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37-558: There have been two Counties of Sayn. The first emerged in 1139 and became closely associated with the County of Sponheim early in its existence. Count Henry II was notable for being accused of satanic orgies by the Church's German Grand Inquisitor, Conrad von Marburg , in 1233. Henry was acquitted by an assembly of bishops in Mainz , but Conrad refused to accept the verdict and left Mainz. It

74-447: A reputation as a necromancer. The Faust legend is strongly based on a legend involving Maximilian of Austria , his first wife Mary of Burgundy and Trithemius. Through his 1507 account, Trithemius was the first author who mentioned the historical Doctor Faustus, or Johann Faust of Knittlingen . In a letter he wrote to the polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa , another famous occult writer and supposed magician – he appeared to criticize

111-464: A shade of Mary, who looked exactly like her when alive. Maximilian also recognized a birthmark on her neck, that only he knew about. He was distraught by the experience though, and ordered Trithemius never to do it again. An anonymous account in 1587 modified the story into a less sympathetic version. The emperor became Charles V , who, despite knowing about the risk of black magic, ordered Faustus to raise Alexander and his wife from death. Charles saw that

148-436: Is considered the founder of modern cryptography (a claim shared with Leon Battista Alberti ) and steganography , as well as the founder of bibliography and literary studies as branches of knowledge. He had considerable influence on the development of early modern and modern occultism. His students included Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus . The byname Trithemius refers to his native town of Trittenheim on

185-461: Is supposedly derived from the comital office of Trechirgau. The family of the Counts of Sponheim founded the monastery of Sponheim in the 12th century, where in the 11th century a church had already been built. The Benedictine abbot from Sponheim, Johannes Trithemius , chronicled the counts of Sponheim and accumulated a large collection of documents on the history of the area. Around 1225, the county

222-519: Is unknown whether it was Henry's Knights who killed Conrad on his return to Thuringia , but investigation was foregone due to the cruelty of Conrad, despite Pope Gregory IX ordering his murderers to be punished. With the death of Henry in 1246, the County passed to the Counts of Sponheim-Eberstein and thence to Sponheim-Sayn in 1261. The second County of Sayn emerged as a partition of Sponheim-Sayn in 1283 (the other partition being Sayn-Homburg ). It

259-572: The Schottenkloster in Würzburg. He remained there until the end of his life. Trithemius seemed to have a falling out with Maximilian regarding their differences when the emperor wanted to organize a separate ecclesiastical council in 1511, in slight of Pope Julius II . The relationship recovered after Julius's death, though. Trithemius was buried in St. James's Abbey's church; a tombstone by

296-613: The Dukes of Carinthia descends from Siegfried I, Count of Sponheim . The Rhenish branch, which retained the County of Sponheim, descends from Stephan I, Count of Sponheim . The county originated from various inheritances which were united in the family's hands, including possessions from the Counties of Nellenburg and Stromberg and jurisdiction of the Gaugrafen of Trechirgau (Berthold-Bezelin dynasty). The Sponheim comital office

333-599: The Moselle River , at the time part of the Electorate of Trier . When Johannes was still an infant his father, Johann von Heidenburg, died. His stepfather, whom his mother Elisabeth married seven years later, was hostile to education and thus Johannes could only learn in secret and with many difficulties. He learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. When he was 17 years old he escaped from his home and wandered around looking for good teachers, travelling to Trier , Cologne ,

370-708: The Netherlands , and Heidelberg . He studied at the University of Heidelberg . Travelling from the university to his home town in 1482, he was surprised by a snowstorm and took refuge in the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim near Bad Kreuznach . He decided to stay and was elected abbot in 1483, at the age of twenty-one. He often served as featured speaker and chapter secretary at the Bursfelde Congregation 's annual chapter from 1492 to 1503,

407-657: The 1569 edition of his Tischreden , Martin Luther writes about a magician and necromancer, understood to be Trithemius, who summoned Alexander the Great and other ancient heroes, as well as the emperor's deceased wife Mary of Burgundy, to entertain Maximilian. In his 1585 account, Augustin Lercheimer (1522–1603) writes that after Mary's death, Trithemius was summoned to console a devastated Maximilian. Trithemius conjured

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444-546: The Lower County had itself been administratively divided between the brothers John II of Sponheim-Kreuznach and Simon II of Sponheim-Kreuznach, with Soonwald forest defining the boundary. Count Walram of Sponheim-Kreuznach reunited the Lower County. Walram became known as an active military leader involved in many actions, including inter-Sponheim ones. In 1417, the Sponheim-Kreuznach line became extinct and

481-609: The Palatinate . The Reformation was instituted in the County of Sponheim in the year 1557, led by Friedrich II, Count Palatine of Simmern . The county became an important outpost of Protestant territory, with exclaves on the Moselle such as Enkirch , Trarbach , or Winningen , bordering as it did the Catholic Electorate of Trier . Warfare with neighbouring Catholic states would take place intermittently through

