Arriving from Wealth: Rosina von Ems

Rosina von Embs (von Ems / von Hohenems) arrived at Thalbach in 1609 and was give holy orders a year later. As the honorific “von” shows, she comes from the Vorarlberg elite, and the chronicle names her parents as Count Johann Christoff von Hohenems and Christina Gutzkopfflerin von Guellenbach.

Her parents are presumably lesser-known relatives of more politically significant individuals known to us in history. While my answers to her lineage are only provisional – I haven’t (yet) found direct documentation – the timeline and circumstances provide the following "best guess" assessment of her background.

ROSINA’S FATHER, “GRAF” JOHANN CHRISTOFF VON HOHENEMS:

On her dad’s side, the “Graf” (“Count”) label and assignment to Hohenems suggests a relationship to Markus Sittikus von Hohenems (1538–1595, Bishop of Constance who later served at the Curia in Rome), and his brother Jakob Hannibal von Hohenems (1530-1587) who served general with the troops. In 1613 -- four years after Rosina’s entry to Thalbach – Jakob Hannibal’s oldest son Kaspar was to acquire the County of Vaduz and Lordship of Schellenberg from the Counts of Sulz, while his younger son, another “Markus Sittikus” became Archbishop of Salzburg. This was a family in ascendancy, as well as one firmly in a Catholic orbit (Niederstatter vol. 2, p. 48; Neumaier 2021, pp. 57-58).

And so it proves. Count Hans Christoph, as it happens, comes from the second branch of the Hohenems family, the children of Marquard V (d. 1533) and Veronika von Neideck. These include

Mark Sittich II, Vogt of Bludenz (d. 1565) m1. Eva von Dankertschwell, m2. Eva von Thun.

“From one of these marriages came Hans Christoph von Hohenems (d. 1603) who was married to Maria von Paumgarten zu Hohenschangau (d. 1633)” (Neumaier 2021, p. 58).

Sister Amalia von Hohenems m2. Hans Christoph von Ega (after death of m1. Sixt von Scheinen zu Gammerschang) (Neumaier 2021, p. 57)

progeny: Wolf Heinrich von Ega

Since Hans is the nickname for Johannes, the Hans Christoph (in yellow) is almost certainly the same as Johannes Christoph von Hohenems, Rosina’s father, and his death in 1603 aligns with what we know of Rosina’s financial timeline. If I am right, then Rosina’s dad is Hans Christoph (shown in yellow); her grandmother is Eva von Thun (shown in green); and her great grandsire is Marquard V of Hohenems. Quite a lineage!

von Hohenems (aka "von Ems"), a partial family tree

If things were easy, we wouldn’t recognize them, of course. Hans Christoph’s legacy is complicated, and here Helmut Neumaier’s research (2021) becomes invaluable; much of my discussion here follows his lead.

Count Hans Christoph names his powerful Hohenems cousin Kaspar in his will, but actually bequeaths the majority of his estate to his nephew Wolf Heinrich von Ega (Neumaier p. 59). This, politically, would not stick; the pressures to maintain Hohenems familial control over various properties and income-streams and the lesser political prowess of the lesser branch of the family meant that Wolf Heinrich was quick to pivot to a more politically feasible solution. Wolf Heinrich cashes out much of his claim jointly with Kaspar, and in part to resolve the many family debts, and with the remainder sets various income streams in place.

One of these income streams was negotiated in the 2 December 1603 meeting between Wolf Heinrich von Ega, Count Kaspar von Hoheneg, and the 2 imperial counselors, Johann Ludwig von Ulm and Johann Werner von Raitenau:

In fulfillment of Frau von Thun's will, Ega will insure and transfer to Rosina Embserin and Amalia Loring 3,000 florins belonging to the Bludenz estate, but in such a way that if Rosinle [“little Rosina”] dies first, the money will revert to him. (Neumaier 2021, p. 60)

In other words, as Neumaier explains, among these funds that Wolf Heinrich cedes to Count Kaspar is a deed of title from the Bludenz domain which amounted to 6,000 florins. These funds actually stemmed from Frau Eva von Thun’s will. As confirmed in a Kaspar’s legal summary of January 1, 1604, these funds were directed half to Cyprian von Thun (Hans Christoph von Hohenems’ uncle), and a quarter each to Rosina von Ems – our monastic sister – and to Amalia Loring. If I am right about Rosina’s place in the family tree, Eva was her grandmother, and is settling her legacy on her through her son, and with the assistance of Wolf Heinrich.

