History of the Diocese of Mainz
The history of the (ore) diocese of Mainz can be traced back over 1600 years. The origin of the diocese of Mainz lies in the early Christian community of the Roman Mogontiacum . Their exact temporal origin is also in the dark, as is the beginning of an episcopal church in the city, which, however, can be assumed around 368. Raised an archbishopric between 780 and 782 , the church of Mainz, with up to 15 suffragan bishops at times, was the largest church province north of the Alps for centuries . The Archbishop of Mainz played a decisive role in the election of a king in the Holy Roman Empire from an early age and was one of the seven electors who had the sole right to elect a king from the 13th century . In 1803 the archdiocese was in the throes of the French Revolution because of Reichsdeputationshauptschluss conclusion canceled and as a suffragan bishopric re-established.
Roman and Frankish times
Beginnings
First certificates
It is not known when Christianity found its way into Mainz. It is sometimes assumed that the 22nd Legion, stationed in Mainz from the year 43, brought Christianity to Mainz. Until the end of the term of office of the emperor Marc Aurel 180, however, no Christians in the Roman army can be reliably proven. The other explanations, according to which Christianity came to the region through traders, merchants or slaves, do not suggest that there was already a hierarchically structured congregation with a bishop at its head at that time.
The Lyon bishop Irenäus mentions in his work “Against the Heretics” ( Adversus haereses ) Christians who live in the Middle Rhine area. Irenäus speaks of "the Germania" and thus refers to the two Germanic provinces Germania superior and Germania inferior . The capitals of the two provinces were Mogontiacum (Mainz) and the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium ( Cologne ). So it can be assumed that he was referring to a Christian life in these churches. However, it is unlikely that this also means that the Mainz Christians had a bishop at their head. Mainz was shaped as a garrison town by the Roman army, which, in conjunction with the imperial cult that dominated it , had an inhibiting effect on the spread of Christianity in the city. More precise evidence of Christian life in the city has not been passed down. There are also no bishops attested to in the surrounding regions at this time. It can therefore be assumed that Christianity in Mogontiacum only prevailed at a later time, clearly after the Milan Agreement .
Creation of an episcopal church
When this congregation was first led by a bishop can no longer be precisely determined today. According to older manuscripts, 346 is the first to mention a Mainz bishop named Martinus. His name can be found as Martinus episcopus Mogontiacensium in the files of the Cologne Synod , which is said to have met this year (May 12, 346) to depose the Bishop Euphrates of Cologne for representing Arian theses. However, the acts of the alleged synod are now considered later forgeries. They are handed down in a manuscript from the 10th century, but probably refer to the Vita Maximini as the primary source . The Vita Maximini, a biography of the Trier bishop Maximin by his successor Milo , was written in the 8th century. The bishop of Trier fought the plan pursued by Boniface to make Cologne a Frankish archbishopric. Milo could have intended to damage Cologne's reputation with this story. The forger of the files in the 10th century probably took over a list of fighters of Arianism handed down from Athanasius . The forger himself added the bishopric of the named and made Martinus bishop of Mainz, which was under the patronage of St. Martin . Martinus only appears in the Codex Bernensis, also dated to the 10th century, but under the name Marinus. Since in the above-mentioned Codex the Mainz bishops list directly and without paragraph to an enumeration of the Roman popes, which ends with Stephen VIII (939-942), whose successor was Marinus II (942-946), it can be assumed that with the Marinus mentioned in reality the Roman Pope was meant even if the question cannot be finally clarified.
The early names handed down in the bishops' lists can therefore not be proven. Creszenz, the first bishop mentioned in some treatises, who was a student of the apostles ("discipulus Pauli") and is said to have resided in Mainz in the first century, is definitely a forgery . It arose from the suggestion of later writers to relocate the beginnings of the Mainz church back to the apostolic times and thus underpin the primacy of the diocese.
Although no names from the 4th century have survived with certainty, there can be no doubt that a church with a bishop at its head developed in Mainz in the decades after Constantine. Evidence for this is a greeting from Bishop Hilarius of Poitiers from the year 358/359 as well as the report of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus about the sacking of the city by the Alemanni prince Rando 368. Ammianus reports of a large Christian community that was affected by the attack during the celebration a high festival, possibly Easter, was surprised. But a large church in a city will have been led by a bishop.
The other testimonies of the Mainz church are also related to warlike actions. In 406 the Alans and Vandals raided the city. According to the "Matyrologium des Rabanus Maurus ", a certain Alban suffered martyrdom during this attack . In his honor, the St. Alban's basilica was built in 413 at the gates of the city . This church, later replaced by larger buildings, was by far the most important church in the (arch) diocese in the early Middle Ages. Alban wasn't the only one who didn't survive the attack. The church father Hieronymus reports in a letter: “Mainz, the once highly praised city (...), they have captured and completely destroyed. Many thousands of people were killed in the church ”.
In 451 Mainz was stormed by the Huns and destroyed again. It is possible that the Bishop of Mainz, Aureus , who was the first to be named in the oldest incomplete list of bishops, the Fulda death annals from 923 in a Munich codex from the 16th century, suffered martyrdom. The Roman rule in Mainz was thus ended. The Alemanni who took possession of the city area brought their pagan cults with them, which made the further development of Christianity difficult. Nevertheless, based on grave finds, a continuity of Christianity can be concluded during this period. However, it is unclear whether this also applies to the existence of a bishop. The lists of bishops tear down at the transition to the Frankish period, as well as those in Cologne. In Mainz they only start again with Sidonius , who resided in Mainz during the Merovingian era in the 6th century .
Excursus: The first cathedral buildings
A church run by a bishop necessarily means that a cathedral must also have existed in Mainz. The location of an official Roman episcopal church and the time it was built are still unclear and are discussed controversially in professional circles. The archaeological findings provide little information, more detailed investigations and excavations have not taken place in the past decades. However, since there is a wealth of sources, the location and size of the cathedral and its annexes are the subject of constant discussion.
What can only be considered certain is that today's cathedral was not built on the foundations of a previous building. Instead, corresponding foundations from the late Roman period were found during excavations under St. John's Church . It could be the cathedral, the existence of which is suggested by Ammianus Marcellinus's report in 368. The Johanniskirche was referred to in later sources as the "Old Cathedral" (Aldedoum). In the vicinity of this cathedral, as the poet Venantius Fortunatus describes, a baptistery would have been built by Bishop Sidonius . Venantius also writes that Sidonius renewed the old temples. The Martinus patronage of the cathedral probably dates from this time. After the Domstift in 10./11. In the 19th century, the new building of the Willigis or the Bardo would have been moved to the new cathedral church, while the old church would have taken over the patronage of the baptistery that had been incorporated into the Johannesstift complex. In addition to this attempted explanation, there are other interpretations, none of which can be based on archaeological evidence.
New beginning in Franconian times
The Frankish empire initially consisted of a few small principalities. That changed under King Clovis I , who succeeded in establishing a large Frankish empire. Around 498 he was baptized on the basis of a vow, which was a decisive moment in the history of Western Christianity and thus also of the Diocese of Mainz. Clovis convened an imperial council in 511 to create new ecclesiastical structures. A representative from Mainz was not present, however. His successors Theuderich I. (511-534) and Theudebert I. (534-548) took over the enforcement of the resolutions. To do this, they relied on Aquitanian clerics , whom they preferred to hold the bishopric of their kingdom. They sent Sidonius , who came from the Rhône-Loire region, to Mainz . It is not known exactly when Sidonius arrived in Mainz. It is certain that he was still in Mainz in 566, where he housed the poet Venantius Fortunatus , who later immortalized him in his verses. Sidonius is thus the first definitely verifiable bishop of Mainz.
Sidonius as Bishop of Mainz
Under Sidonius, the Christian community regained prestige. Venantius reports that the bishop saved the city from further deterioration, renovated the cathedral and other churches, and built a baptistery and other churches. From this point on, the cathedral, like all its successors, was under the patronage of the Franconian national saint Martin von Tours . Sidonius left orderly conditions and a solid community.
With his successor Sigimundus began the series of Frankish bishops. Not very much is known about them. Often there is even a lack of information about their exact names and the order of their pontificate. What is certain is that the Mainz church gained ever greater influence in the empire from the 7th century. The bishops were mostly deserving officials of the respective king, for whom the achievement of the episcopate was the end of their careers. Naturally, this policy was a disadvantage for the spiritual leadership of the diocese.
The importance of the bishopric increased in parallel with the importance of the city. Due to the Frankish expansion policy, Mainz was no longer an eastern outpost for a long time, but rather a link to the newly opened mission areas in Hesse and Thuringia . With the empire, the diocese expanded to include Wetterauische and Thuringian areas. In the 8th century, the areas around Aschaffenburg were added, which were to form the so-called Oberstift in the later Electoral State. With the establishment of the diocese of Würzburg in 741, the eastern border of the diocese was finally determined. In the west, the Mainz church was able to rely primarily on Bingen , which is conveniently located at the mouth of the river . Behind it the diocese bordered the diocese of Trier .
