Agnes Bernauer
Encyclopedia
Albert III, Duke of Bavaria
Albert III the Pious of Bavaria-Munich , , since 1438 Duke of Bavaria-Munich. He was born to Ernest, Duke of Bavaria and Elisabetta Visconti, daughter of Bernabò Visconti.-Life:Albert was born in Munich....
. Because his father, Ernest
Ernest, Duke of Bavaria
Ernest of Bavaria-Munich , , from 1397 Duke of Bavaria-Munich.-Biography:Ernest was a son of John II and ruled the duchy of Bavaria-Munich together with his brother William III....
, ruling Duke of Bavaria at the time, considered this liaison with a commoner unbefitting his son's social standing, he clashed with his son over the matter and finally arranged to have Agnes condemned for witchcraft and drowned in the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
in 1435. Her life and death have been depicted in numerous literary works, the most well known being Friedrich Hebbel's tragedy of the same name and the folk musical Die Bernauerin by the composer Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
.
Biography
Agnes Bernauer was probably born around 1410; nothing is known of her childhood and youth. She is traditionally considered to have been the daughter of the Augsburg barber surgeonBarber surgeon
The barber surgeon was one of the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe - generally charged with looking after soldiers during or after a battle...
Kaspar Bernauer, whose existence has, however, not yet been proved. Since the son of the Bavarian duke Albert III participated in a tournament
Tournament (medieval)
A tournament, or tourney is the name popularly given to chivalrous competitions or mock fights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance . It is one of various types of hastiludes....
in Augsburg in February 1428, it is generally assumed that he met Agnes on that occasion and shortly thereafter brought her to Munich. In a Munich tax roll dated 1428, a “pernawin” is listed as a member of his royal household, which is probably a reference to Agnes Bernauer.
In summer 1432 at the latest, Agnes Bernauer was an integral part of the Munich court. She took part in the capture of the robber baron Münnhauser, who had fled to the Old Court in Munich, and she annoyed the Palatine Countess Beatrix, Albert's sister, because of her self-assured manner. It is possible that Agnes and Albert were already married at this point, but there is no concrete evidence of a marriage ceremony. Albert's frequent residence at Blutenburg Castle
Blutenburg Castle
Blutenburg Castle is an old ducal country seat in the west of Munich, Germany, on the banks of river Würm.-History:The castle was built between two arms of the River Würm for Duke Albert III, Duke of Bavaria in 1438–39 as a hunting-lodge, replacing an older castle burned down in war...
beginning in 1433 and the sale of two properties in the vicinity to Agnes suggest that the couple lived there together. There is no evidence of joint residence in Albert's county of Vohburg
Vohburg
Vohburg is a town in the district of Pfaffenhofen, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, 14 km east of Ingolstadt....
, and there are no known descendents of the couple.
Duke Ernest, Albert's father, was infuriated by the threat to the succession posed by his only son's unsuitable liaison. While Albert was on a hunt arranged by his relative Henry of Bavaria-Landshut, Duke Ernest had Agnes arrested and drowned in the Danube River on 12 October 1435 near Straubing
Straubing
Straubing is an independent city in Lower Bavaria, southern Germany. It is seat of the district of Straubing-Bogen. Annually in August the Gäubodenvolksfest, the second largest fair in Bavaria, is held....
. Albert then went to Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...
to Duke Louis VII
Louis VII, Duke of Bavaria
Duke Louis VII of Bavaria was Duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt from 1413 until 1443. He was a son of Stephen III and Taddea Visconti.-Biography:...
, but after a few months was reconciled with his father and married Anna of Brunswick in November 1436. The feared military conflict between father and son did not materialze; it is possible that Emperor Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
exerted a restraining effect on Albert.
Tributes to her memory
In December 1435, Albert endowed a perpetual mass and an annual memorial celebration in the Straubing Carmelite Cloister in memory of Agnes Bernauer. In 1447 he expanded the endowment in her honor. In 1436, his father had an Agnes Bernauer Chapel erected in the cemetery of St. Peter Straubing, probably to appease his son. It is not known whether Agnes was buried in the Carmelite cloister, which was her wish, or whether Albert arranged for the transfer of her mortal remains to the chapel dedicated to her. In any event, a tombstone of red marble with an almost life-size effigy of Agnes Bernauer was fitted into the floor of the chapel. The relief shows her lying with her head on a large pillow. In her right hand, on which she wears two rings, she holds a rosaryRosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
, and two small dogs at her feet are there to guide her on her way to the hereafter. It was probably an oversight that the year of her death is incorrectly given there as 12 October 1436.
