Weirich von Gemmingen (1493–1548)

Weirich von Gemmingen (born November 8, 1493 , † October 28, 1548 in Speyer ) was landlord in Michelfeld and burgrave of the Starkenburg .

Life

He came from the Michelfeld line of the Lords of Gemmingen and was the son of Germersheimer Vogts Orendel von Gemmingen (1464-1520) and Katharina von Sickingen , who died shortly after his birth. The father's second marriage remained childless, so that Weirich was the only descendant to inherit all of the father's property in Michelfeld, Ingenheim and other places. He is described as strong, fiery and funny, as numerous old inscriptions in Michelfeld Castle attest. At a young age he was involved in the dealings of his uncle Franz von Sickingen (1481–1523). In the 1520s he was one of the early Reformation -minded Kraichgau nobles and in 1525 introduced the Reformation in Michelfeld. As early as 1538 he bequeathed his entire property to his wife Benedicta for lifelong use. In 1543 he became burgrave of the Starkenburg . In 1544/45 he held the Nuremberg ambassador Hieronymus Baumgartner in custody for over a year in the garden house of Michelfelder Castle.

Weirich died in Speyer in 1548, but was buried in the church of Michelfeld, where his grave was desecrated in 1622 during the Thirty Years' War . His epitaph shows him as a weak little man in a cuirass with a long beard.

family

His first marriage was from 1519 to Dorothea von Handschuhsheim, who died six weeks after the marriage. In the same year he married Benedikta von Nippenburg (1500–1570).

Progeny:

• Orendel (* 1521), died as a child
• Sebastian (1522–1575) ⚭ Juliane von Bödigheim, inherited Ingenheim
• Katharina († 1583) ⚭ Philip the Wise of Gemmingen zu Bonfeld
• Leonhard (1536–1583) ⚭ Esther von Bödigheim, continued the family line

literature

• Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig Stocker : Family Chronicle of the Barons of Gemmingen , Heidelberg 1895, pp. 226–229.
• Walter von Hueck: Lineage of the Barons von Gemmingen , Limburg an der Lahn 1966