There was a further chapter in this unfolding drama: the division of funds was contested. The family of Hans Christoph’s chamberlain, Rudolf Embser, claimed nine years of back-salary to support him and his many children. Likewise, an unsuccessful petition came from Hans Christoph’s tutor, Johann Rem, for thirty years (!) of back salary, but in that instance the income of a mill had been in the tutor’s hands as imperial agents were well aware, and therefore no payout was made to the over-greedy former tutor. Still, it’s clear that Hans Christoph would not be characterized as the most financially well-grounded, and it seems that Rosina was lucky to get her (presumed) grandmother’s inheritance at all.

ROSINA’S MOTHER, CHRISTINA GUTZKOPFFLERIN VON GUELLENBACH

Why do we remain uncertain about Rosina’s father and her place in the family tree? That’s because Hans Christoph von Hohenems is certainly known to have married – but to Maria von Paumgarten zu Hohenschangau, who outlived him by thirty years. And that is definitively NOT the identity of Rosina’s mother, who’s known to us both through monastic chronicle and convent document as Christina Gutzkopfflerin von Guellenbach (or Quellenbach, depending on source chosen).

However, I posit that Christina was, in fact, likely to have been Hans Christoph’s wife – a first wife, I would guess, making Maria von Paumgarten his second wife. It would be unsurprising if Christina were to have died early; most of the family actually seem to have had at least two marriages, and death in childbirth was all to common at the time.

Moreover, given an overlap of surnames and timeframes, I also posit that Rosina’s mom Christina might well have been a sister of the Lieutenant Colonel Hans Geizkopfler von Gailbach who served and fell at the Ottoman siege of Raab, Hungary (Brafman, pp. 47-48). (If his is the preferred spelling, as I assume, then her mother is actually Christina Geizkopfler von Gailbach.)

Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate more details of Rosina’s immediate ancestors or document her own birth, though other volumes of family history (not yet consulted) may have more details.

WHY DO WE CARE?

The question of Rosina’s parentage is interesting as a curiosity in its own right. It tells us something important about Thalbach’s reputation as a monastery that Vorarlberg nobility saw it as a home for their daughters. The deep counter-reformation Catholicism which saw the primary branch of the Counts of Hohenems into positions of churchly authority may well have trickled over into the devotions of a daughter of the secondary branch of the house. That is, her call to the monastic life may have been shaped by family dynamics and faith practices.

Also notable, however, is the impact of this noble affiliation on the circumstances of Rosina’s own entry into the convent. As we circle in towards identifying Rosina’s origins, we note three things from her convent membership file (VLA Klosterarchiv Box 16, file 225 03, Rosina Emberin):

• First, this is a thick folder. She has inventories and Quittungen and documents and even an inventory of the cost for copying all these various documents. She is well attested, in other words. She comes with money, and with money’s many complications.

• Second, unlike other sisters at the time, she’s not just represented by immediate family, but there are other individuals involved in her convent provisioning. And, happily for our story here, one of those individuals involved in her case is… Wolff Hainrich von Ega.

• Third, while all these documents circle around Rosina, we have remarkably little information about her actual service at the convent. She doesn’t seem to have emerged as a convent leader, nor do we have a testament to any sort of outstanding characteristics within the community. We don’t learn about her singing, for instance; we don’t know about her busy hands with garden work; we simply see her as one of the convent sisters, listed out by age in various inventories of convent membership at the time.

In other words, Rosina doesn’t seem to be important so much for what she did as for who she was.

WHAT DID THE CONVENT SISTERS THINK ABOUT THEIR WEALTHY COMPANION?

Rosina’s entry to Thalbach is notable to our chroniclist for the luxuries that she brings with her. She brought an ornate and embroidered red cloak decorated with golden bows and cibori. It is unclear from the context whether this was literally a richly-made liturgical vestment – a cope – or whether it was used as a votive offering to adorn a statue in the monastery, perhaps even that of the well-known Schutz-Madonna. Either way, the symbolism of gifting a cloak is one of protection, suggesting on ongoing relationship of family and convent.