Decay of Christian life
Despite the prohibition of the pagan cult and the acceptance of Christianity, it was difficult to establish it in the Franconian Empire. Although the Franconian church in 125 dioceses and 11 church provinces was apparently well organized structurally, the internal acceptance of Christian doctrine by the population could not be achieved through this alone. The Franconian own church system , according to which the head of the clan supervised the cult according to old Germanic-pagan ideas, additionally hindered this. The head of the clan employed the priest, which led to a loosening of the connection with the local bishop and a dependence of the priest, who actually acted as a religious teacher, on the respective clan. In addition, the Frankish caretaker Karl Martell had the episcopal seats occupied by followers everywhere without paying attention to their qualifications for the spiritual task. The metropolitan constitution fell, the Christian life fell into disrepair.
Boniface
This process could only be stopped by the Iro-Scottish Mission , which was started in 581 by the Irish monk Columban of Luxeuil . It was continued by English monks, the most important representative of which was the Benedictine monk Winfrid , born in Wessex in 672 . Winfrid traveled to Rome in 719 in order to be commissioned as a missionary by Pope Gregory II (715-731) . He was nicknamed Boniface and became an official German missionary. In 722 the Pope consecrated him as a bishop without a permanent seat. In 723 Boniface returned to the Thuringian mission countries, where he was so successful that Pope Gregory III. (731–741) 732 appointed archbishop with the right to appoint bishops. Later he was even appointed papal legate.
In 742 (or even 743) Boniface convened a synod in order to accelerate the reform of the church organization there. The synod provided for the establishment of an East Franconian ( Austrasian ) church province with its seat in Cologne . This should include the suffragan dioceses Tongern / Maastricht , Utrecht , Mainz , Worms , Speyer , Büraburg , Würzburg and Erfurt . Boniface himself wanted to become the first metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province. For this reason, the Franconian aristocratic opposition refused the synod's plans. The extremely important Cologne should not become the seat of an Anglo-Saxon archbishop. In 747/48 the plan finally failed.
Boniface therefore only remained in the diocese of Mainz, to which he did not feel very attached. There he had deposed Gewiliobus as bishop, who had been found unworthy of his father because of blood vengeance, in 745 and had probably taken over his office himself immediately. In 752 Bonifatius consecrated his long-time companion Lullus in Mainz as choir bishop - an early form of today's auxiliary bishop . After Boniface suffered martyrdom in 754 on a missionary trip, Lullus succeeded him on the Mainz bishop's throne.
Mainz becomes an archbishopric
When Lullus became the diocesan bishop of Mainz, Mainz was neither an archbishopric nor did it have any particular political weight in the empire, which had previously been based primarily on the person of Boniface. The abbot of Utrecht took over the Frisian mission , the role of the most important churchman in the Austrasian Empire fell to Chrodegang von Metz († 766). It therefore seemed that Mainz would play a rather insignificant role in future church history. Nevertheless, Lullus, who saw himself as the legitimate heir of Boniface, tried to give importance to his diocese. To do this, he first tried to become metropolitan of the Rhine bishoprics of Speyer, Worms and Utrecht. However, this failed. Therefore Lullus turned to the Hessian-Thuringian area. He achieved that the dioceses of Erfurt and Büraburg (near Fritzlar ) founded by Bonifatius were not reoccupied, but were incorporated into the diocese of Mainz. This increased the area of the diocese greatly. The importance of the diocese and its bishop also increased significantly in the empire.
However, Lullus and his successors never succeeded in bringing the then famous Fulda monastery under the jurisdiction of the Mainz chief shepherds. In 765 Fulda became an imperial abbey and remained so for almost a millennium before - already in decline - it became a suffragan of Mainz in 1755.
Since Fulda, which was directly under the empire, failed as a base for the pastoral care and mission of the Saxons, Lullus founded the Hersfeld Abbey around 770 . Hersfeld became the base of the Saxon mission under King Karl and thus gained supra-regional importance, which was not to the detriment of the Mainz church and its shepherd Lullus, who remained abbot of the monastery until his death and was buried there as well. Because Karl had recognized that Mainz had a strategically favorable location for his policy of securing the Frankish Empire and Christianizing the Saxons . He therefore treated the diocese and its bishop with benevolence, which increased when Archbishop Chrodegang of Metz died in 766. Its influence at court hindered the upgrading of the Mainz diocese until then.
Between 780 and 782, Lullus finally had success in his striving for archbishopric: Pope Hadrian I elevated Mainz to an archbishopric under circumstances that were not precisely known. With regard to the suffragans who were to be subordinate to him in the future, Lullus made do with the falsification of the appointment decree for Boniface as archbishop of the new archdiocese of Cologne, which had become obsolete in 747/48. He received at least the dioceses of Worms, Speyer, Würzburg and Eichstätt. Cologne, however, only became an archbishopric in 795. It is possible, but not proven, that Cologne had also belonged to the Mainz church province up to that point.
Establishment of the Mainz church province
Lullus' successor Richulf (787-813) was the first Archbishop of Mainz to come from the Rhine-Main area . He managed to expand the young ecclesiastical province so that it eventually became the largest metropolitan association in the western world. First, the Swabian-Alemannic dioceses of Constance and Strasbourg were added. After a decision by Karl , who has meanwhile been crowned emperor , the dioceses of Paderborn , Halberstadt , Verden and Hildesheim, newly founded after the completion of the Saxony mission, followed in 804 . After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the Diocese of Chur also came to Mainz; Until then, Chur had belonged to the Archdiocese of Milan , which was now Lotharingian . Augsburg must also have belonged to the church province by 847 at the latest , since an Augsburg bishop took part in the Mainz synod that year. In 948 Mainz also received the newly founded dioceses of Havelberg and Brandenburg as suffragans, but only kept them until 968, when they were separated in favor of the newly founded Archdiocese of Magdeburg . In 973, the dioceses of Prague and Olomouc came to the Mainz church province as compensation .
The influence of the Mainz pastors on the suffragans was very different. The archbishops had and still have official powers in their ecclesiastical province only in exceptional cases. The provincial synods , where important theological and organizational questions were discussed, were an important instrument for leading the ecclesiastical province . However, the resolutions could not be enforced in every case; nor did the bishops invited always appear. In the early days of the archbishopric, these synods were held in the monastery church of St. Alban .
St. Alban - 200 years of spiritual center of the Archdiocese
In 782 the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Alcuin became head of the Aachen court school, which was founded by Emperor Charlemagne to promote the cultural unification of the empire. Alkuin was one of the most important scholars of that time and therefore the center of the learned circle of the court school, which also included Richulf and Rabanus Maurus , who was born in Mainz in 780 . Both later became archbishops of Mainz. Richulf founded a school in Mainz after a command from Emperor Charles, replaced the Roman basilica of St. Alban with a large new building and founded a Benedictine monastery there in 796. With this he had created an important spiritual center for his district , which was to serve both as a meeting place and as a burial place for the Archbishops of Mainz.
The monastery school of St. Alban experienced its heyday under the pontificate of Rabanus, known as Praeceptor Germaniae (teacher of Germany). Even today there are treasures from the "Mainz writing room", as the monastery school was called back then, in Mainz libraries.
Between 813 and 1084, almost all synods, councils and diets held in Mainz took place in St. Alban. With a length of 75 meters, the church was laid out very generously for the time and was one of the few to offer enough space for larger gatherings. Although the new cathedral had been growing in Mainz since 975, the new building often burned down in the first hundred years of its existence, so that it often remained at St. Alban as a conference venue. Since the ecclesiastical and political structure in the empire was by no means fixed, there was very lively synods and council activity in the 9th and 10th centuries, especially after the death of Emperor Charles and the subsequent turmoil. The centuries were also shaped by the wars against the Normans, in which the Archbishops of Mainz also took part.
At the time of the Archbishops Liutbert (863-889) and Sunderolt (889-891), however, there was already an effort to significantly influence the fate of the city of Mainz. This made it necessary to relocate the diocesan center of St. Alban, which was outside the city gates, back to the city center. Sunderolt's successor, Hatto I (891–913), also wanted to focus more on the cathedral and ordered extensive beautification measures on his cathedral. In all probability, this church was today's St. John's Church . The politics of Hatto was continued by his successors, so that the archbishop appeared as lord of the city in later years.
Excursus: Primatial power of the Archbishop of Mainz
The historical development had made the Mainz bishopric since Boniface an important office in the empire, as shown. The political and ecclesiastical function of the bishop established a real primacy over the other episcopal seats in the empire. Around 900 Hatto I is referred to in the broadcasting manual of Abbot Regino von Prüm as the primate of all of Germania. However, this primacy was never legally bestowed on the Archbishop of Mainz. The question arises, how the designation of the Mainzer as Primate Germaniae is to be classified. The justification for the primacy arose from three aspects: First there was the tradition of bonifacy, which Archbishop Friedrich later referred to when he asked for vicariate privilege. Boniface had privileged privileges above those of an ordinary metropolitan . Another aspect was the size of the archbishopric, since the dioceses of Erfurt and Büraburg had been incorporated, and the metropolitan association, which at times comprised 15 suffragan dioceses. In addition, the last aspect was the political position of the archbishop as arch chaplain (first awarded to Archbishop Liutbert in 870) and later the dignity of arch chancellor , which was associated with the first seat on the royal throne.
This Mainz primacy, founded in this way, never meant more than the customary precedent, i.e. the priority of honor over the other bishops. The formation of a primacy in the legal sense, as a hierarchical authority between Pope and Metropolitan, never happened in the West. In addition, the Archbishop of Trier also claimed the rights of a primate and, since 968, the Archbishop of Magdeburg.
