E-auction 25-7615 - fre_306394 - SAINT-EMPIRE ROMAIN GERMANIQUE - PFALZ-VELDENZ - GEORGES JEAN DE VELDENZ 2 kreuzers 1579 Phalsbourg

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE - PFALZ-VELDENZ - GEORGE JOHN OF VELDENZ

(1543-1592)

Son of Robert (Rupprecht) of the Palatinate and early orphan, Georges Jean inherited from 1544 the honorary titles of count palatine of the Rhine, duke in Bavaria, as well as the county of Veldenz (Georges Jean Ier). He subsequently received, at the end of dynastic arrangements with the Palatine family, the counties of Lützelstein (the Little Stone) and Sponheim. To possessions on German soil, the Palatine preferred his county of La Petite-Pierre, a border zone between the Empire (here Lutheran and German-speaking, like himself) and Roman Catholic Lorraine.. He modernized the Château de la Petite-Pierre where he lived mainly with his family, giving the place the military but also "Renaissance" aspect that it has kept today.. Close to the people, idealistic, the prince was familiarly nicknamed "Jerri Hans" by his subjects. In the 1560s, the Palatine launched the project of a new town in his county, to which he would give his name, and which would welcome the Reformed expelled from the duchy: Phalsbourg (Pfaltzburg, the town of the Palatine) rose from the ground and began to become populated around 1570, with the ambition of becoming a road, craft and trading hub. .