Michael II KERN

Stonemason and limer. Mayor of Forchtenberg in 1625. He enlarged the house now called the Kern-Haus in Forchtenberg and in it set a marker with his initials and the year 1584, and a stone dated 1593 with the saying "DasHaus sted in Gotes Hand" (This house stands in God's hands.) His mark is on the lion mask on the gate tower of Forchtenberg, dated 1604. He carved the Doppelepitaph für Matthes Bauder und Kilian Bechberger, inside on the northwall of the choir of the Friedhofskapelle in Forchtenberg. He may have carved the epitaph for the pastor Georg Weidenhofer in Amrichshausen near Künzelsau. His mark is also on a window in the castle courtyard in Langenburg. Hewas the builder of the bridge across the Kocher in Ernsbach (near Forchtenberg) in 1605, commemorated on a stone tablet now mounted on the outside south side of the ground floor of the “Schlößle”, as the bridge was blown in 1945 byGerman troops. He carved the coat of arms for Graf Philipp von Hohenlohe, currently in the middle bay of the west wall of the Rittersaal in the Hohenlohe-Museum, Schloß Neuenstein. In 1608, the town of Ingelfingen borrowed 150Gulden from him in order to pay for the Keßelmühle, which lay below a bridge he built there across the Kocher that same year. But the mill had to be torn down two years later, as the water pond it was forming endangered thebridge. The epitaph on the bridge was restored when the bridge was rebuilt in 1967. In 1609/1610 he built the Jagstbrücke in Schöntal, on which his sculpted self-portrait is exhibited with the inscription "Michel Kern Burger zuForchtenberg werckmeister diser Brucken. 1609". He also built the Jochbrücke over the Kocher river in Forchtenberg, which was replaced in the 19th century. He sued Sebastian Schroth 1616–1620 over an injurious accusation ofwitchcraft. He died during a plague.

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