In order to be able to derive powers from the primacy, the Archbishops of Mainz therefore had to ask the Pope for the privileges of a vicar or legate, as happened repeatedly in the 10th century. These privileges, however, were always tied to the person of the respective archbishop. From the 11th century onwards, the archbishops assumed a vicariate permanently connected to the Mainz Erzstuhl and a permanent legation, which would have meant a judicial primacy. The vicar or legate dignity was never legally transferred to the Mainz bishopric as such. Until the end of the empire in 1806, the Mainz primacy always meant priority of honor.
middle Ages
Ottonian-Salic imperial church
Decisive for the Archdiocese of Mainz in the Middle Ages - whereby the term "Middle Ages" here means a narrower temporal definition - was the emergence of the Ottonian-Salian imperial church . Towards the end of the 9th century it became increasingly clear that the Carolingian idea of the whole empire was doomed to failure. The Carolingian rulers were unable to grant the empire unity and protection. In 919 the princes elected the Saxon Heinrich I (919–936) as the new king. He was an advocate of an independent German empire. In 921, the Treaty of Bonn divided the empire into Germany and France. If the new king was initially skeptical of the powerful episcopate, he gave up this policy in 922/23 and appointed the Archbishop of Mainz Heriger to be the archkapellan of the royal court orchestra. From this post the office of Imperial Chancellor developed in the middle of the 11th century . Heinrich's successor, Otto I (936–973), continued his father's policy even more consistently. According to Carolingian tradition, he was crowned and anointed in Aachen immediately after the election. The actions were carried out by the Archbishop of Mainz Hildebert (927–937), although Aachen was not in the Mainz church province. However, the Mainz resident appeared to the new king as a representative of the bishops and the church of his empire, which is why he had the coronation act. The Archbishops of Mainz were able to assert this coronation right against claims from Cologne until 1024.
Otto I tried to strengthen the kingship over the tribal duchy. Since he recognized the inheritance of offices and dignities, he looked for a way to get around this and thus strengthened the position of the heirless bishops. He enfeoffed them with the highest imperial offices, goods and royal privileges and placed them on a par with the secular princes. From this point on, the bishop was no longer only the chief shepherd of his diocese, but also the imperial prince, whose appointment ( investiture ) the king reserved for himself. Otto I made the court orchestra the center of his imperial policy, which secured the Archbishop of Mainz supraregional influence.
Conversely, Otto I also demanded absolute loyalty from his episcopal princes, which Archbishop Friedrich (937–954) felt. When he stood in opposition to Otto I, he lost his court office in 953. The political influence at court then seemed to migrate from Mainz to Cologne, which flourished under the influential Archbishop Brun .
In contrast, Friedrich was able to significantly expand the church's influence during his term of office. With reference to the alleged privileges of the Mainz church since Boniface, he asked Pope Leo VII to appoint him as a permanent legate. Leo VII complied with this request and appointed Frederick as vicar and envoy throughout Germania, an appointment that granted Frederick powers over and above his metropolitan authority. However, at that time "Germania" only referred to the right bank of the Rhine (but also the left bank of the Rhine in what is now Rheinhessen and the Vorderpfalz), while the archbishops of Trier and Cologne were assigned to "Gallia" and the archbishop of Salzburg to "Noricum". Frederick therefore obtained another letter from the Pope, which clarified Frederick's vicariate power over Germania and Gallia. The idea of Frederick of a permanent vicariate, which was permanently connected to the person of the archbishop, was rejected by Leo. The vicariate therefore had to be re-awarded by the Pope, which established a relationship of dependency.
954 Otto's son Wilhelm (954–968) became the new Archbishop of Mainz. In 955 Wilhelm was the first chief shepherd in Mainz who referred to himself as a servant of the Holy See of Mainz (“sanctae Moguntinae sedis minister indignus”) in a letter to Pope Agapet II. (946–955). This was intended to emphasize the special relationship between Mainz and Rome. In addition, he had his predecessor's vicariate privilege confirmed. Wilhelm reached with Agapet II that the Archdiocese of Magdeburg desired by Otto I had not yet been founded, and managed to get his father to transfer him back to the archkapellanat in 965 despite this conflict. This office - 1036 by Heinrich III. renamed the Arch Chancellery for Germany - remained connected to the office of Archbishop of Mainz until the end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806. The Archdiocese of Magdeburg was only founded after Wilhelm's death in 968. His successor Hatto II (968–970), a nephew of Otto I, agreed to the establishment out of gratitude for his appointment. His pontificate, like that of his successor Rupert, remained of no significance for the history of the archbishopric.
Archbishop Willigis - "the emperor and the empire's father"
An important turning point in the history of the archbishopric, however, is the appointment of Archbishop Willigis (975-1011) as Oberhirten Mainz. Willigis, born around 940, worked in the imperial court chapel since 969 and became Chancellor Otto I in 971. After his death in 973, he rose to the most important advisor to Otto II. , who appointed him after the death of Archbishop Rupert as the new Archbishop and Arch Chancellor. As such, Willigis became an important pillar of Otto II's rule. Willigis supported him in the fight against Heinrich the Quarrel and against the Saracens , which Otto II fought on his Italian march in 981/83 in his capacity as patron of the church. The king's political goal was the close ties between Italy and the empire, a constellation that had a decisive influence on the entire High Middle Ages and thus also on the history of the Archdiocese of Mainz. At the end of his trip to Italy, Otto II held a Reichstag in Verona in 983 , to which Willigis had also come. There he received the so-called Veronese donation . It included not only the confirmation of the previous possessions in Mainz and Bingen , but also the areas on both sides of the lower Nahe , the areas on the left bank of the Rhine between Ingelheim and Heimbach and the Rheingau on the right bank of the Rhine . Together with the Aschaffenburg Abbey, these areas were the nucleus of the later electoral state .
The imperial political reason for the Reichstag in Verona was the election of Otto III. (983-1002) as king and designated successor to his father. When Otto II died of malaria that same year, Otto III's power fell. zu, who was only three years old at the time and therefore needed a guardian. After this guardianship sought Heinrich the quarrel, who had still not given up his own claims to rule and therefore Otto III. brought into his power. But Willigis managed to keep the Ottonians in power. It was not Heinrich who became imperial administrator, but Otto II's wife, Empress Theophanu . The Archbishop of Mainz became her closest advisor and after the death of the Empress in 991, when Otto III's grandmother. - the Empress Adelheid († 999) - guardian of the underage king, was the actual ruler of the empire until 994. From these services, the archbishopric received enormous income from tribute payments, which ultimately made it one of the richest dioceses ever.
During the reign of Otto III. tensions arose between the young emperor and his most important imperial prince. The Mainzer's influence on imperial politics therefore waned and was only possible after the death of Otto III. to be restored when Willigis Heinrich II (1002-1024) prevailed as the new king.
For the archbishopric, however, it was not only the imperial policy of the archbishop itself that was extremely important, but another decision, which was probably closely related to it, namely the construction of the new Mainz cathedral . In addition to the view that Willigis began building the Mainz Cathedral when he took office, there is a contradicting view that Willigis began construction later, after a papal decree indirectly denied him the opportunity to perform coronations in Aachen. But the Archbishops of Mainz have been claiming this as their right since Archbishop Hildebert of Mainz (927-937) at the latest . Willigis could have conceived and built the new cathedral, which, like the Coronation Church in Aachen, had bronze doors, as the new Coronation Church. In fact, around the turn of the millennium, it looked for a while as if Mainz could replace Aachen as the coronation site. The kings Heinrich II. And Konrad II. (1024-1039) were crowned in Mainz Cathedral.
The size of the new Mainz Cathedral was a claim to power that had become a stone at the time. Built on the model of Old St. Peter in Rome , the new Mainz Cathedral was to become the state cathedral of the empire and its archbishop to be the Pope's deputy on the other side of the Alps. In fact, Pope Benedict VII had appointed Willigis in his pallium document of March 975 as his deputy in "tota Germania et Gallia". In all church affairs the Archbishop of Mainz should have priority over all other bishops.
Aribo and Bardo
Willigi's successor, the Fulda monk Erkanbald , did not leave any deep marks in the history of the diocese. It was different with his successor, Archbishop Aribo (1021-1031). After he had enforced his claims on the occasion of the election and coronation of Konrad II on September 8, 1024, the question of the right to coronation seemed to be resolved once and for all and Mainz was able to assert priority over Cologne and Trier . But in the same year came the decisive setback: Aribo refused to crown Gisela von Schwaben , who was married to Konrad for the third time . The Cologne Archbishop Pilgrim saw his chance and carried out the coronation on the place of the Mainzer in Cologne. Probably out of annoyance at the Archbishop of Mainz, Konrad's successor, Heinrich III. (1039–1056) crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne in Aachen. With a few exceptions, Aachen remained the official coronation site until it was replaced by Frankfurt . This also meant that the Archbishop of Cologne retained the right to coronation, while the Archbishop of Mainz was responsible for the right to vote.
Aribo's successor was Bardo , born around 980 in Oppertshofen , who, like Erkanbald, had previously been a monk in Fulda. He owed his office to Queen Gisela, with whom he was related. The consecration of the Mainz Cathedral, which was rebuilt in 1036, and the end of the interlocking between the Archkapellanat and the Arch Chancellery fell into Bardo's tenure of more than twenty years. The only thing left for Mainz was the Arch Chancellery , which was now limited to the German part of the empire.
