European economy in the sixteenth century and accumulated enormous wealth. The Fuggers held a near monopoly on the European copper
market.
This banking family replaced the
Roman Catholic Church and thus close to the Habsburg emperors.[1]
Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803, while the Glött branch of the family became Princes in Bavaria
in 1914.
History
Founding
The founder of the family was Hans Fugger, a weaver at
Free City of Augsburg.[2] The last name was originally spelled "Fucker" – the first recorded reference to the family comes when Johann's son, also named Johann (or Hans), moved to Augsburg in 1367, with the local tax register laconically noting Fucker advenit, "Fugger has arrived".[3][4] He married Klara Widolf and became an Augsburg citizen. After Klara's death, he married Elizabeth Gattermann. He joined the weaver's guild, and by 1396, he was ranked high in the list of taxpayers. He added the business of a merchant to that of a weaver.[2]
His eldest son,
golden deer on a blue background, and he was soon nicknamed "the Fugger of the Deer".[2] He would eventually go bankrupt. His descendants served their cousins of the famous younger branch and later went to Silesia. Contemporary members of the Fugger of the Deer (German: Fugger vom Reh) are descendants of Matthäus Fugger (1442–1489/92). The current head of the family is Markus Fugger von dem Rech (born 1970).[citation needed
, the daughter of a goldsmith. His fortune progressed, and by 1461, he was the twelfth richest man in Augsburg. He died in 1469.
Jakob's eldest son, Ulrich, took over the business on his father's death, and in 1473 he provided new suits of clothes to Frederick, his son
Habsburgs
.
With the help of their brother in Rome; Marx, Ulrich and his brother George handled remittances to the
indulgences
and the procuring of Church benefices. From 1508 to 1515, they leased the Roman mint. Ulrich died in 1510.
When the Fuggers made their first loan to the Archduke Sigismund in 1487, they took as security an interest in silver and copper mines in the Tyrol. This was the beginning of an extensive family involvement in mining and precious metals.[7] The Fuggers also participated in mining operations in Silesia, and owned copper mines in Hungary. Their trade in spices, wool, and silk extended to almost all parts of Europe.[2]
) in 1495, eventually making them the greatest mining centre of the time.
At the height of his power Jakob Fugger was sharply criticized by his contemporaries, especially by
benefices and urging the Pope to rescind or amend the prohibition on the levying of interest. The imperial fiscal and governmental authorities in Nuremberg brought action against him and other merchants in an attempt to halt their monopolistic
practices.
In 1511, Jakob deposited 15,000 florins as an endowment for some almshouses. In 1514, he bought up part of Augsburg and in 1516 came to an agreement with the city that he would build and provide a number of almshouses for needy citizens. By 1523, 52 houses had been built, and the Fuggerei had come into existence. It is still used today.[9]
Jakob died in 1525. He is considered to be one of the richest persons of all time,[10] and today he is well known as Jakob Fugger "the rich". At its peak his wealth is estimated to be 2% of Europe's GDP.[11]
Later years
10 ducats (1621) minted as circulating currency by the Fugger family[12]
Jakob's successor was his nephew Anton Fugger, son of his elder brother Georg. Anton was born in 1493, married Anna Rehlinger, and died in 1560.
In 1525, the Fuggers were granted the revenues from the Spanish orders of knighthood together with the profits from mercury and silver mines.
slave trade from Africa to America, but was more successful in the spice trade and the importation of Hungarian cattle. Eventually, he was forced to renounce the Maestrazgo lease after 1542 and to give up the silver mines of Guadalcanal
.
After hard times under Anton's nephew and successor Johann Jakob, Anton's oldest son, Markus, carried on the business successfully, earning some 50,000,000 ducats between 1563 and 1641 from the production of mercury at Almadén alone, but the Fugger company was completely dissolved after the Thirty Years' War when Leopold Fugger returned the mines in Tyrol to the Habsburgs in 1657.
Jacob Fugger, Georg Fugger and Ulrich Fugger the Elder and their two nephews Raymund Fugger and Hieronymus Fugger (1499–1538). When St. Anne's Church became Protestant in 1548, the Fugger Chapel remained Catholic because the Fugger Foundation continued to look after it and contributed to the upkeep of the church. This is how the remarkable fact came about that part of the church is denominationally different from the rest, and that the burial place of the Fugger family, who are considered strictly Catholic, is now in a Protestant church.[14] Adding to the oddity is that Jacob Fugger's loans to Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg and the indulgence to repay them were what triggered
Martin Luther's Reformation.
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803.[2] The present head of this branch is Prince Hubertus Fugger von Babenhausen who owns Jakob the Rich's former business seat, the Fuggerhäuser in Augsburg, as well as nearby Wellenburg Castle and the castle at Babenhausen, Bavaria (purchased by Anton Fugger in 1539 and today housing a museum on the family history); he is also co-owner of a small private bank, the Fürst Fugger Privatbank
, in Augsburg.
The branch Fugger von Glött, descendants of Johann Ernst, a great-grandson of Anton, was elevated to the rank of a Bavarian prince in 1914 with Carl Ernst Fürst Fugger von Glött; the branch ended in the male line with his son Joseph-Ernst Fürst Fugger von Glött (1895–1981), husband of Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern (1895–1975), his estate including the castle at Kirchheim in Schwaben (acquired in 1551 by Anton Fugger) being inherited by his sister Maria's (1894–1935) son, Albert Count von Arco-Zinneberg (b. 1932), whom he adopted, and who took on the name Fugger von Glött.
The comital branch Fugger von Kirchberg und zu Weissenhorn is today represented by countess Maria-Elisabeth von Thun und Hohenstein, née countess Fugger, heiress of Kirchberg Castle at Illerkirchberg (bought in 1507 by Jakob Fugger). She also heads the charitable family foundations including the Fuggerei in Augsburg and Welden monastery.
In Augsburg, a museum of Fugger and
Welser history (Fugger und Welser Erlebnismuseum) was opened.[15][16]
Findings
In April 2019, Dutch maritime investigators unearthed a 16th-century shipwreck during an exploration for container ship MSC Zoe which lost containers overboard in January 2019. Copper plates with emblem of the Fugger family were found in the ship built around 1540 in the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V.[17][18][19]
Family members
Hans (I.) Fugger (born 1367 in Augsburg, died 1408)
Coat of arms of the "Fugger of the Deer"Andreas Fugger (1394–1457), founder of the branch "Fugger of the Deer"
^Beeche, Arturo (2017). "Eurohistory: The European Royal History Journal". 20 (4). California, US: Kensington House Books: 48. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
.jpg)
.JPG)
Ulrich Fugger the Elder (1441–1510)
Georg Fugger (1453–1506)
Raymund Fugger (1489–1535)
Anton Fugger (1493–1560)
Hans (III.) Fugger (1531–1598)
Christoph Fugger, by Christoph Amberger, 1541
Fuggerei in Augsburg
The castle at Babenhausen, Bavaria
Wellenburg Castle in Augsburg
The castle at Kirchheim in Schwaben
Kirchberg Castle at Illerkirchberg
