Jörg Jenatsch, commonly called Jürg or Jörg Jenatsch (1596 - January 24, 1639), was a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 political leader during the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

. One of the most striking figures in the troubled history of the Grisons in the 17th century, he was probably born in Samedan

Samedan

Samedan is a town and municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.-History:Samedan is first mentioned in 1139 as Samaden. In 1334 it was mentioned as Semeden, in 1367 as Semaden, in 1498 as Sumada and in 1527 as Sameden...

 (a village in the Upper Engadine).

He studied at Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 and Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, and in 1617 became the Protestant pastor of Scharans (near Thusis). But almost at once he plunged into active politics, taking the side of the Venetian and Protestant party associated primarily with the Salis family in the region, as against the Spanish and Romanist policy supported by the rival faction, headed by members of the Planta family.

He became one of the board of 'clerical overseers' who in 1618 supervised the torture to death of the arch-priest Nicola Rusca of Sondrio. The popular court in Thusis associated with the overseers also outlawed many leading men from the Spanish faction, notably Rudolf von Planta and his brother Pompeius von Planta. A subsequent popular court in the region's capital, Chur, cashiered the Thusis verdicts, and the Republic of the Grisons slid towards anarchy. In 1620, an uprising coordinated with the Spanish governor in Milan resulted in the massacre of a number of Protestants in the Republic's subject territory in the Valtellina

Valtellina

Valtellina or the Valtelline valley ; is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Today it is known for its skiing, its hot spring spas, its cheeses and its wines...

, a fertile valley of considerable strategic importance (for through it the Spaniards in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 could communicate by the Umbrail Pass

Umbrail Pass

Umbrail Pass is a high mountain pass on the Swiss-Italian border connecting Santa Maria in Val Müstair with Bormio in the Adda valley. On the Italian side, it connects to the Stelvio Pass road.-See also:* List of highest paved roads in Europe...

 and the Stelvio Pass with the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

ns in Tirol

Tyrol (state)

Tyrol is a state or Bundesland, located in the west of Austria. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical region of Tyrol.The state is split into two parts–called North Tyrol and East Tyrol–by a -wide strip of land where the state of Salzburg borders directly on the Italian province of...

). From 1620 to 1639, control over the Valtellina became a bone of contention among Spain, Venice and France, with the Republic of the Grisons unable to reassert its control.

Jenatsch took part in the brutal murder (1621) of Pompeius von Planta, the head of the rival party, at his castle Rietberg. Planta was left pinned to the floor with an axe, though the actual murderer was most likely Niklaus Carl von Hohenbalcken. Soon after, Jenatsch and many others associated with the Reformed church, Venice, or the Salis family had to flee the country. After the murder of Planta and several other violent incidents, Jenatsch also lost his position as a pastor, and henceforth acted solely as a soldier and military entrepreneur. He participated in the revolt against the Austrians in the Prättigau

Prättigau

The Prättigau Valley, in the canton of Graubünden , Switzerland, is home to the world famous ski resorts of Klosters and neighbouring Davos in the Landwasser Valley....

 (1622), and in the invasion of the Valtellina by a French army (1624), but the peace made (1626) between France and Spain left the Valtellina in the hands of the pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

, and so thwarted the Republic's hopes of regaining the territory. Jenatsch, however, thrived in the military life, and rose rapidly through the ranks to major, and later colonel of his own regiment.

Jenatsch killed his colonel, Giacomo Ruinelli, in a duel in 1626 in Chur, but was cleared of murder charges by a city court. He turned to military recruiting, and as Spanish and Austrian influence grew in the Grisons, eventually raised a company for service with the Venetians (1629-1630). He was briefly imprisoned in Venice after an incident of insubordination, and later claimed that reading the Church Fathers while jailed had contributed to his later religious conversion. In 1631 he was recruited for the French campaign designed by Richelieu to drive the Spaniards out of the Valtellina, which after several years of delay, led to the successful campaign of Henri, duc de Rohan

Henri, duc de Rohan

Henri de Rohan, Viscount then Duke of Rohan , later duke of Rohan, French soldier, writer and leader of the Huguenots, was born at the Château de Blain , in Brittany....