Investiture dispute
The weakness of the papacy in the 11th century made further reforms necessary. Emperor Heinrich III. lifted men he liked on the chair of Peter who no longer came from noble Roman families, but came from the empire. They brought the reform movements of Cluny and Gorze , which were already alive in the empire, to Rome. The reform efforts of the Popes were directed primarily against simony and for the implementation of celibacy . One of the most important representatives of these reform popes was the former bishop of Toul , Leo IX. (1049-1054). In October 1049 he came to Mainz and held a large church assembly in the new cathedral, at which Emperor Heinrich III. and 40 Reich bishops participated. The successor of Leo IX, who died in 1054. could Heinrich III. on a court day in Mainz to decide according to one's own taste, but shortly afterwards the concept of simony was expanded in a text by Humbert by Silva Candidas so that lay investiture, i.e. the existing practice of appointing bishops by the king, also fell under simony. This was the prelude to the so-called investiture dispute , which reached its climax under Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085).
Gregory VII demanded obedience from the king when appointing bishops and therefore fell out with Henry IV (1056–1106), who was now Henry III. was followed. The German princes, including the new archbishop of Mainz Siegfried I. (1060-1084) allied themselves with the king against the pope, who on with spell penalties and excommunication responded. Siegfried and other princes turned around and in 1077 elected an opposing king, Rudolf von Rheinfelden († 1080). Both were chased out of the city by Mainz citizens loyal to the king during the ceremony. Siegfried I remained loyal to the Proregorian party, even when Gregory VII was declared deposed in 1080 after he had banned Henry IV again. However, he was no longer able to exert any greater influence on the events and retired to a monastery.
Even the loyal antipope Clement III. (1080–1100) could no longer prevent the expiry of the king's right to investiture. This had a profound effect on the unity between church and state. The Ottonian-Salian imperial church system had had its day. Pope Urban II (1088-1099) managed to defuse the situation through leniency and skilful politics. His main concern was overcoming the schism that had been triggered by the uprising of Antipope Clement. When he called for the crusade in 1095, he achieved largely undisputed recognition as the supreme authority of the Western Church . The crusade movement soon led to the development of fanatical armies who intended to exterminate Jewish life in the empire before moving to the Holy Land. There were serious pogroms against the Jewish population. In 1096 Count Emicho's crusaders reached Mainz, where there had been a large Jewish community for centuries, and besieged the city. They managed to enter the city on May 27th. Although the Jews were able to flee under the protection of Archbishop Ruthard (1088–1109), the latter was soon overwhelmed by this task and left the Jews to their fate. Almost the entire community was wiped out and only a few managed to escape.
The dispute over the lay investiture was not completely settled even after the final recognition of Urban in the whole of the West. Heinrich V (1106–1125), who finally succeeded Heinrich IV after his death in 1106, insisted on and exercised this right. He appointed the devoted Chancellor Adalbert I of Saarbrücken (1110–1137) as the new Archbishop of Mainz. He hoped from him the support of his position towards Pope Paschal II. (1099-1118). On February 4, 1111, however, Henry V and Paschal II signed a secret treaty, according to which Henry V waived the lay investment, while the Pope was supposed to persuade the imperial bishops to return their goods and regalia under threat of excommunication. This would have hit the princes of the church hard, as they owed their position of power and dignity to these privileges alone. Adalbert I therefore changed sides in 1112 and was imprisoned by the emperor for three years before a revolt by the citizens of Mainz brought him freedom again. In return, he, who as archbishop had been city lord of Mainz as usual since the times of Willigis, granted the citizens a few privileges. But he excommunicated the emperor at Christmas 1115. The investiture dispute could only be finally settled in 1122 with the Worms Concordat .
The Archbishops of Mainz, now committed to the Pope because of their archbishopric dignity and to the Emperor because of their duties as Imperial Chancellor, from then on held a given mediating position, which often made them the focus of events during the disputes between the Staufers and the Pope.
Staufer period
New claims to power
With Heinrich V, the Salian family died out in 1125. Friedrich von Schwaben and Konrad von Schwaben , who were related to the Salians but belonged to the Hohenstaufen dynasty , claimed the crown. Adalbert I succeeded in pushing back the Hohenstaufen claims to power in the 1125 royal election by voting against Lothar III. of Supplinburg and thus secured the free election of the king. This step openly made him an opponent of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, who tried to influence the archbishopric from then on. When the Erzstuhl was vacant for a year after the death of Adalbert I in 1137 , the Hohenstaufen took their chance and raised Konrad of Swabia as Konrad III. (1138–1152) to the royal throne. At the same time they tried to occupy the Mainz seat with a partisan. However, these efforts were unsuccessful. Both Archbishop Adalbert II of Saarbrücken (1138–1141) and Heinrich I (1142–1153) turned out to be more of a strengthening of the Saxon opposition. After his predecessor Markolf, who ruled for only a year, Heinrich was the second archbishop to take office by election. The election was made by a college of clergy, which presumably consisted of a cathedral chapter and important city clergy. Only half a century later did the Mainz cathedral chapter have sole voting rights.
Time of Friedrich Barbarossa
Archbishop Heinrich intended to fill his political offices and expand his influence. This not only led to conflicts with the Archbishop of Cologne, but also with the House of Staufer. When Friedrich I Barbarossa was elected king in 1152 against the opposition of Archbishop Heinrich, the new king immediately took action against the unpleasant archbishop and achieved his removal in 1153. Friedrich I appointed his confidante Arnold von Selenhofen († 1160) as his successor . Arnold had to follow him into costly warlike companies for which he wanted to charge the citizens of Mainz with new taxes. However, they refused and killed the archbishop on June 24, 1160.
The subsequent election of a successor led to a double election. Because of the unrest in the city , clergymen and lay people of the upper class who had fled to Frankfurt elected the provost of the Mariagredenstift Christian I von Buch as the new archbishop, while the rebels forced the clerics who remained in Mainz to elect Rudolf von Zähringen . King Friedrich Barbarossa rejected both elections, referring to an oath taken in 1157 by high clergymen and ministerials to elect a new archbishop only in his or a representative's presence. He therefore caused Pope Viktor IV (1159–1164) to depose both bishops and instead appoint the Wittelsbacher Konrad I (1161–1165) as the new archbishop on June 20, 1161 .
Mainz schism of 1165
The policy of Friedrich Barbarossa was soon viewed critically by Konrad I. Frederick was out to strengthen the power of the Hohenstaufen in Italy against the papacy. When he even had an antipope for it - Paschal III. (1164–1168) - had to vote, the Archbishop of Mainz turned away from him and gave the Pope Alexander III , who was opposed by Friedrich . (1159–1181) 1165 took the oath of allegiance. After this open break, Friedrich appointed Christian I von Buch (1165–1183) as the new archbishop, while the Pope continued to regard Konrad I von Wittelsbach , whom he also made cardinal bishop , as the legal owner of the Archbishop of Mainz. An official schism had existed since 1165 .
Archbishop Christian was above all an imperial politician. In the 18 years of his pontificate he stayed in his archbishopric only twice as quickly, the rest of the time he spent in Italy, where he stood at the side of the Staufer together with the Cologne archbishop Rainald von Dassel . This neglect led to a political and economic crisis in the archbishopric, which could only be resolved when Konrad I von Wittelsbach (1183-1200) was allowed to return to the Mainz archbishop's throne after the death of Christian I in 1183, as its legal owner had looked at each other all these years anyway. He was the first cardinal as pastor of the Mainz church.
Second term of office of Conrad I von Wittelsbach
Konrad I managed the balancing act between his duties as imperial politician and archbishop and developed a good relationship with Emperor Barbarossa. He therefore held several diets in Mainz, the most glamorous of which was the Mainz Court Day at Pentecost 1184 , in which over 40,000 knights and the spiritual elite of the entire empire in Mainz took part on the occasion of the swords of the sons of Barbarossa. Four years later, on March 27, 1188, the Emperor held the so-called Court Day of Jesus Christ in Mainz , from which he and the knighthood set off for the Third Crusade . The emperor died on the way there. His son Heinrich VI. (1190–1197) succeeded him on the throne.
In 1195 Konrad I decided to go on a crusade himself. With the other imperial princes, he chose the two-year-old son of Barbarossa's successor, Heinrich VI. (1190–1197), Friedrich, King of Rome before translating to Palestine in April 1197 . With that, the Archbishop of Mainz and the most important imperial prince was outside the country when the decisive turn of the Middle Ages was looming in the empire a few months later, which also and in particular affected the imperial role of the Archbishop of Mainz. In September 1197, Emperor Heinrich VI died. in Messina . Because of the anti-Staufer opposition in the empire around the Archbishop of Cologne, there was a double election in 1198: In Thuringia, Duke Philip of Swabia , who was subsequently crowned in Mainz Cathedral , was elected, while the opposition elected the Guelph Otto of Braunschweig , who in Aachen was elected by the Archbishop of Cologne let crown. This double election split the empire for decades and led to the fall of the universal imperial power. It also displaced blood law in favor of princely suffrage. Since the Archbishop of Mainz always remained electoral prince (= elector ) until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 , this was an important event for the archbishopric.
Konrad I misunderstood the situation in the empire and did not return to the empire until 1199. The lack of his authority and his far-reaching powers, such as the right to convene to elect a king, probably made the situation at that time significantly more difficult.
