Wiser (noble family)
The Counts of Wiser are an aristocratic family that originally came from Lower Austria and was in the service of the Electoral Palatinate from the 17th century onwards and was elevated to the rank of imperial count with Franz Melchior von Wiser in 1702 . The family had possessions in particular in the eastern Kraichgau and formed two lines in 1708/09: The Wiser-Siegelsbach line went out in 1938, the Wiser-Leutershausen line continues to this day. The family held the highest political offices, especially during the time of the Palatinate-Neuburg family at the head of the Electoral Palatinate until 1748, and made sustained efforts to recatholize their territory.
history
The progenitor of the family is Eustachius Wiser, who is mentioned in 1450 as a fiefdom holder in the Melk area in what is now Lower Austria. In 1500 a Christoph Wiser was raised to the nobility by the Roman-German King Maximilian I for his services in the Turkish Wars. The coat of arms awarded at the time with the six-pointed star in gold and blue split shield was later expanded several times to become the family coat of arms. A wolf Wiser was also ennobled in 1577 by Rudolf II . In 1598, Rudolf II confirmed the freedom of the nobility for Christoph Wiser's grandson Lorenz and Christoph Wiser. Since the family was Reformation-minded, they had to leave Austria in the course of the Counter-Reformation and so came into the service of the Count Palatinate of Pfalz-Neuburg , where a Johann Georg von Wiser was named as Neuburg State Secretary after 1625. In the service of Pfalz-Neuburg, the family later became Catholic again.
Gottfried von Wiser († 1693) was initially at the court of the Bavarian Elector and in 1645 he became Hofrat in Neuburg, later Hofratsdirektor and Hofkanzler. After Pfalz-Neuburg took over the Palatinate electoral dignity in 1685 , Gottfried von Wiser was a privy councilor among the highest dignitaries in the Electoral Palatinate . In 1690 he was raised to the rank of Imperial Knight. He had five sons, of whom Franz Melchior von Wiser (1651–1702) succeeded his father as Chancellor of the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1693. Franz Melchior and his siblings were raised to the baron status in 1694 , then to the imperial baron status in 1702 and to the imperial count in the same year .
From 1696, Franz Melchior von Wiser was enfeoffed with the former fiefs of the Lords of Hirschhorn, who died out in 1632 : initially with Zwingenberg and Strümpfelbrunn , parts of Ober- and Untergimpern and half the village of Fahrenbach , and in 1698 with Siegelsbach , Friedelsheim and other places. In 1700 he also received the Hirschberg fiefdom around Leutershausen on Bergstrasse . Since Friedelsheim Castle had been destroyed by the French in 1694, Franz Melchior von Wiser took his seat in the recently renovated former Hirschhorner Hof in Siegelsbach, which also remained one of the family's seats among his descendants and under the Count of in the early 18th century Wiser was expanded to Schloss Siegelsbach .
Franz Melchior von Wiser had declared his property to be a Fideikommiss (indivisible and inalienable family property) in his will, but after his early death and the early death of his son Johann Anton in 1708, the two surviving sons divided the property between themselves. Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser (1677–1761) was the founder of the Leutershausen line (also Weiss-Wisersche line ) with property in Leutershausen, Franz Joseph von Wiser (1679–1755) founded the Siegelsbacher line (also Friedelsheimer or Schwarz-Wisersche line ) with property in Siegelsbach, Friedelsheim, Ober- and Untergimpern and some smaller fiefdoms. The distinction between the lines in black and white is probably related to the colors of the wigs worn by the respective gentlemen. The division was initiated by Franz Joseph, who had the destroyed castle rebuilt in Friedelsheim, and was approved by the elector in 1709. Both brothers were in high service in the Electorate of the Palatinate, but with the death of the Palatinate-Neuburg line in 1748 and the transfer of power in the Palatinate to the Palatinate-Sulzbach family, the influence of the family already waned significantly during their lifetime. Both brothers promoted the Catholic Church in their domains.
Wiser-Leutershausen line
Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser (1677–1751) was Elector Palatine Vice Chancellor in 1703, later envoy in Paris and Vienna, 1716 Elector Palatinate representative at the Reichstag in Regensburg, 1730 Chairman of the Electoral Palatinate Court and from 1748 Electoral Palatinate Government President. He was responsible for the construction of Wiser Castle in Leutershausen from 1710, around 1712 he founded Ferdinandsdorf in the Odenwald (in the area of today's municipality of Waldbrunn ), which was named after him, but which again became deserted in the 19th century .