 (1635). But Jenatsch, along with the military and political leadership of the Republic, soon saw that the French were as unwilling as the Spaniards to restore the Grisons' lordship over the Valtellina.

In 1635, Jenatsch made public his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and became one leader of a secret alliance, the Kettenbund, which included both Catholic and Protestant leaders in the Grisons, that negotiated secretly with the Spaniards and Austrians. The Kettenbund launched a strike in 1637 that resulted in the expulsion of Rohan and the French from the Grisons. During the next two years, Jenatsch pushed forward the negotiations with Spain and Austria for the return of the Valtellina under Grisons sovereignty, as well as seeking a noble title for himself. He also became one of the most powerful men in the region, taking the pivotal governorship of Chiavenna for himself, and mixing in the tangled affairs of the Planta clan.

On 24 January 1639 Jenatsch was assassinated in Chur

Chur

Chur or Coire is the capital of the Swiss canton of Graubünden and lies in the northern part of the canton.-History:The name "chur" derives perhaps from the Celtic kora or koria, meaning "tribe", or from the Latin curia....

 by a band of men whose leader was costumed as a bear, as it was Carnival. Although the murderers remained anonymous and were never captured or tried, the most likely culprit was Rudolf von Planta, son of the murdered Pompeius, or men in his employ. Later historians have proposed many other suspects, and novels and plays about Jenatsch have searched even further afield. Later in 1639, the much coveted Valtellina was restored by Spain to the Grisons, which held it until 1797. Jenatsch's career is of general historical importance as one aspect of the long conflict between France and Spain for control over the Valtellina, which forms one of the most tumultuous episodes in the Thirty Years' War.

Jenatsch in Literature

Although interest in Jenatsch waned rapidly after his burial in the Chur cathedral, still wearing the bloodied clothes he had been murdered in, later historians and literary figures took up his story again. In the nineteenth century, he became the subject of numerous plays and biographical studies, which tended to emphasize his fiery character as well as his allegedly deep attachment to his fatherland. The most important work to discuss him was the novel by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was a Swiss poet and historical novelist, a master of realism chiefly remembered for stirring narrative ballads like "Die Füße im Feuer" .-Biography:...

 (1876), which among other accomplishments changed his name, at least in popular percpetion, from Giorgio, Georg or Zoartz (the most common forms during his lifetime in Italian, German and Romansh, respectively) to the more north German 'Jürg.' A key feature of Meyer's novel, picked up by later literary versions, was that his murderer was 'Lucrecia' von Planta, daughter of Pompeius and Jenatsch's true love. In Meyer's brilliant rewriting of the story, Lucrecia kills Jenatsch, using the same axe he had used on her father, when his self-love and ambition overpower his desire to serve his fatherland. In fact, Meyer changed Jenatsch's birthdate in the novel to make such a relationship possible; earlier authors had already renamed the real Katherina von Planta as 'Lucrecia', a name for which there is no historical foundation. The story about the same axe, however, is found in chronicles written within weeks of Jenatsch's death in 1639.

Since Meyer's novel, several other novels as well as a striking film by Daniel Schmid (Jenatsch

Jenatsch (film)

Jenatsch is a 1987 French-Swiss drama film directed by Daniel Schmid. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Michel Voïta - Christophe Sprecher* Christine Boisson - Nina...

, 1987) have treated his story. In addition, there are two major biographies, both very thorough but now dated, one by Ernst Haffter (Davos, 1894), and one by Alexander Pfister, (1936, now in its fifth edition). On the significance of the Valtelline, see the article by Horatio Brown

Horatio Brown

Horatio Robert Forbes Brown was a Scottish historian who specialized in the history of Venice and Italy.Born in Nice, he grew up in Midlothian, Scotland, was educated in England at Clifton and Oxford, and spent most of his life in Venice, publishing several books about the city...

, "The Valtelline", in the Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 4 (1906), and Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567-1659, (1972, 2nd edn. 2004). The newest investigation of Jenatsch the historical figure is Randolph C. Head's Jenatsch's Axe: Social Boundaries, Identity and Myth in the Era of the Thirty Years' War (University of Rochester Press, 2008); Head is a significant scholar of early modern Swiss history writing in English.