Second Mainz schism from 1200
How divided the empire was was also shown in the subsequent archbishopric election. While the majority opted for the Hohenstaufen Bishop Leopold II of Schönfeld (1200-1208), a small minority chose Siegfried II of Eppstein (1200-1230) as the new archbishop. Such a schism existed for eight years before Philip of Swabia was murdered in 1208 and the Welfs gained the upper hand. Leopold II could no longer hold out and had to make way for Siegfried II. Siegfried was the first of four Eppsteiners who held the Archbishop's throne of Mainz in quick succession. In the same year Otto IV was crowned king again. The choice was primarily an expression of the increased power of the imperial princes. The Kurkollegium was already in the development phase. In order to achieve the dignity of emperor, Otto IV waived to Pope Innocent III. (1198–1216) on imperial rights in Italy and - above all - on the rights of participation in German bishops' surveys. This gave rise to the Pope's claim to appoint bishops to the exclusion of the cathedral chapters' right to vote, which in the following centuries also led to frequent upheavals between the Pope and the Mainz Church and thus to schisms that were extremely destructive in the 14th century Diocese and urban development.
Term of office of Frederick II.
Otto IV soon came into conflict with Innocent III because of the Italian question. Archbishop Siegfried II soon turned away from him and tried to enforce the papal line in the empire. As Innocent III. In 1211, Siegfried II insisted on re-election as a king, played a decisive role in the election of the Hohenstaufen Friedrich II (1212–1250) as the opposing king. In 1212 he crowned him in Mainz Cathedral. In retaliation for this betrayal, Otto IV had several Mainz territories laid to rubble and ashes, which, however, could no longer change his disempowerment.
In order to secure the rule of the Hohenstaufens beyond his death, Frederick II had his son Heinrich (VII) elected as king at an imperial assembly in Frankfurt in 1220 . He could only achieve this by granting the ecclesiastical princes such a large number of privileges that this Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis actually represented the beginning of territorial rule by the ecclesiastical princes, including the Electoral Mainz state . Friedrich II then moved to Italy, where he stayed for 15 years. Because the intended imperial administrator , Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne , fell victim to an assassination attempt in 1225, Siegfried II was the determining person in imperial politics during this time. His loyalty to Frederick II was partly responsible for the fact that after the excommunication of Frederick II in 1227, no new opposing king was elected, but a reconciliation between Pope and Emperor came about.
Archbishop Siegfried II of Eppstein was followed by his nephew Siegfried III in 1230 . von Eppstein (1230-1249). He pursued a policy that was friendly to the Hohenstaufen and was keen to increase the political weight of the Prince of Mainz.
Significant for the term of office of Siegfried III. was the "final battle" of the Staufer dynasty with the papacy, which began in 1237 and in the course of which the archbishop and imperial administrator changed sides in 1241. He allied himself with the Archbishop of Cologne and took to the field against the emperor. The result were a number of wars that affected the archbishopric, especially since not all members of the cathedral chapter wanted to take part in the archbishop's turnaround. The citizens of the episcopal city of Mainz were also rather Hohenstaufen. To change that, Siegfried III. an extensive city privilege to the citizens in 1244 and thus founded the Free City of Mainz , which until 1462 meant the end of the city rule of the Archbishops of Mainz, which had existed in principle since the days of Bishop Sidonius and had been established at the latest since Archbishop Willigis .
That gave Siegfried his back. He succeeded in getting his successor as Reich Administrator - Heinrich Raspe IV. - on his side, whereby the Hohenstaufen rule in the empire finally came to an end.
By the end of the 13th century
After the death of Frederick II, the interregnum began in the empire . The successors of Siegfried III. on the Archbishop's throne of Mainz used the time to strengthen their position as sovereigns. The confoederatio of Frederick II had made them independent princes. Their territory, however, always remained fragmented. At that time it extended over the areas of the Veronese donation already described, the lands in and around Aschaffenburg and the city of Erfurt in Thuringia. The people of Mainz intended to expand this territory. This resulted in disputes over the territory of the Thuringian county, which claimed the Mainz itself, which also by Sophie of Brabant , a subsidiary of St.. Elizabeth and her son Henry I was claimed. The territorial disputes between the archbishopric and the Thuringians and Hesse continued for centuries. The archbishops were more successful in expanding the so-called Oberstift, the area around Aschaffenburg .
The interregnum only ended during the tenure of Archbishop Werner von Eppstein (1259–1284). This had tried to create the conditions for a new king election. From it emerged in 1273 Rudolf von Habsburg . The disputes with the Bohemian King Ottokar II took place in Werner’s further term . King Ottokar II tried to detach the dioceses of Olomouc and Prague from the Mainz church province in order to reduce the influence of the Mainz archbishops. As the responsible metropolitan, he was also responsible for the coronation of the Bohemian kings. Werner managed, however, to dissuade Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261) from separating the areas.
Werner's successor was the minorite Heinrich II (1286–1288) from Isny im Allgäu in 1286 after two years of vacancy . He was the last bourgeois archbishop of Mainz. Henry II was not elected by the cathedral chapter, but appointed by Pope Honorius IV (1285–1287), which was an example of the emerging central power of the papacy. The popes have been claiming the right to occupy the dioceses for themselves since Clement IV (1265–1268) at the latest , and thus encountered resistance from the cathedral chapters, who were thus disempowered. In the Mainz church, too, this manifestation of the papal claim to power should lead to serious disputes with all bishop appointments in the 14th century. After the death of Heinrich II, the Archbishop's throne of Mainz was forever reserved for the nobility, as was membership in the cathedral chapter 50 years later. Since the archbishops were often on the move in matters of imperial politics, the cathedral capitulars had great power in the archbishopric, especially as they could rely on their noble houses.
Heinrich II was followed by the fourth (and last) Eppsteiner on the Archbishop's throne of Mainz: In 1289, Gerhard II (1289–1305) was again appointed by the Pope as Archbishop of Mainz. Like Werner von Eppstein, he pursued a policy that aimed at an electoral monarchy, that is, should strengthen the position of the electors. This brought him into natural opposition to King Rudolf von Habsburg, who wanted to install a hereditary kingship. After Rudolf's death, the Eppsteiner seemed to be able to enforce his policy. He made sure that not Rudolf's son Albrecht, but Adolf von Nassau (1292–1298) , who did not have a household power, became the new king. Adolf immediately intervened in the sovereign rights of the archbishop, which is why the archbishop declared him deposed on June 23, 1298 and instead had the Austrian Albrecht I elected as the new king. Shortly thereafter, however, Albrecht began waging a war against the electors, from which he emerged victorious. This was a heavy defeat for Archbishop Gerhard II, who had burdened his archbishopric with heavy debts as a result of the feuds. Gerhard II, under whose pontificate the Wheel of Mainz was included in the archbishop's coat of arms, died in 1305.
The Reich politician: Archbishop Peter von Aspelt
Even Peter of Aspelt (1305-1320), one of the greatest archbishops of Mainz of the Middle Ages, was again appointed against the will of the chapter by the Pope. The Pope - Clement V - relied on a decree from Boniface VIII , who had reserved the occupation of the Archdiocese of Mainz. Peter von Aspelt proved to be an excellent politician in troubled times. Together with the House of Luxembourg, whose offspring Henry VII he helped to obtain the royal crown, he developed into a bearer of hope for stable conditions in the empire. After he had lifted Johann from Luxembourg to the Bohemian royal throne, he received rich gifts from him, with which he was able to restore the ruined finances of his archbishopric. He secured his sovereignty by regaining the important toll castles of Oberlahnstein and Ehrenfels . After Heinrich's sudden death in 1313, the old conflicts and wars broke out again in the empire. In 1314 there was a double election, which caused further devastation and also affected the Archdiocese of Mainz and the Archbishopric. It was the last battle between the Empire and Sacerdotium, which ended with the Golden Bull in 1356 . The election of a king was then independent of the power of the Pope.
Troubled conditions in the 14th century
The 14th century, as well as the following, was a very turbulent time not only in terms of empire politics, but also in relation to the conditions in the archbishopric and archbishopric. The dispute between Pope John XXII. (1316–1334) and Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian (1314–1347) also found expression in the diocese of the most important imperial prince. So it was a good thing that the new Archbishop Matthias von Buchegg (1321-1328) maintained a good relationship with his Trier official brother Baldwin of Luxembourg , although Matthias, instead of Baldwin, who was actually elected, had come to his high office by papal appointment. Under the influence of Trier, Matthias von Buchegg adhered to a more deliberate and covert imperial policy and did not take a clear position in the heated argument. But this was by Pope John XXII. Called in gratitude for the appointment. In addition, the Pope put the Mainz pastors under pressure by demanding immense servitien money. Servitia were funds that a bishop had to pay to the Curia - at that time in Avignon - for papal appointment or confirmation . Since Matthias found the funds difficult or impossible to raise, the Pope expected at least political support from the most important imperial prince. However, this largely failed to materialize. Within his diocese, his pontificate was marked by the citizens' striving for emancipation and serious disputes between citizens and clergy. Matthias managed to keep his person out of the disputes by granting the citizens of Erfurt and Mainz further privileges. However, this did nothing to change the fundamental conflict that became increasingly serious in the decades that followed. As a territorial politician, Matthias pursued an offensive course. Like almost all of his predecessors in the 13th and 14th centuries, he got involved in serious feuds with the Landgraviate of Hesse, which ultimately ended in defeat. The Landgraviate of Hesse was located between the Electoral Mainz areas on the Rhine and the Wetterau and the city of Erfurt, which together with its surroundings also belonged to the ore monastery. The Mainz church princes wanted to create a contiguous territory, which is why they claimed the landgraviate. However, in this endeavor they never succeeded.
