Historical Reminiscences in the 1588 Letter of Count Friedrich of Württemberg-Mömpelgard (the Collection of the Archives of the Saint Petersburg Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

The original letter from Frederick, Count of Württemberg-Mömpelgard (1557—1608), dated September 1, 1588 is a one-sheet letter on yellowish paper. The letter is damaged: the lower part of the sheet with the addressee’s name and a fragment of text is torn off, but the epithets in the address and the nature of the phrases of ceremonial politeness unmistakably indicate that the letter was intended for a person of princely status. The small Protestant county of Württemberg-Mömpelgart was located on the left bank of the Rhine, separated from the main Württemberg possessions between the Habsburg possessions, as well as the Duchy of Lorraine. Relations with Catholic neighbors were complicated by the large number of Protestant refugees in Mömpelgart, as well as by Count Frederick’s financial support for the Huguenots in France. After the military detachments assembled in 1587 to help the French Huguenots were defeated, the pursuing units of the Guises invaded the territory of Mömpelgart and in late 1587 and early 1588 brutally plundered and devastated the county. The letter in question from Count Frederick was written a few months after this terrible injury. Suddenly, he finds new food for thought, which he shares with the addressee of the letter. Frederick tells us that in the old chronicles of his county he found an account of an almost equally plundering and devastating attack by the Lorrainers on Mömpelgart in 1444.... “From this we may conclude”, he writes, “that it was not the first time that the Lorrainers had shown their hostility. That is a sufficient and just reason not to let them do it just like that, but to repay them accordingly, so that they do not turn such horrible and unlawful deeds into custom”. The French occupation of Mömpelgard a century and a half ago is unwittingly instrumentalized to reinforce the image of the enemy and call for revenge on him in the current situation.