As a dowry of his wife, Maria Charlotte Amalie von Leiningen-Westerburg-Rixingen, daughter of the ruling Count Philipp Ludwig of Leiningen , Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser inherited the villages of Münchweiler an der Alsenz and Gonbach in the Donnersberg area on the left bank of the Rhine in 1705 . Although the Wiser territory was largely Protestant dominated by its previous owners and Count Ferdinand Andreas was an avid Catholic partisan, he still respected the existing religious relationships.
Count Wiser only managed to settle people of other faiths there with great difficulty and to obtain their tolerable tolerance. In 1729, a Catholic and a Jewish family appeared in the Münchweiler camp register for the first time since the Reformation, with Count Ferdinand Andreas even taking the latter into his official custody as a “protective Jew” . His son and successor Charles of Wiser had on June 29, 1753 in writing complain that declared in the in the county public holiday and are particularly important for Catholics Corpus Christi , the Protestant inhabitants Münch hamlet did not hesitate "all servant work in the field public" to do .
Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser had a Loretto Chapel built as a pilgrimage site near his castle in Leutershausen in 1737 , whose baroque miraculous image , a Black Madonna , was transferred to the then newly built Catholic parish church of St. Johannes Baptist in 1907 and is still the destination of pilgrimages to this day. The Marien-Pilgrimage in Leutershausen, initiated by the Counts of Wiser, is one of the official pilgrimage sites in the responsible Archdiocese of Freiburg.
By changing the line at the head of the Electoral Palatinate, his sons did not pursue legal, but military careers. Count Karl von Wiser (1716–1788) was a lieutenant general in the Electorate of Bavaria , his brother, Count Philipp von Wiser (1718–1805), a major general in the Electorate of the Palatinate , they lived in Mannheim and Munich. Karl's son Karl Theodor von Wiser (1760-1820) became court judge of the Palatinate in Mannheim in 1786, but retired to Munich after the outbreak of the revolutionary unrest in France and after the Peace of Lunéville and the end of the Palatinate could no longer obtain a position as court judge. His son Friedrich Carl von Wiser (1790–1831) embarked on a military career in Bavaria, his grandson Wilhelm Carl Friedrich von Wiser (1821–1891) consolidated the family property with funds obtained from the replacement of feudal rights . The family continues to this day in Leutershausen (now a district of Hirschberg an der Bergstrasse ).
In the local coat of arms of Gonbach , Rhineland-Palatinate , in memory of the Counts of Wiser, their colors blue-gold and their family coat of arms, a star split lengthways in these colors, were added. With the establishment of a craftsmen's guild in 1724, Count Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser sustainably promoted the economic development of the village; especially the linen weaving , which is also indicated by the shuttle in the municipal coat of arms.
Wiser-Siegelsbach line
Franz Joseph von Wiser (1679–1755) was senior officer in Kaiserslautern and later in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse and Heidelberg. Between 1703 and 1710 he served as the Electoral Palatinate court vice-chancellor. As a squire in Siegelsbach, he also made sustained efforts to restore the Catholic religion. This led to ongoing disputes, as a result of which not only the evangelical pastor was expelled, but also 16 Catholic clergy were worn out in 39 years.
