Wurtemberg

The Wurtemberg is an old State of the south-west of the Germany. During the major part of its existence, the capital was with Stuttgart but it was also placed for short periods with Ludwigsbourg and Urach. The name of the dynasty and the State comes at the origin from an abrupt hill close to Stuttgart-Untertürkheim.

After having been a seigniory until the 12th century, Wurtemberg was a county. In 1495, it became a duchy then, finally, a kingdom after the dissolution of the Saint Germanic Roman Empire in 1806, by the Recès d' Empire during the reign of Frederic I {{er}}.

The county of Wurtemberg

At the 12th century, Wurtemberg obtained the statute of county. The end of the seigniory of the Hohenstaufen in Souabe towards 1250 allowed a territorial widening of the county. The marriage of the count Ulrich I {{er}} with Mechthilde de Bade, in 1251, brought the town of Stuttgart, which was going to become the capital of Wurtemberg. Other territorial enlargings took place under the reigns of the counts Ulrich III (1325-1344) and Eberhard III (1392-1417). Lastly, the county of Mömpelgard (Montbeliard) there was attached in 1397 thanks to the marriage of Eberhard IV with Henriette of Montbeliard.

January 25th 1442, the counts brothers Louis I {{er}} and Ulrich V sign the Contrat of Nürtinger, which separated Wurtemberg in two parts. The first part, around Stuttgart, returned to Ulrich, while that around Urach returned to Louis. This separation lasted more than 40 years and two agreements were needed, in 1482 and 1492, so that Wurtemberg finds its unit.

The duchy of Wurtemberg

At the time of the Diet of Worms, on July 21st, 1495, Wurtemberg was high with the row of duchy by the emperor Maximilien I {{er}}. the same year, the duke Eberhard V gave him his first " Landesordnung" . After its death in 1496 and the inversion of Eberhard VI in 1498, Ulrich VI became duke.

Its reign, which lasted until in 1550, was marked by military crises and risings: Thus, in 1514, it had to repress in blood a country revolt against the rises of tax. In 1519, the duke was driven out of his duchy by the troops of the Ligue of Souabe, ordered by Georg Truchsess de Waldburg-Zeil, because it had invaded the free city of Reutlingen. It could find its throne only in 1534 with the assistance of the landgrave of Hesse Philippe I {{er}}. It introduced then the Réforme in Wurtemberg with the assistance of Ambrosius Blarer, Johannes Brenz and Erhard Schnepf. They initially tried to make a synthesis between the Luthéranisme and the doctrines of Zwingli, before passing completely to the Luthéranisme after 1538.

The duke Christophe (1550-1568) continued the development of the official structures which had been started with Eberhard V at the end of the 15th century. Many laws and rules were worked over again during its reign. One can in particular quote the " Great payment of the Church " of 1559, which codified all the payments as well official as religious existing.

The son of Christophe, the duke Louis VI, died without child in 1593, the duchy passed to Frederic I {{er}} of the line of Wurtemberg-Montbeliard. He led a policy reinforcing the capacities the nobility and, in commercial matters, continued a line resolutely mercantilist, clearly placing himself while representing incipient Absolutisme. Its architect, Heinrich Schickhardt, made set up many works of Renaissance style.

Wurtemberg was one of the areas most concerned with the Guerre Thirty Year old which lasted of 1618 with 1648. Starting from 1628, the duchy was under the control of foreign troops. The edict of Restitution of the Emperor Ferdinand II, in 1629, made lose in Wurtemberg approximately a third of its territory. After the battles of Nördlingen, in 1634, during which the army of Wurtemberg found at the sides of the Swedish armed overcome, the duchy was plundered. The duke Eberhard IX exiled himself with Strasbourg. During the years which followed, the country was depopulated by poverty, the famine and the epidemic of Peste of 1637: it counted nothing any more but 120 000 inhabitants in 1648, against 350 000 in 1618.

With the Traité of Westphalia signed in 1648, during which the envoy of Wurtemberg Johann Konrad Varnbüler negotiated the restitution of the territories lost in 1629, began the rebuilding of the economic and administrative structures of the duchy. At the end of the 17th century, allied Wurtemberg of the Emperor Léopold Ier took part in the engagements between the Holy roman Empire and France, with the Guerre of the league of Augsburg, to the five Austrian wars against Turkey and with the War of succession of Spain. The West of the country was devastated on several occasions by the troops of the French general Ezéchiel de Mélac.

The regency of the duke Eberhard-Louis, whose father died only nine months after his birth, was at the same time a strong contrast and a favorable ground for the Piétisme wurtembergeois in formation. One can in particular quote the construction of the luxurious castle of Ludwigsburg, as from 1704, where Eberhard-Louis will live during years with his mistress Wilhelmine de Grävenitz, while his wife continued to reside at Stuttgart. The establishment in 1700 of the Church of Vaud in Wurtemberg and the transfer, as from 1724, of the capital with Ludwigsburg were also provocations for the leader circles and the representations morals.

The successor of Eberhard-Louis, whose only sons and the only nephew had died before him, was the convert with Catholicism Charles I {{er}}, of the line of Wurtemberg-Winnental. Charles had entered the army at the twelve years age already and had been named general at 33 years. Because of these activities and its lifestyle, it had great financial needs and made of a Juif, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, his financial adviser. With died of Charles-Alexandre, in 1737, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer was locked up. Its long lawsuit, during which the Protestant high society poured all its hatred against Oppenheimer the Jew and Charles-Alexandre the catholic, ended in the hanging of Oppenheimer as of on February 4th, 1738.

Charles II, did not have that nine years with died of his Charles father Ist It grows with Brussels before being educated with Potsdam and Berlin of 1741 to 1744, at the court of Frederic Large the. Of its taking up the duties in 1744 with 1770, Charles II was an absolutist and despotic sovereign who did not support least criticism or divergent opinion. This tyrannical manner to reign is reflected in particular in the first works of Schiller. At the time of the War Seven Year old, Charles II was combined with Austria against Prussia. The defeat at the conclusion of this war and resistances political that it will engrendra, as well as the financial problems resulting from its luxurious way of life, led it to reconsider its manner of controlling. At the time of its fiftieth birthday, in 1778, it called itself with a new departure. It demobilized part of the army, adopted an attitude retained in foreign policy, made move back the national expenditure, encouraged the formation and the culture until its death in 1793. The people allot still today this change to its second marriage with Francoise de Hohenheim.

Wurtemberg

The county of Wurtemberg

The duchy of Wurtemberg

The kingdom of Wurtemberg

See also