Schism of 1328
After the death of Archbishop Matthias von Buchegg in September 1328, power struggles broke out again between the Pope and the cathedral chapter over the occupation of the Erzstuhls. The cathedral capitulars allowed each elected member to grant them extensive rights in an election surrender . They saw the papal institution policy as a natural threat to this approach. As in 1320, the Mainz capitulars demonstratively elected Archbishop Baldwin of Trier as the new archbishop. The Pope refused his recognition and appointed Henry III in 1328 . von Virneburg as the new archbishop. Since Baldwin, contrary to his attitude, made no move to resign from the office in 1320, a schism existed from that point on . In the subsequent military conflicts in the so-called Mainz diocese dispute , Baldwin was able to rely on his Trier possessions and almost all cathedral capitals. Henry III. on the other hand, the citizens of Mainz won by recognizing their privileges for his side. A revolt therefore broke out between the cathedral chapter and the citizenship in 1329, in which not only the monasteries and monasteries of St. Alban, St. Jakob and St. Viktor were destroyed, but also almost the entire clergy was driven out of the city. Unimpressed by this, Baldwin continued to try to break the resistance in the city. He had the city enclosed and built the cities of Eltville and Flörsheim am Main into fortresses in order to block the Mainz trade routes from there. The castle in Eltville then became the preferred residence of the Archbishops of Mainz for 200 years. The city still bears the Mainz wheel in its coat of arms.
When Baldwin allied himself with the German King Ludwig the Bavarian, who imposed an imperial ban on the city because of the destruction and also allowed the Luxembourger to fortify the city of Frankfurt , the Mainz residents gave up and sought a comparison with Baldwin and the king in 1332 . The Trier had prevailed. But Heinrich III. von Virneburg, long since isolated in the empire, continued to insist on his claim and could also be sure of papal support. The successor of John XXII., Benedict XII. (1335–1342) finally excommunicated the Archbishop of Trier and administrator of Mainz and with him the entire cathedral chapter. He also imposed the interdict over the entire archdiocese .
These measures made Baldwin of Luxembourg ready to give in. On November 12, 1336, he declared his resignation from the Holy See of Mainz. The Curia in Avignon was satisfied with this and wanted to finally settle the crisis through envoys. Their apparently too imperious demeanor, however, flared up the conflict and led to an anti-papal mood in the city and the archbishopric. In this situation, Henry III. von Virneburg a political U-turn and made Ludwig the Bavarian on June 29, 1337 the oath of allegiance. In order to achieve recognition of the Mainz cathedral chapter, the archbishop had to make high concessions, which made the capitulars the real winners of the Mainz diocese dispute. Archbishop Heinrich III. on the other hand, because of his change of sides, Pope Benedict XII. suspended and excommunicated, but continued to exercise his office.
Separation of the suffragan dioceses in Prague and Olomouc
Henry III. tried from February 1338 to mediate in the dispute between Ludwig the Bavarian and the Pope. However, all compromise proposals were rejected by the Curia. This led to an anti-curial policy in the empire, which finally culminated in the Rhenser Kurverein on July 16, 1338. The electors decided that the elected king did not need papal confirmation in order to exercise his rights. This put an end to the papal sovereignty claim to the royal crown and increased the importance of the electoral college considerably, especially that of the Mainz elector, who played a special role in the election. He called the election and had his vote last since 1356, so that in the event of a tie, the decision was his. This also meant that the importance of the act of coronation lost its official significance, and thus weakened the influence of the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, who had always been the greatest rival of the Electors of Mainz in the struggle for political power in the empire. Accordingly, the Archbishop of Cologne, Walram , immediately withdrew from the Kurverein.
The Kurverein meant a strengthening of King Ludwig, who was still not recognized by the Pope, and could have led to stable conditions if Ludwig the Bavarian had not got into a dispute with King John of Bohemia , who was a scion of the House of Luxembourg-Bohemia, due to his domestic power policy . The curia around the new Pope Clement VI. (1342–1352) saw this as an opportunity to overthrow the unloved Ludwig after all and built the son of the Bohemian king, Charles of Moravia (1316–1378), to become an anti-king. The Archbishop of Trier, Baldwin of Luxembourg , indicated to the Pope in 1343 that he wanted to convince the electors to elect a new king. His adversary Heinrich III. von Virneburg remained a loyal follower of Bavaria. Charles of Moravia therefore asked the Pope to be allowed to be crowned King of Bohemia not by the (competent) Archbishop of Mainz, but by the Bishop of Prague in the case of his crowning king. Clement VI. initially granted him this as an exception. But after the Pope again brought charges against the Archbishop, who was excommunicated in 1338, Karl cleverly exploited this dispute to resolve the dioceses of Prague and Olomouc from the Mainz church province. On April 30, 1344, Clement VI. Prague to the archbishopric with Olomouc as a suffragan . The Archbishop of Prague also received the privilege of coronation for the Bohemian kings.
Another schism in 1346
After Heinrich III. even after the separation of the eastern suffragan bishoprics continued to oppose a renewed election, the Pope declared him deposed on April 7, 1346 and appointed Gerlach of Nassau (1346-1371) as the new archbishop. Although this was not accepted by the Mainz cathedral chapter, it was nevertheless able to fulfill its intended task of calling a king to be elected. On July 11, 1346, the electors of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Saxony and Bohemia met in Rhens and elected Charles of Moravia , now Charles IV, as the new king. Although Charles IV promised his support to Gerlach von Nassau, he did not fulfill this promise sufficiently, which is why Gerlach did not oppose Heinrich III. von Virneburg was able to prevail. Even after his death, he could not feel himself to be the master of the archbishopric, as the powerful cathedral provost Kuno II von Falkenstein in particular opposed him. A peace treaty was only concluded between the two in 1354, which finally secured the archbishopric for Nassauer. During his pontificate, as an imperial politician, he played a major role in the enactment of the Golden Bull (1356), which finally regulated the election of a king and the rights of the number of electors, now set at seven. Thereafter, the Elector of Mainz had the right to invite and chair the election. The place of choice was Frankfurt am Main , which belonged to the Archdiocese of Mainz. In addition, the imperial law confirmed the resolutions of the Rhenser Kurverein, according to which those elected with a majority of votes could immediately exercise their royal rights. The Golden Bull meant for Mainz an extremely strong position in the constitution of the empire. It remained in force until the end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806.
Great occidental schism
Archbishop Gerlach succeeded Johann von Luxemburg-Ligny (1371-1373) in 1371 , whose pontificate remained without any significance. The cathedral chapter then elected Adolf I of Nassau (1373-1390) as the new archbishop. The necessary confirmation of the election by Pope Gregory XI. (1370-1378) was thwarted by Emperor Charles IV for political reasons. Instead, the emperor managed to get the Pope to appoint Bamberg Bishop Ludwig von Meißen (1374–1381) as the new archbishop. However, this was not accepted by the cathedral chapter. Again a schism resulted, in the course of which there were armed conflicts between the two candidates over the possessions of the archbishopric. Adolf I kept the upper hand in the fighting. Nevertheless, Ludwig von Meissen remained the archbishop recognized by the Pope and Emperor and as such also took part in the election and coronation of Wenceslaus as king in 1376. This situation did not change until 1378. But then, in April of that year, the cardinals voted - now back in Rome, the "exile of Avignon" had Gregory XI. Completed in 1376 - Urban VI. (1378–1389) as the new Pope. But his administration soon made the cardinals abandon him. They declared the election invalid and elected on September 20, 1378 Robert of Geneva, who ascended the chair of Peter as Clement VII (1378-1394). The consequence of this double election was the division of the entire Western Church.
The split also affected the Mainz schism. The cathedral chapter had the Urban VI case. submitted for examination. This was initially inclined to the cathedral capitular and confirmed Adolf I as archbishop. But Wenzel, ruler of the empire after the death of Charles IV on November 29, 1378, insisted on Ludwig von Meissen. Wenceslaus was the most important ally of Urban VI, so the Pope withdrew Adolf I's confirmation at the king's request. Adolf I and his allies then recognized Clement VII as the rightful Pope, who gladly accepted the chance to win a powerful ally in the empire and declared Adolf I the rightful holder of the Holy See of Mainz. Both candidates subsequently insisted on their claims. It was not until 1381 that an agreement was reached between King Wenceslaus and Adolf I of Nassau. The Nassauer recognized Urban VI. and became Archbishop of Mainz with royal and papal confirmation. Ludwig von Meißen was resigned to the Archdiocese of Magdeburg. This ended the last long schism in the Mainz church.
