Foreign patents of arms from the sixteenth century (or earlier) are rare within the holdings of the National Archives. For this reason, the imperial charter by which Emperor Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, granted imperial nobility and an augmentation of arms is of exceptional interest. This document was issued in Prague on 27 November 1589, in the German language, for Johann Katzius, a pharmacist-doctor (der Artzney Doctor) of Netherlandish origin. Johann Katzius was born in Nijmegen and enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1562, where he later held various offices, having been elected several times as procurator of the Rhenish and Saxon nations. In 1578 he obtained his doctorate in medicine at the same institution, and in 1588 the medical faculty entrusted him with the inspection of pharmacies in Wiener Neustadt. As will be seen below, the patent of arms acquire a certain Hungarian relevance through the fact that one of Johann Katzius’s descendants received the title of Hungarian baron in 1703 and again in 1710; from the eighteenth century onward, the family used the surname von Ludwigstorff. According to imperial chancery practice, the coat of arms painted at the centre of the charter displays a shield per pale or and argent: in the dexter half, a blue bend charged with three silver lilies between two floating silver lilies; in the sinister half, a rampant red lion. Upon the crowned barred helm rises a red lion emerging between two buffalo horns, the dexter horn divided gold and blue, the sinister red and silver, each horn adorned with a silver lily issuing from its mouth. The mantling is azure and gold on the dexter side, and gules and silver on the sinister. The augmentation of arms consisted in the replacement of the former scroll-crested beaked helm—used in the earlier, bourgeois coat of arms—with the crowned barred helm, regarded in German heraldry as a mark of higher rank. This is confirmed by the original armorial design preserved in the Austrian State Archives.
The seal, binding, painted arms, and portions of the textual leaves of the second charter are missing. However, a complete textual copy preserved in the National Archives reveals that the surviving fragment derives from the Hungarian baronial diploma issued by King Joseph I of Hungary to Johann Rudolf Katzius, Baron of Goldlamb and Ludwigsdorf, lord of Deutsch-Altenburg, Wankheim, Steinabrunn, and Prellenkirchen, councillor and regent of the Lower Austrian government. This charter was issued in Vienna on 28 June 1710. The document is of particular interest in that it constituted the second diploma of identical subject matter issued to the same individual. The first had been granted by King Leopold I on 16 January 1703; however, as stated in the justification of the 1710 charter, the issuance of a new letters patent with essentially unchanged content became necessary because the intervening events of the Rákóczi War of Independence prevented the timely promulgation of the earlier diploma. The family, which originally received imperial nobility in 1589, continues to exist to this day under the name von Ludwigstorff.
The two letters patent of arms preserved by the Iratmentő Foundation were deposited in the Hungarian National Archives, National Archives of Hungary, where the charter of 1589 received the reference HU-MNL-OL-R 126-1.-85, and that of 1710 the reference HU-MNL-OL-R 64-1.-1124.
Anton Avar