There are only a few records about the memorial endowments for Agnes Bernauer from the next three centuries. In 1508 a certain Johannes Haberlander was the chaplain responsible for the Bernauer Chapel. For its maintenance and the daily reading of the memorial mass he received 17 pounds in Regensburg pence from the ducal treasury. By 1526 his office had been transferred to a Leonhard Plattner, who received for his services 48 guilders and 4 schilling in Viennese pence. It is not known how long the chaplain's office was maintained. All that is known is that the church trustee Franz von Paula Romayr had the tombstone moved to the wall of the chapel in 1785 in order to protect it from further damage “caused by depredatory footsteps”. The grave itself could not be located when the tombstone was repositioned.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 19th century the Agnes Bernauer Chapel became a tourist goal. One newspaper (the Bayerische National-Zeitung) even asserted it as being the only reason to pay a visit to Straubing. The locals were happy to supply visitors with information, not all of it reliable. One concerned reader wrote to the Königlich-Bairische Intelligenzblatt in 1813 that the sexton had informed him that Austrian troops had walked off with the remains of Agnes Bernauer. When the German poet August von Platen inspected the gravestone in 1822 he heard from the female sexton that Agnes and Albert had been switched as infants so that she was actually the duke's daughter and he the son of the barber-surgeon, but that the book which would have confirmed this exchange had been stolen by French soldiers.
After excavations in the Chapel at St. Peter failed to produce any results, the Bernauer biographer Felix Joseph Lipowsky had the Carmelite cloister grounds searched in 1897 for evidence of her grave. He found in the cloister archives a note indicating that the grave was in the former Nicholas chapel of the cloister church, but this chapel had been converted to a sacristy
Sacristy
A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.The sacristy is usually located inside the church, but in some cases it is an annex or separate building...
after 1692 and the vault underneath filled in. Lipowsky could only assume that her remains were reburied elsewhere during the reconstruction work. Despite subsequent searches, her grave remains undiscovered.
The Bavarian king Ludwig I
Ludwig I of Bavaria
Ludwig I was a German king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.-Crown prince:...
, who had himself visited the Agnes Bernauer Chapel in 1812 when he was crown prince and later dedicated a poem to Agnes, saw to it that at least the masses for Agnes and Albert were again read in the Carmelite church. Since 1922, only one memorial mass is celebrated annually, due to financial limitations; it is paid for by the Bavarian government
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
.
Adaptations
Albert and Agnes' tragic love story has long been a staple of folk songs, and over the centuries many new literary and musical versions have been created.- Christian Hoffmann von HoffmannswaldauChristian Hoffmann von HoffmannswaldauChristian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau was a German poet of the Baroque era.He was born and died in Breslau in Silesia. During his education in Danzig and Leiden, he befriended Martin Opitz and Andreas Gryphius, both leading figures in 17th century German poetry...
: Liebe Zwischen Hertzog Ungenand und Agnes Bernin, Poem, 1680 - Joseph August Graf von Toerring: Agnes Bernauer, Vaterländisches Schauspiel, Play, 1780
- Georg Joseph VoglerGeorg Joseph VoglerGeorg Joseph Vogler, also known as Abbé Vogler , was a German composer, organist, teacher and theorist.Vogler was born at Pleichach in Würzburg...
(Music), Carl Theodor Traitteur (Libretto): Albert der Dritte von Bayern, SingspielSingspielA Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
, UA München 1781 - Franz GleißnerFranz GleißnerFranz Johannes Gleißner was a German lithographer and composer. Late in the 18th century, he met Alois Senefelder, and ran a producing association for about the next three decades...
(Music): Agnes Bernauerin, Melodrama, probably after Toerring, 1781, UA München 1790 - Ignaz von SeyfriedIgnaz von SeyfriedIgnaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried was an Austrian musician, conductor and composer.Seyfried was born in Vienna. According to a statement in his handwritten memoirs he was a pupil of both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Albrechtsberger. He published Albrechtsberger's complete written works after...
(Music, Karl Ludwig GieseckeKarl Ludwig GieseckeKarl Ludwig Giesecke was a German actor, librettist, polar explorer and mineralogist. In his youth he was called Johann Georg Metzler, in his later career in Ireland he was Sir Charles Lewis Giesecke.-Early life:His father was Johann Georg Metzler, a Protestant who worked as a tailor in Augsburg...