518-698: The Sponheim-Starkenburg family became extinct in the male line, and the counties were jointly ruled as a condominium by female-line heirs from then until the early 19th century. These rightful successors, who took the title of Count at Sponheim ( Graf zu Sponheim ), were the Margraves of Baden , who descended from Mechtild of Sponheim, and the Counts of Veldenz , who descended from Loretta of Sponheim; both Mechtild and Loretta were daughters of Count John III of Sponheim-Starkenburg . The County of Veldenz

555-545: The Sponheim-Starkenburg line ruled alone for about 20 years over most of the whole county. Count Walram's granddaughter married Ruprecht Pipan, heir to the Electorate of the Palatinate , who died of disease after returning from the Battle of Nicopolis at the age of 21. The marriage was childless, but nevertheless a small portion of the Lower County (less than 1/5) was granted as dowry to the Electors Palatine. In 1437

592-471: The abbey library increased from around fifty items to more than two thousand. His efforts did not meet with praise, and his reputation as a magician did not further his acceptance. Increasing differences with the convent led to his resignation in 1506, when he decided to take up the offer of the Bishop of Würzburg , Lorenz von Bibra (bishop from 1495 to 1519), to become the abbot of St. James's Abbey ,

629-614: The annual meeting of reform-minded abbots. Trithemius also supervised the visits of the Congregation's abbeys. Trithemius wrote extensively as a historian, starting with a chronicle of Sponheim and culminating in a two-volume work on the history of Hirsau Abbey . His work was distinguished by mastery of the Latin language and eloquent phrasing, yet it was soon discovered that he inserted several fictional passages into his works. Even during Trithemius's lifetime, several critics pointed out

666-749: The centuries, notably including the Thirty Years' War . After the Napoleonic Wars , most of the county became a part of Prussia , and the region around Birkenfeld became part of Oldenburg (as the Principality of Birkenfeld ). Some small formerly-Sponheim-areas became parts of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (the Principality of Lichtenberg ; from 1826 part of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ) and Hesse-Homburg ; these areas passed to Prussia in 1834 and 1866 respectively. The ruling dynasties of Baden and Wittelsbach received extensive territories in exchange for

703-503: The chapter Of Dr. Dee's Book of Spirits , that John Dee made use of Trithemian steganography to conceal his communication with Queen Elizabeth I . Amongst the codes used in this book is the Ave Maria cipher, where each coded letter is replaced by a short sentence about Jesus in Latin. The reason for Polygraphia and Steganographia as covertexts being written are unknown. Possible explanations are that either its real target audience

740-492: The counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein . Henry I, Count of Sponheim-Starkenburg became heir to the Upper County of Sponheim. Both territories were extensively fortified throughout the centuries, as evidenced by the existence of around 21 castles or castle ruins, many of which can still be visited today. Feuds with the neighbouring Electorates of Mainz and Trier were common, giving birth to southwestern German legends such as

777-671: The famous Tilman Riemenschneider was erected in his honor. In 1825, the tombstone was moved to the Neumünster church , next to the cathedral. It was damaged in the firebombing of 1945, and subsequently restored by the workshop of Theodor Spiegel. Notably, the German polymath , physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) and the Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer Paracelsus (1493–1541) were among his pupils. Trithemius had

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814-581: The heiress of Heinsberg , received a portion of the Sayn inheritance, and founded the Sponheim line of the lords of Heinsberg . John became heir to Sayn and to the Upper County of Sponheim, residing first in Starkenburg Castle, and from 1350 at Grevenburg castle at Trarbach . John I's sons divided their father's estate in 1265. Gottfried received the County of Sayn, whose direct heirs are today

851-773: The invented sources he used. His forgery regarding the connection between the Franks and the Trojans was part of a larger project to establish a link between the current dynasty of Austria with ancient heroes. While his colleagues like Jakob Mennel and Ladislaus Suntheim often inserted invented ancestors in their works, Trithemius invented entire sources, such as Hunibald, supposedly a Scythian historian. For his research on monasteries, he utilized “Meginfrid,” an imagined early chronicler of Fulda and Meginfrid's nonexistent treatise De temporibus gratiae to substantiate Trithemius's ideal of monastic piety and erudition, which were supposed to be

888-507: The loss of Sponheim (compare also literature on the so-called "Sponheim Controversy" between Baden and Bavaria). Johannes Trithemius Johannes Trithemius ( / t r ɪ ˈ θ ɛ m i ə s / ; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg , was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer , chronicler , cryptographer , and occultist . He