Until his death on February 6, 1390, Adolf I of Nassau ruled undisputed. His pontificate was primarily characterized by efforts to create security and peace in troubled and uncertain times. In the same month, on February 27, 1390, the cathedral chapter, consisting of 28 capitulars, elected Konrad II of Weinsberg (1390-1396) as the new archbishop. The decisive factor in his choice was the fact that he would be on the Roman side on the question of the Pope's schism. He was therefore by Pope Boniface IX. (1389–1404) also confirmed immediately. Konrad II tried to keep the peace on the Rhine and the surrounding area and in 1392 concluded an alliance with Worms, Speyer and Frankfurt. The support of the Landgrave of Hesse in elevating him to the rank of imperial prince turned out to be less than happy. The Landgraviate of Hesse had been the great rival of the Mainz electors for several centuries in Central German territorial policy. The elevation to the new status made it even more powerful and soon overtook the Mainz team. In October 1395 Konrad took part in the electoral meeting in Boppard , at which the four Rhenish electors considered the choice of an opposing king to Wenzel, who was increasingly perceived as unworthy. The archbishop died on October 20, 1396 after a brief and otherwise insignificant pontificate.
15th century
The successor to the Archbishop sought Johann von Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein (1397–1419), who had already made 1390 claims. He secured the support of Count Palatine Ruprecht II and the citizens of Mainz, who have persistently pursued the extension of their rights since the granting of freedom privileges in 1244. However, the cathedral chapter did not decide in its favor, but chose the nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne, Jofrid von Leiningen , as the new shepherd. John II of Nassau protested against the election to Pope Boniface IX. a. This accepted the request of the Nassauer and appointed him on January 24, 1397 as the new archbishop. Supported by the six other electors, Johann II was able to enforce his claim immediately and take possession of the archbishopric. As already described, the Rhenish electors had already followed King Wenceslas' policy with suspicion before the term of office of John II. Wenzel intended to shift the focus of the empire to the east, which could not be in the interests of the Rhenish electors. They reunited in 1399 to form the Kurverein and declared Wenceslaus on August 20, 1400 deposed. In his place they elected Ruprecht III a day later in Rhens . from the Palatinate (now Ruprecht I) to the new king. Although he was a supporter of Roman obedience - the occidental schism still persisted - Boniface IX hesitated. his appreciation beyond. During this time, Johann II. And Ruprecht III. in dissent. This dispute later had an impact on church politics.
In 1409, cardinals of both obediences attempted a solution to settle the schism. They convened the Council of Pisa, which declared both the Pope in Avignon and the one in Rome to be deposed and instead elected Alexander V (1409–1410) as the new Pope. However, this did not bring about a settlement of this crisis of the papacy and the Western Church: instead of two obediences there were now three. Because Ruprecht stuck to Rome, Johann II took the side of the Pisan obedience, which is why he was appointed by Pope Alexander a “born legate with full authority”, a title previously reserved for the Patriarchs of the East. The deposed Roman Pope Gregory XII. (1406–1415) declared the supporters of the Pisan Pope Alexander to be schismatic and induced King Ruprecht I to replace the supporters of Alexander with prelates loyal to Rome. As the successor to Johann II as Archbishop of Mainz, Gregor XII. Matthew of Cracow , whom he appointed Apostolic Legate . Matthäus immediately transferred part of his power to the Bishop of Verden , who declared Johann II deposed in 1410.
Much more dangerous for Johann and the unity of the archbishopric, however, was that the Landgrave of Hesse, Hermann II (1376–1413), also a supporter of Gregory XII. was. Hermann II saw in the dispute over the rightful Pope his chance had come to decide the dispute over territorial supremacy for the House of Hesse, which had been going on for two centuries. Gregory XII. allowed Hermann II to detach Hesse from the Mainz jurisdiction by allowing him to fill the church positions in his lands himself. Although Hermann could not achieve final success, the first step for a regional church was taken. The Hessians reached their destination in the 16th century.
After the death of King Ruprecht on May 18, 1410, there was again a double election under the disrupted Kurkollegium. The candidate of the Mainz and Cologne elector died shortly afterwards, which is why they also decided for the candidate of the Trier and the Elector Palatinate, Sigismund (1411-1437). After lengthy negotiations, he succeeded in convening the Council of Constance in 1414 . Archbishop Johann II also took part in it. The council was supposed to end the occidental schism. The three popes were finally deposed and the Italian Oddo di Calonna was elected as the new pope, who ascended the throne as Martin V (1417–1431).
Archbishop Johann II died in 1419. One of his last official acts was the liquidation of the once famous and now badly damaged Abbey of St. Alban, which became a knightly collegiate monastery .
Conflicts
In the following years, the diocese was also affected by the resistance between the clergy and the aspiring bourgeoisie in the episcopal city. The Free City of Mainz was heading towards the final dispute, which ended with the defeat of the bourgeoisie and the end of the Free City. Significantly, John's successor was not elected in the city, but at Ehrenfels Castle, where the cathedral chapter for Konrad III. von Dhaun (1419–1434) decided. Conrad III. initially did not participate in the crusade against Wiclifites and Hussites proclaimed by Martin V, but took care of the stability of the empire. However , he soon had to resign from the imperial vicariate that had been awarded to him for this in 1422 in order not to lose the support of the other spiritual electors. He needed their backing because another war with Hesse was looming. In 1425 he broke out openly.
The Battle of Großenenglis finally led to the Peace of Frankfurt, which was concluded on December 6, 1427. It sealed the end of Electoral Mainz supremacy in Hesse and led to a separation of sovereign and spiritual power. This had far-reaching consequences later in the Reformation.
In the ongoing conflict with the citizens of his episcopal city, Konrad III. initially carefully. He confirmed the citizens' privileges, but was unable to end the social unrest in the city, as there were now arguments among the citizens themselves. The underprivileged guilds fought with the patricians for more influence in the administration of the city. Conrad III. managed a provisional peace agreement in 1430, which was followed in 1433 by such a violent conflict between the citizens and the clergy that the clergy left the city. The pastoral care of the city came to a standstill, Archbishop Konrad III. also imposed excommunication on the city. Shortly afterwards he died. His successor was Dietrich Schenk von Erbach (1434-1459), who was elected by the cathedral capitals in Bingen . His electoral capitulation shows that the cathedral chapter no longer claimed ever more extensive rights to the management of the diocese and the archbishopric, as in the previous decades. Dietrich's term of office, which lasted a quarter of a century, was mainly characterized by the conflicts in his episcopal city, the feuds with the Landgraves of Hesse and church crises. Even before the election, the city's clergy had turned to the Council of Basel , where a compromise was reached between the citizens of Mainz and the clergy in 1435. This council, a result of the conciliarism that arose in Constance , was at the same time the trigger for internal church crises, which were sparked above all by papal financial claims against the spiritual princes. At the provincial synods in Mainz and Aschaffenburg, the call for comprehensive reforms in the church grew louder. Archbishop Dietrich had a moderating effect on these efforts.
Mainz collegiate feud
After Dietrich's death, the bishopric was elected in June 1459. The cathedral chapter had to choose between the Nassau Count Adolf II and the cathedral custodian Diether von Isenburg and finally voted with a narrow majority for the Isenburg. He immediately had to certify the so-called anti-Palatinate alliance, which had come about as early as 1458 due to a dispute with the Count Palatine Friedrich the Victorious . Diether immediately forged an alliance and went to the field against the Count Palatine, but lost the decisive battle of Pfeddersheim in July 1460. Since Diether was only able to achieve his papal confirmation with great difficulty and for high servitia money (20,000 fl ), he opposed the political, legal and financial Requirements from the Emperor and Pope. Pius II then ran his replacement by Adolf von Nassau, who was defeated in the 1459 election. On October 1, 1461 Adolf was enthroned. Since Diether von Isenburg did not resign, there was again a schism that both parties tried to resolve militarily. The result was the so-called Mainz collegiate feud. Diether managed to get the Mainz city council and the Count Palatine to his side. Frederick I and his allies inflicted a serious defeat on the Nassauer's allies in June 1462. Adolf was not defeated by this, however. By betraying the citizens of Mainz, he succeeded in conquering the city of Mainz on the night of October 28, 1462. He immediately took away all the privileges of the citizens and subjected them to the rule of a vice cathedral to be installed by the archbishop.
The collegiate feud itself could only be settled after several attempts to mediate in October 1463. Diether waived and was compensated accordingly. The alliances of the two opponents around the ore chair had, however, been bought at dearly with prescriptions on their own and archaeological property. A number of castles and cities passed into Palatinate, Hessian and, for a short time, Saxon property. Debt regulation remained a dominant topic in the Erzstift for the next few years.
The further reign of Adolf von Nassau was marked primarily by the reference to the emperor. Adolf largely withdrew from the government of the archbishopric and resided at the emperor's court as his chancellor. He died on September 6, 1475 in Eltville.
Second term of office of Diether von Isenburg
After Adolf's death, the cathedral chapter elected Diether von Isenburg (1475–1482) as archbishop, as in 1459. In gratitude for this election, the new archbishop had to cede the city of Mainz to the cathedral chapter, a situation that lasted just under a year before an uprising of the citizens restored archbishop rule. Diether built a castle and made Mainz an archbishop's residence city. He also successfully promoted efforts to establish a university in the city. It was opened on October 1, 1477. In order to hold his territory together and especially to keep the city of Erfurt , Diether sought an alliance with the Saxon Elector Ernst . He had his son Adalbert elected as coadjutor with the right of succession. After Diether's death, Adalbert, then only 18, was enthroned in Mainz. He was supported by a government whose "strong man" Berthold von Henneberg was able to resolve the conflict over Erfurt in the Peace of Amorbach. After Adalbert died suddenly in 1484, the Henneberger followed him on the Mainz bishop's throne.