(Libretto): Agnes Bernauerin (burlesque), 1798 - Karl August Krebs (Music): Herzog Albrecht, Opera, UA Hamburg 8 October 1833 (revised version: Dresden 1858 as Agnes Bernauer)
- King Ludwig I of BavariaLudwig I of BavariaLudwig I was a German king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.-Crown prince:...
: An Agnes Bernauerin, Poem - Adolf BöttgerAdolf BöttgerAdolf Böttger was a German translator and poet. As a translator, he created German versions of works in the English language, a major project being the translation of the complete works of Byron.-Biography:He studied at the University of Leipzig and won high praise as a translator of the English...
: Agnes Bernauer, Drama, 1846 - Melchior MeyrMelchior MeyrMelchior Meyr was a German poet, novelist and philosopher.He read law and philosophy at Heidelberg and Munich. His greatest success was the Erzählungen aus dem Ries , remarkable as an accurate and sympathetic picture of rural life and character...
: Herzog Albrecht, Drama, 1852 - Friedrich Hebbel: Agnes Bernauer - Ein deutsches Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen, Drama, 1855
- Otto Ludwig, several versions of a drama, 19th century
- Martin GreifMartin GreifMartin Joel Greif was an American editor, lecturer, publisher and writer...
: Agnes Bernauer oder der Engel von Augsburg, Drama, 1894 - Eugen Hubrich: Die Agnes Bernauer zu Straubing, Open-air Play, 1935. From 1952 to 1989, the play was adapted several times for the Agnes Bernauer Festival in Straubing. Until 1963, Hubrich made the changes himself.
- Hans Karl Meixner, Agnes Bernauer: Ein Leben voll Leid und Liebe: Roman. Reutlingen: Enßlin & Laiblin, Novel, 1937.
- Carl OrffCarl OrffCarl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
: Die Bernauerin - Ein bairisches Stück, Folk Musical, 1944, UA Stuttgart 1947 - Raymond BernardRaymond BernardRaymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...
(Director), Bernard Zimmer (Screenplay), Joseph KosmaJoseph KosmaJoseph Kosma was a Hungarian-French composer, of Jewish background.-Biography:Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Akos. A maternal relative was the photographer László Moholy-Nagy, and another relative was the conductor Georg...
(Music): Le Jugement de DieuJudgement of GodJudgement of God , is a French drama film from 1952, directed by Raymond Bernard, written by Jean Montazel, and starring by Andrée Debar and Louis de Funès. The scenario was written on the basis of German legend from the 15th century...
, Historical Movie, 1949-51 - Michel BoisrondMichel BoisrondMichel Jacques Boisrond was a French film director and writer...
(Director), Jacques PrévertJacques PrévertJacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
(Screenplay), France RocheFrance RocheFrance Roche is a French film actress and screenwriter. She appeared in 17 films between 1951 and 1979. She was a member of the jury at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
(Screenplay), Maurice JarreMaurice JarreMaurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor.Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores, and is particularly known for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia...
(Music): (deutscher Titel: Galante Liebesgeschichten), Episode Film, 1961, with Brigitte BardotBrigitte BardotBrigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
as Agnes Bernauer - Franz Xaver KroetzFranz Xaver KroetzFranz Xaver Kroetz is a German author, playwright, actor and film director. His plays have been translated and performed internationally.-Life:Kroetz attended an acting school in Munich and the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna...
: Agnes Bernauer, Play, 1976 - Manfred Böckl: Agnes Bernauer. Hexe, Hur' und Herzogin. Novel, 1993 ISBN 3-924484-63-5
- Thomas Stammberger und Johannes Reitmeier: Agnes Bernauer - Ein Historienspiel in fünfzehn Bildern, Open-air Play, 1995 (2003 and 2007 revised by Johannes Reitmeier)
- Richard Wunderer: Agnes Bernauer und ihr Herzog. Rosenheimer, Rosenheim 1999 ISBN 3-475-52940-8
External links
Online Text of Hoffmannswaldau's poem at Projekt Gutenberg-DEProjekt Gutenberg-DE
Projekt Gutenberg-DE is a collection of German language literary texts, distributed via the web and on CD-ROM. It is run by a small publishing company called Hille Partner, run by Gunter Hille, and its web presence is hosted by the weekly magazine Der Spiegel....
Online Text of King Ludwig's poem Online Text of Hebbel's play Agnes Bernauer Festspiele in Vohburg the Agnes Bernauer Canoe trail on the Danube from Vohburg to Kelheim