and Saxony . But also in Lower Lusatia , Silesia and Bohemia Gersdorffs belonged to the estates . From the 14th century onwards, members of the family held positions of the estate in these countries or they were in the service of various princes, in particular the Bohemian kings , who were sovereigns of Upper and Lower Lusatia from 1319/1329 to 1635 and Silesia until 1742, and the neighboring ones Elector of Saxony , who then took over the rule in the Lausitz.

No other noble family in Upper Lusatia has branched out so extensively and acquired so many goods. In 1544 the family owned 68 manors in Upper Lusatia alone. The tradition of a sex day held in Zittau in 1572 gives an impression of the number of members in the family . A memorial monument made in memory of this event in 1623, which was once installed in the Görlitzer Vogtshof and has only been preserved in fragments, reports on two hundred "Manns-Personen" who had gathered with five hundred horses in the Upper Lusatian Six Town, including only Upper Lusatians Gersdorffs, without the Bohemian and Silesian cousins.

Since 1406 the Baruth (Upper Lusatia) rule was owned by the family. These included Hennersdorf , Berthelsdorf , Kemnitz , Bretnig , Kreckwitz , Rackel , Hauswalde and Buchwalde . In 1446 the Reichenbach headquarters also fell to the Baruther line, but in 1580 it passed to the von Warnsdorf family . In 1489 the old moated castle in Baruth burned down; then the large renaissance castle was built. After Adolf Nicolaus Graf von Gersdorff died in a duel in 1787, large parts of the rule fell to the family of his sister Marianne Gräfin zur Lippe-Weißenfeld , who owned them until 1945. The castle was demolished in 1949/50.

The private scholar Hans von Gersdorff (1630–1692), Lord of Weicha near Bautzen, set up the Gersdorff-Weichaische Foundation in Bautzen in 1684 with a library of 5000 volumes, atlases, maps and an extensive collection of scientific and art-historical graphics. In 1680 he had the Gersdorff'sche Palais built in Bautzen .

In 1638 the rule of Meffersdorf in Upper Lusatia came to Wigand von Gersdorf, who founded six new places for exiles from Bohemia and Silesia, including Neu-Gersdorf and Wigandsthal. During the Thirty Years' War Protestants who did not want to convert fled the Habsburg hereditary lands to the territories of the Saxon elector after he had taken over Upper Lusatia from the Habsburgs through the Peace of Prague in 1635 . The Meffersdorf baroque castle, which still stands today, was built in 1767/68 for Adolf Traugott von Gersdorf , who had also inherited the Niederrengersdorf manor . The Meffersdorf estate was sold in 1823.

Since the 15th century, Berthelsdorf in Upper Lusatia was owned by the Gersdorff. The widow of the bailiff of Upper Lusatia Nicol von Gersdorff on Berthelsdorf and Großhennersdorf , Henriette Catharina von Gersdorff , born. Freiin von Friesen (1648–1726), raised her grandson Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Großhennersdorf and accepted refugees from Bohemia in her house. Both founded an orphanage in Großhennersdorf in 1721 and the town of Schönbrunn in 1724 , which attracted hundreds of exiles. After her death, founded Zinzendorf in Berthelsdorf 1727 the Moravian Church and built the settlement on the Berthelsdorfer corridor Herrnhut .

In 1725, Count Friedrich Caspar von Gersdorff (1699–1751), who had been the Oberamtshauptmann of Upper Lusatia since 1731, acquired the Uhyst manor and had the magnificent New Uhyst Castle built from 1738 to 1742 , which remained in the possession of the Count's line until 1795 and still exists today. Gersdorff was a cousin and student friend of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and set up a Sorbian preacher's school for his Moravian Brethren on his Klix estate . In 1743 he moved it to a newly built building next to the church in Uhyst, where a nobility education center with boarding school was subsequently established. Friedrich Caspar von Gersdorff also renovated Spreewiese Castle (then Groß-Lychnam ) near Klix from 1728 onwards .

The natural scientist Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff -Meffersdorf founded the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences together with Karl Gottlob Anton in 1779 .

Ernst Bruno von Gersdorff (1820–1883) emigrated to the USA in 1849 as a Forty-Eighter . He married into the Boston upper class ( Boston Brahmins ) and became the progenitor of the American branch of the family.

In 1945 there was only one manor in Upper Lusatia ( Alt Seidenberg ) in the family's possession.