Franz Joseph's sons shared ownership of the line among themselves in 1758. Friedrich Joseph von Wiser (1714–1775) received Siegelsbach with Ober- and Untergimpern, Carl Joseph († 1770), who served in the Palatinate military, got the rule of Friedelsheim. Friedelsheim Castle went to both brothers in equal parts. Carl Joseph's wife Elisabeth Dorothea b. von Degenfeld-Schomberg , daughter of General Christoph Martin von Degenfeld-Schomberg and great-granddaughter of Elector Karl I. Ludwig von der Pfalz , was a benefactress of the community and was buried in a crypt in 1771 under the choir of the Protestant Church in Friedelsheim . There is still a silver christening set with a dedication that she donated. She had fled from home out of love for her husband and, as a Protestant who married the Catholic Wiser, suffered greatly from her relatives and had to litigate for many years for her paternal inheritance. Since the couple died childless, the entire property fell to Joseph Johann von Wiser (1764–1840), the eldest son of Friedrich Joseph, who in 1788 resided in Siegelsbach, where he caused excessive compulsory demands , especially a large number of errands, aroused the displeasure of the subjects. In 1794 Friedelsheim Castle was devastated and burned down by the French, and in 1795 the entire property on the left bank of the Rhine was confiscated by the French. Despite the lifting of the confiscation after the Treaty of Lunéville , Joseph Johann was forced to sell the entire Friedelsheim property to the former hereditary merchants in 1803. Due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and the Rhine Federation Act , the rights of rule in the other properties were lost. After the Siegelsbach subjects rose up against the compulsory service in 1810/11, Joseph Johann von Wiser agreed with the prince-leiningen Lehnshof to dissolve the Siegelsbach office and let Siegelsbach be administered by the Mosbach office free of charge. In return, Leiningen recognized the previous fiefdom of Count Wiser as an allodial property , which enabled the Gafen to sell real estate. Ownership in Ober- and Untergimpern went to the Counts of Yrsch in 1814 , and Wald in Siegelsbach to the community. Sophie Aloysia von Wiser (1771–1837), a sister of Joseph Johann, married Carl Philipp von Wrede, who later became Bavarian Field Marshal, in 1795 .
Joseph Johann's son Joseph Carl Georg von Wiser (1796–1862) sold the last property in Siegelsbach, the Siegelsbach Castle in 1833, then moved to Mosbach, in 1835 to the Upper Castle in Stein am Kocher and in 1848 to Baden-Baden. Joseph Carl Georg's grandson Maximilian Graf von Wiser (1861–1938) became a well-known ophthalmologist, but died childless, so that the line went out with him in 1938.
Well-known representatives
- Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser (1677–1751), Electoral Palatinate civil servant and diplomat, founder of the Leutershausen line
- Maximilian Graf von Wiser (1861–1938), ophthalmologist, last member of the Wiser-Siegelsbach line
literature
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Wiser, the counts . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 57th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1889, p. 122 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Rudolf Petzold: The Counts of Wiser and the Counts of Yrsch - two Electoral Palatinate vassal families in the eastern Kraichgau . In: Rappenauer Heimatbote No. 16. 2005.
- Friedrich Cast Historical and genealogical book of the nobility of the Grand Duchy of Baden , Verlag der JF Cast'schen Buchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1845, page 211 ff. Digitized
- Harald Stockert: In the courtly no man's land? Nobility in the Palatinate area during the 18th century (PDF; 3.3 MB) . In: Historical Association of the Palatinate: Messages of the Historical Association of the Palatinate. - 108 (2010) . Pp. 516-528.
- Harald Stockert: The new nobility in the service of recatholization - the example of the Counts of Wiser . In: Harald Stockert: “… many aristocratic houses” City seats, country castles and aristocratic living environments in Mannheim and the Electoral Palatinate . Mannheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-941001-08-4 , pp. 98-106.
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the history of Ferdinandsdorf . In: Eberbacher Geschichtsblatt 1998, p. 111 ff.
- ↑ Michael Frey: Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal. bayer. Rhine circle . Volume 3, Speyer 1837, p. 153
- ↑ Wilhelm von der Nahmer: Handbuch des Rheinischen Particular-Rechts: Development of the territorial and constitutional relations of the German states on both banks of the Rhine: from the first beginning of the French Revolution up to the most recent times . tape 3 . Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1832, p. 396 ( online at Google Books ).
- ↑ To this end, the journal “Pfälzer Heimat” (Palatinate Society for the Promotion of Science), year 1970, page 135 : “At the beginning of the 18th century, the villages of Münchweiler and Gonbach came into the possession of the Catholic Counts of Wiser through marriage. The new gentleman, Count Ferdinand Andreas von Wiser, respected traditional church rights. "
- ↑ Egon Busch: "The relationship of the landlords to the Protestants in Münchweiler (Alsenz)" , in: "Pfälzer Heimat" (Palatinate Society for the Promotion of Science), born in 1970, pages 134 and 135
- ^ Website of the Hirschberg community on the castle and the pilgrimage
- ^ Website of the Archdiocese of Freiburg on the pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary founded by Count Wiser in Leutershausen
- ↑ Website on the Gonbacher history, with a description of the coat of arms and reference to the founding of the craftsmen's guild by Count von Wiser ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ PDF document of the Prot. Kirchengemeinde Friedelsheim with information on Countess Elisabeth Dorothea von Wiser ( Memento from July 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