This ongoing pledge of commitment with cloak as symbol was reinforced by the gift of wine that came with Rosina’s entry: for “No wine was given to the convent beforehand,” says the chroniclist. Moreover, it was an important enough gift to the sisters that they continued to gossip about it a century later. The chroniclist makes the point that she heard about the wine “from our old sister.” It was evidently that proverbial “gift that keeps on giving,” in a pleasant and rewarding way! 

And yet, other than these markers of her origins, Rosina has remarkably little impact on the convent's story. We can deduce a life of devoted prayer, but we have very little knowledge of her convent life from the surviving record.

A memorable bit of handwork and a recurring gift of wine; Rosina is honored in the convent memory primarily for her status at entry and the benefits it provided her fellow sisters. Perhaps her status and the honor it brought to Thalbach also explain her position in the necrology, for the other thing we know about Rosina is that she is one of the first five sisters named in the Thalbach obit as recorded in Father Franz Ransperg’s Anthropologium of 1660.

In sum, Rosina von Ems stands out to us less for the deeds she performed within the convent than for the legacy she carried with her into it. Her entry into Thalbach brought material wealth, a noble lineage and reputation, and symbolic gifts that resonated well beyond her lifetime – echoes of which shaped the memory of her among the sisters, and secured her a lasting place in the convent’s record. Her story reminds us that monastic life was not isolated from social hierarchy, but rather deeply entwined with the currents of family, faith, and fortune.

WORKS CITED

Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9, Chronik des Klosters 1336-1629.

Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Klosterarchiv Box 16, file 225.03, Convent membership files: Rosina Emberin.

Brafman, David. “The Hapsburgs’ Man in Istanbul: The (not-so-secret) life and times of Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, 16th-century imperial spy.” Getty Magazine (Spring 2021): 46-48 https://www.getty.edu/about/whatwedo/getty_magazine/gettymag_spring2021.pdf

Neumaier, Helmut. “Reichsritter Wolf Heinrich von Ega zu Ober- und Unterschüpf: Ungelöste Fragen zwischen Vorarlberg und Schüpfergrund.” Württembergisch Franken 100: (Oct 2021): 45-72. DOI: 10.53458/wfr.v100i.817. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356744018

Niederstätter, Alois. Vorarlberg 1523 bis 1861: Auf dem Weg zum Land. Geschichte Vorarlbergs Bd 2. Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 2015.

Ransperg, Franz. Anthropologium seu specificatio numerica.[...] omnium Personarum, quae Parochiae Brigantinae sunt incorporatae, 1660 (Vorarlberger Landesarchiv Pharrarchiv Bregenz Handschrift 34, p. 177, item 04).

Diligent Devotion: Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s Leadership at Thalbach

Image of the Annunciation as a Thalbach monastic seal (from the hand of Euphrosina Vöglin)

The women’s tertiary monastery of Thalbach in Bregenz benefited from a series of long-serving and devoted leaders. A peek into the short narrative descriptions of their convent efforts provides a glimpse into the varied emphases these convent administrators placed on spiritual life, governance, and the material well-being of the community. Some prioritized the stability of the convent’s finances, others focused on the education of the sisters, while still others devoted their attention to the aesthetics and soundscape of worship. In her thirty years of convent service, Maria Euphrosina Vöglin (r. 1683–1713; d. 1716) had a chance to embody all three. She shaped the convent through her personal devotional practices, her canny skills on the administrative front, and a marked sensitivity to the role of music and ritual in the convent’s spiritual life.

Diligently Devoted

At the end of the seventeenth century, Sister Maria Euphrosina Vöglin was elected Maisterin at Thalbach by the sisters and duly endorsed by the appropriate male clerics, including the Order’s Provincial. Euphrosina was a particular devotee of the Virgin Mary, for the Chroniclist tells us that she prayed her office fervently on a daily basis. Since, in a post-Tridentine environment, the Little Office of the Virgin – her presumed prayer focus – was normally assigned only to Saturdays and special feast days, we learn from this introduction that she was enacting a more-is-better faith practice, for she performed privately what was done more publicly in the convent’s regular cycle of prayer. In other words, the first thing we learn about Euphrosina is her exemplary faith; as convent leader she serves as a model to the other sisters, who should prioritize prayer even if it should fall outside of the bounds of performed liturgy.