  • Gersdorf Castle , Upper Lusatia

  • Baruth Castle , Upper Lusatia

  • New Uhyst Castle , built by Friedrich Caspar Graf von Gersdorff from 1738 to 1742

  • Meffersdorf Castle , built by Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff in 1767/68

  • Berthelsdorf Castle , Upper Lusatia

  • Gersdorff'sches Palais, Bautzen (Burgplatz 6)

  • Spreewiese Castle , Upper Lusatia

  • Tombs of Gersdorf zu Kauppa , 17th century

Known family members by date of birth

Other persons with surname (from) Gersdorff

coat of arms

Blazon : The family coat of arms of the von Gersdorff family shows the coat of arms divided , red above and split by black and silver below; On the helmet with red and silver covers on the right and black and silver covers on the left, there is a silver and black tucked red tournament hat with six cock feathers (three silver, three black).

The Franconian lords of Parsberg had a similar coat of arms, it is represented by the family association that a tribal community appears possible.

Reichenbach / OL , an early ancestral seat of the family, still carries the Gersdorff coat of arms as the city coat of arms. The Kodersdorf community also has a derived coat of arms.

  • Ancestral coat of arms of the von Gersdorff family without coat of arms decoration

  • Coat of arms of the Knights von Gersdorff, based on the Baltic Book of Arms (1882)

  • Coat of arms of the Counts of Gersdorff with ornament, after Tyroff HA

  • Bellwitz Castle , under which von Heldreich built in 1743. Supraporte on the east side with coats of arms of the von Hartitzsch, von Gersdorff and von Klüx families

literature

  • Walter von Boetticher : History of the Upper Lusatian nobility and their estates 1635-1815. Vol. 1, Görlitz 1912, pp. 424-608.
  • Genealogical manual of the Baltic knighthoods. Görlitz 1930, pp. 231-232. ( Full text ).
  • Genealogical manual of the nobility , Volume 67, 1978, Adelslexikon .
  • Gersdorff family news. 1818 GDZ Göttingen .
  • Hermann Knothe : History of the Upper Lusatian nobility and its goods from the XIII. until the end of the XVI. Century. Leipzig 1879, ND: Spitzkunnersdorf 2008, pp. 185–246.
  • Hermann Knothe: Genealogy of the various lines of the von Gersdorff family in Upper Lusatia from the middle of the 16th century to 1623. In: New Lusatian magazine. 69: 153-202 (1893).
  • Astaf von Transehe-Roseneck : Genealogical manual of the Livonian knighthood . Volume 2, Görlitz, (approx.) 1935, pp. 731-746.
  • Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses, 1887, seventh and thirtieth year, p. 301 ff , 1914, p. 279 ff.

Web links

Commons : Familie Gersdorff  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Coat of arms, approx. 13th - 14th century, according to GHdA Volume 67, 1978, Adelslexikon
  2. ↑ Cod. Dipl. Lus. sup. I, p. 166
  3. ↑ See Hermann Knothe: History of the Upper Lusatian nobility and its goods from the XIII. until the end of the XVI. Century, Leipzig 1879, ND: Spitzkunnersdorf 2008, pp. 185–246, here p. 185.
  4. ↑ See Kai Wenzel: Memorial work of a noble family from Upper Lusatia, in: Martina Schattkowsky (Ed.): Noble living worlds in Saxony. Annotated picture and written sources, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2013, pp. 362–367.
  5. ↑ The Reichshofmeister was the highest state office in the Danish Empire. He was a kind of prime minister and representative of the king. In addition to his prominent constitutional position, he had important tasks, even if his duties were not clearly defined. In the 16th century he headed the financial administration and was in charge of the rent chamber and customs.
  6. ^ Albrecht Klose / Klaus-Peter Rueß: The grave inscriptions on the ambassador's cemetery in Regensburg. Texts, translations, biographies, notes . In: Stadtarchiv Regensburg (ed.): Regensburger studies . tape 22 . Regensburg City Archives, Regensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-943222-13-5 , p. 20 .
  7. ↑ Lubina Mahling: "Highly deserved for the Wenden soul's heyday" - Imperial Count Friedrich Casper von Gersdorf. An investigation into the transfer of culture in Pietism . Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2017, ISBN 978-3-7420-2431-2 .
  8. ^ Website of the Gersdorff family association