925-469: The need for angelic–astrological mediation, still left intact is an underlying theological motive for their contrivance. The preface to the Polygraphia equally establishes that the everyday practicability of cryptography was conceived by Trithemius as a "secular consequent of the ability of a soul specially empowered by God to reach, by magical means, from earth to Heaven". Robert Hooke suggested, in

962-469: The north and west, the Raugraviate , the Electorate of Mainz and the Electorate of the Palatinate to the east and the County of Veldenz to the south and west, among other states. The family of Sponheim, or Spanheim (German: Spanheimer ), has been documented since the 11th century. There are two main branches which are certainly related, but whose exact relationship is still debated. The branch of

999-478: The same values shared by the monks of the ninth century. Others opine that Meginfrid was not strictly forgery but the combination of wishful thinking with faulty memory. In the process though, Trithemius became a famous builder of libraries, which he created in Sponheim and Würzburg . In Sponheim, he set out to transform the abbey from a neglected and undisciplined place into a centre of learning. In his time,

1036-484: The sons of Count Gottfried III of Sponheim , who died abroad while participating in the Fifth Crusade . Gottfried had married Adelheid of Sayn , sister of the last Count of Sayn, Henry III . His estate was divided between their three sons John I, Henry, and Simon I. Simon, the youngest brother, received the Lower County of Sponheim and took up his residence in the castle of Kauzenburg near Kreuznach. Henry married

1073-506: The tale of Michel Mort . The Upper and Lower Counties were also not always on good terms with each other regarding political affiliation. During the dispute between the German kings Frederick the Fair and Louis the Bavarian , the Upper County supported Louis, while Lower Sponheim advocated for Frederick. Louis's victory resulted in political strengthening of Upper Sponheim. Around that time,

1110-409: The vanity of Faust, who possessed inferior skills and went against the teachings of the Church. Literary scholar Andrew McCarthy opines that Trithemius considered himself a true necromancer, who studied in order to gain knowledge of the workings of the universe without attracting publicity. Being summoned to the emperor's court in 1506 and 1507, he also helped to "prove" Maximilian's Trojan origins. In

1147-664: The woman had a birthmark, which he had heard about. Later, the woman in Goethe's Faust became Helen of Troy . The story of Maximilian, Mary of Burgundy and the Abbot "Johannes Trithem" later appeared as one of the Grimms' Tales . According to John Henry Jones, the blooming of the Faustus myth was fuelled by the witch craze of the time. Trithemius' most famous work, Steganographia (written c. 1499; published Frankfurt , 1606),

Sayn - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-548: Was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire that lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century. The name comes from the municipality of Sponheim , where the counts had their original residence . The territory was located roughly between the rivers Rhine , Moselle , and Nahe , in the present state of Rhineland-Palatinate , around the Hunsrück region. It bordered the Electorate of Trier to

1221-571: Was divided in two, with each portion ruled by a different branch of the House of Sponheim . The Sponheim- Starkenburg line ruled over the Upper, Hither, or Farther County of Sponheim ( Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim ), based on Starkenburg , and the Sponheim-Kreuznach line over the Lower, Anterior, or Fore County of Sponheim ( Vordere Grafschaft Sponheim ), based on Kreuznach . This partition took place among

1258-885: Was notable for its numerous co-reigns, and it endured until 1608 when it was inherited by the Counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn . A lack of clear heirs of William III of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn led to the temporary annexation of the comital territories by the Archbishop of Cologne until the succession was decided. In 1648 following the Thirty Years' War , the County was divided between Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn-Altenkirchen and Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg . Circles est. 1500: Bavarian , Swabian , Upper Rhenish , Lower Rhenish–Westphalian , Franconian , (Lower) Saxon 50°26′18″N 7°34′35″E  /  50.43833°N 7.57639°E  / 50.43833; 7.57639 County of Sponheim The County of Sponheim ( German : Grafschaft Sponheim , former spelling: Spanheim, Spanheym)

1295-493: Was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1609 and removed in 1900. This book is in three volumes, and appears to be about magic —specifically, about using spirits to communicate over long distances. Since the publication of the decryption key to the first two volumes in 1606, they have been known to be actually concerned with cryptography and steganography . Until the 1990s, the third volume

1332-523: Was soon inherited by a collateral line of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine through the union of the heiress Anna of Veldenz with Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken . The rule of the Upper County of Sponheim was thus shared between Baden and Palatinate-Simmern - Zweibrücken or Palatinate-Birkenfeld ; the rule of the Lower County of Sponheim roughly between Baden and the Electorate of

1369-442: Was widely still believed to be solely about magic, but the "magical" formulae have now been shown to be covertexts for yet more cryptographic content. However, mentions of the magical work within the third book by such figures as Agrippa and John Dee still lend credence to the idea of a mystic-magical foundation concerning the third volume. Additionally, while Trithemius's steganographic methods can be established to be free of

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