Not only was she a faithful Catholic; according to the convent’s Chronicle, she served “laudably and well” as Maisterin for 30 years. Given her length of service, she developed skills as an able administrator. Some of her attention was architectural. It was during her reign that the monastery building refurbishment was completed, for instance, and she also expanded the choir; this may be the time when the interior window was added. Ludwig Rapp reports that she drafted a letter to the Mayor and Council of inner Bregenzerwald, in which she begs them for a “generous” contribution for her monastery. She points out that their need was great both architecturally and spiritually: “so that it does not fall into disrepair and the divine service and holy order's discipline do not disappear” (Euphrosina Vöglin petition, as quoted in Rapp 634).

She also focused on the nuances of the divine service “because of the music and the chorale,” as the Chronicle tells us. This I take to mean that she oversaw both the instrumentalists and the sisters’ own performances in services. The chroniclist confirms that “She also paid diligent attention to the fact that the divine service was held properly.” She was, in other words, a stickler for the forms and orders of the church, and also for the richness of their living and resonant sounds. She must have appreciated the multimedia appeal of the services. She also evidently recognized beauty itself as an element of spiritual life, for she also “had many beautiful vestments, antipendia and other things made for the church,” as we learn near the end of the Chronicle chapter.

I stress the distributed nature of the Chroniclist’s account, focused early on prayer placement and sound, and only later on visual splendor, since that suggests to me an element of hierarchy in the description of Euphrosina’s devotions. The assessment offered emphasizes what I suspect was the more unusual capacities that she brought – the aural and devotional – and left more stereotypical contributions of feminine handwork for the close of the entry. This also could reflect a gradual shift of Euphrosina’s physical efforts over time. Her active engagement with liturgy and prayer coincides in the account with her emphasis on bricks-and-mortar projects, a spiritual match to the physical enhancements of the cloister. The feminine handwork, in contrast, coincides with text focused on her  charitable work and her resignation of office at age 74.

In addition to her advocacy for prayer and worship, Euphrosina also led the sisters in more educational endeavors, for we know from Leroy Shaw’s theatrical research that she produced at least one Latin play (“De Theophila a mundi voluptatibus abstracta”) during her years in service. She also acquired Gallia vindicata (1594/r.1702) by Paolo Sfondrati, a defense of the Catholic Church’s position against the political and religious turmoil in late 16th-century France, demonstrating her interest in the broader landscape of Catholic counter-reformation polemics (Fechter). (She is not, however, the same Euphrosina Vöglin responsible for the book of prayers published in Augsburg in 1682; that Euphrosina was a widow, a Lutheran, and of the previous generation, dying the year before our Euphrosina ascends to the role as head of convent.)

Managing in Times of Hardship

Given the historical circumstances, Maria Euphrosina was required to guide the convent through hard economic times. The cost of grain skyrocketed, and a series of war taxes were imposed, so that the coffers ran thin. In response, she did two things. She appealed the taxes, which were bitterly high, and would have confiscated 1/3 of the convent’s lands (Thalbach Chronicle Gathering 2 fol. 6; Rapp, p. 633-4). As she wrote to a convent advocate in Constance, “we (the nuns) have no foundation, nothing superfluous, but we, 24 professed nuns, are barely able to provide the necessary maintenance of our order and poorly managed cloister, and we have no daily mass and no dedicated confessor." (As quoted in Rapp 631). We learn from other documents that some relief was awarded, perhaps because the sisters were able to demonstrate that they had to help with the farming by bringing in their own crops (!) (Rapp, p. 633), but ultimately they had to pay 40 fl. in war contributions in 1686, and pay the Turkish tax again in 1708 (Fussenegger, 123).

Euphrosina also indulged in some creative fundraising, and her own mother donated to the convent to help stabilize their finances. Well, sort of. Technically, her mom repurposed her brother’s funds for Euphrosina’s own use, and Euphrosina gave them outright to the convent (Thalbach Chronicle, gathering 2, fol. 6r). We have no evidence that her brother was happy with this outcome, but he didn’t try to retrieve the funds, either.

During these years of hardship, Euphrosina proved flexible: she might be a taskmaster in the context of the order of services, but demonstrated more compassion in the lives of the sisters. She arranged that during the 40-day fast of Lent when the convent was subsisting largely on fungi and herbs, they would have roasted meat on Sunday night (in contravention of the regular rules) in order to keep them hale (Thalbach Chronicle Gathering 2, fol. 6r). This practice seems to have been surprisingly common. The sisters of Kirchheim unter Teck similarly broke their fast when roasted meat was “all that was available” (Kirchheim Chronicle). Practical constraints meant that the choice of health with a few bent rules triumphed over near starvation in both contexts. Since many individuals paid their debts in the form of foods – a half a lamb, a basket of eggs, and so on –  pragmatism in a context of hardship might mean that the food available was the food consumed.

This pragmatism and empathetic management was rewarded by an increase in convent recruitment, particularly among the monied class. Large dowries were paid to the convent and material goods such as religious garments, bedclothes, breviaries, silver spoons and silver jugs were provided to the entering daughters, as mentioned in the dowry documents that Euphrosina so frequently signed in her role as Meisterin. (Bregenz KA 15 Schachtel 225A, Mitgleider).

Generous to traveling clerics and to the city’s poor, she was seen by the Chroniclist and convent alike as “a true child of the order” (ein getreyen ordnuß kind). After her death, the convent pledged to say a Pater noster and an Ave Maria for her every Sunday without exception, both a signal of their dedication to keeping her name in Convent memory and a curious observation about the ways in which conflicting demands could otherwise interfere with memorial practice (Chronicle Gathering 2, fol. 6r).

Life Context

Bregenz-born, Euphrosina had arrived at the convent in 1652 at age 13 under the birth name of Maria Franziska Vöglin. She lived there until her death in 1716. Curiously, these details (found in the Chronicle’s gathering 5) are separate from the discussion of her administrative service.  Her family was evidently poised for religious service, for her brother Anton Vogel was Abbot of Mehrerau (1681–1711) (see MehrerauKl, 2639)

What’s at Stake

Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s long tenure at Thalbach demonstrates how convent leadership in the early modern period was far more than a matter of spiritual devotion—it required financial acumen, political navigational skills, and an understanding of the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of worship. Her case challenges simplistic views of female monastic life as passive or cloistered away from the world; instead, she emerges as an active agent shaping not only her convent’s inner life but also their relationships to the civic and religious landscape of Bregenz.

By paying close attention to figures like Euphrosina, we gain insight into the lived realities of post-Tridentine monasticism, where prayer, administration, and survival strategies were deeply entwined. Her legacy, preserved in archival traces, folded in as an illustrative story in the house chronicle, and reiterated through convent memoria “without exception,” raises broader questions about the role of women in shaping institutional histories—who gets remembered, and how?

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Primary Sources 

Appointment of Antonius Vogel as abbot: Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Mehrerau Kloster, Charter 2639 (6. März 1681).

Kirchheim unter Teck Chronicle: edited in Christian Friderich Sattler, “Wie diβ loblich closter zu Sant Johannes bapten zu Kirchen under deck prediger-ordens reformiert worden und durch wölich personen,” in Idem, Geschichte des herzogthums Wurtenberg unter der regierung der herzogen, 5 vols (Tübingen, 1779–1783), vol. 4, Beilagen, Num. 42, S. 173–280. Note: Sattler 280 is also numbered 296.

Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s seal (e.g. from a document of 1686)

Thalbach Chronicle (consulted from manuscript): Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9, Chronik des Klosters 1336–1629.

Thalbach membership documents: Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Klosterakten Schachtel 15, 225A–225C, Kloster Thalbach, Konventmitglieder, Aufnahmen und Abrechnungen, Erbschaften.

Secondary Literature 

Fechter, Werner. “Inkunabeln aus Thalbacher Besitz.” Biblos 25 (1976): 233–42.

Fussenegger, Gerold. “Bregenz: Terziarinnenkloster Thalbach.” In: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua 9 (1963): 93-140.

Jenisch, Georg Paulus. Davidischer Seelen [Funerary memoria for Fr. Euphrosina Vöglin]. Augspurg: Johann Jacob Schonigk, 1682. This book of prayers is dedicated to a different individual, one who had been married, lived in Augsburg, and died shortly before our Euphrosina took over as Thalbach’s Maisterin.

Rapp, Ludwig. Topographisch-historische Beschreibung des Generalvikariates Vorarlberg, Bd. 2.  Brixen 1896.

Shaw, Leroy R. “Georg Kaiser auf der deutschsprachigen Bühne 1945–1960,” Maske und Kothurn, 9(1963-12): 68–96.