Berthold von Henneberg
The term of office of Berthold von Henneberg (1484–1504) falls on the eve of the Reformation. The necessary internal church reforms initiated by the Councils of Constance (1414–1418) and Basel (1431–1449) were not implemented under the new Pope Innocent VIII (1484–1492). In contrast, the new Archbishop of Mainz tried to reform the church. The disciplining of the clergy and the promotion of popular piety were among his main goals. He also worked on a new Reich Concordat to remedy the widely criticized deficiencies in the allocation of church offices and papal financial practices. In the end, however, Berthold was unable to assert himself with these demands.
Like many of his predecessors, Berthold von Henneberg was primarily a Reich politician. He took part in the election of Maximilian I , who not only confirmed the possession of the city of Mainz to the archbishop (as was the practice since 1462), but also personally entrusted him with the management of the Reich Chancellery. The Archbishop's reform efforts were aimed at overcoming territorial particularism. Berthold advocated an amendment to the constitution that should involve the princes and imperial estates in the imperial and government organs. The imperial family, on the other hand, advocated the creation of a strong central authority.
Berthold initially seemed to be able to assert himself against Maximilian, weakened by military defeats. In 1500 a first imperial regiment was established , in which the king only had priority of honor. But Maximilian refused to cooperate, which made the regiment ineffective. In 1502 he picked it up again. Berthold von Henneberg had failed with his plans. This led to a political isolation of the Archbishop of Mainz, which his successors could not overcome either. The failure of the necessary reforms at the imperial and church level finally paved the way for the Reformation.
reformation
Beginning of the Reformation
Berthold's successors, Jakob von Liebenstein (1504–1508) and Uriel von Gemmingen (1508–1514) were irrelevant. The cathedral chapter elected Albrecht of Brandenburg as Uriel's successor in 1514 . At that time Albrecht was already Archbishop of Magdeburg and Administrator of Halberstadt. For each of these appointments, Albrecht had to pay high servitia money to Rome in order to obtain his confirmation from the Pope. Albrecht had to take out large loans, for the repayment of which he had letters of indulgence sold through the Dominican Father Johann Tetzel with papal approval . The Wittenberg theology professor Martin Luther objected to this practice and sent Albrecht, in whose Brandenburg district Wittenberg was located, a letter in which he commented on 95 theses on indulgence and his current practice. This actually not unusual process triggered the Reformation in church and empire . For too long both necessary reforms had closed themselves off. What initially as internal church reform movement began, ended in 1521 with the excommunication of Luther and the division of Christendom .
Effects of the Reformation on the Archdiocese
The Reformation soon took hold in Mainz as well. Professors from the university and vicars at the cathedral joined the new teaching. The preachers Wolfgang Fabricius Capito and Kaspar Hedio came from Basel to Mainz as cathedral preachers. Capito was appointed to Albrecht's council, and Hedio soon got a position as a lecturer at the University of Mainz. Both insisted on pulling the humanistically educated Albrecht to the side of the Reformation. But events at the imperial level changed the situation and the attitude of the archbishop.
Pfaffenkrieg and loss of Hesse
The influential Franz von Sickingen , an imperial ministerial and supporter of the Reformation, instigated the so-called “Pfaffenkrieg” in 1522 when he tried to wrest the Trier archbishopric from Trier Elector Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads . The elector was able to fight off the attack with the help of his allies, Count Palatine Ludwig V and Landgrave Philip I of Hesse . Elector Albrecht did not support the allied princes and had to atone for it with 25,000 guilders. The Hessian Landgrave emerged stronger from the dispute. This and the Reformation now gave him the opportunity to wrest the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Hessian areas from the Archbishop of Mainz after he had already gained sovereignty in the past. In 1527 the Hessian regional church had become a reality.
Peasant Wars
The uprisings during the German Peasants' War , which began in the archbishopric in February 1525, posed a further threat to the existing order of the electoral state . They were directed primarily against the aristocratic manors and tax exemptions, as well as the tax privileges of individual cities. In May 1525, the rebels succeeded in forcing the governor of Albrecht, who was staying in Halle, Bishop Wilhelm of Strasbourg to accept the Twelve Points . In the same month, however, they were defeated by an army of princes. The power of the archbishopric was restored, the privileges of the cities and regions that made agreements with the rebels were withdrawn.
Reformation rejection
The priests 'war and the peasants' war increasingly led to a rejection of the Reformation in the archbishopric. However, anti-reform measures had started earlier. In 1523 Albrecht issued a decree to take stronger action against the Reformation in accordance with the resolutions of the Nuremberg Reichstag. In 1524 the first reformatory preachers were arrested. In April 1525, citizens of Mainz dared to revolt against the privileges of the clergy, but had to submit to the princes who had been victorious in the German Peasants' War and leave the city to the archbishop. The episode ended the history of Reformation movements in Mainz. In other areas of the archbishopric, especially in Frankfurt, the Reformation continued to advance.
Catholic reform movement
The Reformation meant that the decades-old demand for church reform was finally able to prevail. The rejection of the Reformation was followed by the beginning of a Catholic reform, both in the Archdiocese and in the universal Church.
A reform of the clergy and doctrine of the faith appeared to be of particular importance to the leading clergy of the time. Albrecht, who - as he complained to a papal legate - knew almost all of his priests were cohabiting , founded a commission specifically for clerical reform, to which the Mainz auxiliary bishop Michael Helding also belonged. It was also Helding who, as cathedral preacher from 1542 to 1544, delivered 24 sermons on the apostolic creed , our father , the Ave Maria , the ten commandments and the seven sacraments , which appeared in 1551 as a German “catechism, that is Christian instruction”. Along with the provost of St. Bartholomew in Frankfurt and later Bishop of Hildesheim Valentin von Teutleben, as well as the cathedral preacher and later bishop of Vienna Friedrich Nausea, Helding was one of the most important representatives of the Catholic reform in the Archdiocese of Mainz, who from 1543 also had the first Jesuits around Peter Canisius joined.
The reform efforts at the level of the universal church led in 1544 to the convening of the Council of Trent by Pope Paul III. (1534-1549). The opening planned for March 1545 dragged on until December 13th. In the meantime the Archbishop of Mainz Albrecht had died. The cathedral capitulars elected Sebastian von Heusenstamm (1545–1555) from their ranks as his successor . He was immediately faced with political problems in the empire, which is why he called Helding back to Mainz, who was the only German cleric sent to Trento.
Path to religious peace
The Reformation had split the empire into two denominations and thus seriously endangered imperial unity. After unsuccessful efforts at the diplomatic level, Emperor Charles V began the war against the Schmalkaldic League in 1546 , in which the Protestant imperial princes had united. Since Mainz was in the immediate vicinity of Protestant principalities, it tried to remain neutral in the conflict, but this turned out to be disadvantageous, since Hesse still warred the archbishopric and the emperor demanded contributions . The emperor intended to force the Protestants to attend the Council of Trent, at which religious unity was to be restored. Before it could come to that, Paul III. however, the council was repealed in 1548. Charles V then had theologians, including Michael Helding, work out an independent religious compromise, the so-called " Augsburg Interim ". In 1548 it became an imperial law. The emperor also instructed the bishops to hold visitations and synods in their districts. A major visitation activity immediately began in Mainz, in the course of which a number of congregations that had become Evangelical were reconciled in the Archbishopric. This was more difficult in the areas that belonged only ecclesiastically but not territorially to Mainz, i.e. all parts of the archdiocese outside the electoral state. Hesse and Saxony refused to do any visiting work there. For the remainder of the bishopric, however, a comprehensive visitation report was put together, which was to form the basis for working out further reform efforts. He showed a completely different diocese structure. The Archdiocese had lost 700 parishes and 300 of 370 monasteries during the Reformation. Archbishop Sebastian von Heusenstamm reacted and called a diocesan synod in September 1548, which was supposed to show practical ways to reform the church. Clergy who had become Protestant also took part in the synod. Sebastian also sought to implement the results of this synod at the level of his ecclesiastical province, which is why he held a provincial synod in May 1549, to which the chief shepherds of the suffragans were invited.
Charles V, however, had not given up his goal of restoring the unity of faith at a council. He urged Pope Julius III. (1549–1555) to convene the Council of Trent again, which the Pope did in 1551. Archbishop Sebastian and the other two clergy princes took part in the first deliberations. However, the Protestant princes continued to refuse to send a delegation to the council. They saw in the imperial efforts an attempt to limit their independence in favor of a strengthening of the central authority. In 1552 there was a prince revolt . It finally led to the Passau Treaty , which preceded the Augsburg religious peace. The Protestants were placed on an equal footing with the Catholics under imperial law.
The prince uprising initially did not affect the archbishopric. Soon, however, Albrecht Alcibiades von Brandenburg-Kulmbach , who was a member of the rebellious princes, began to attack the archbishopric. His troops attacked Oppenheim, Worms, Speyer, Aschaffenburg and finally Mainz, where he had several pens looted and burned. Mainz could not recover from this blow for a long time, and Archbishop Sebastian accused the emperor, who had temporarily made a pact with Albrecht Alcibiades, of having abandoned the archbishopric. Sebastian also advocated the conclusion of an imperial religious peace, which seemed to him the only chance to save the spiritual pens . On September 25, 1555, the Augsburg Religious Peace was concluded.
Counter-reformation
However, Sebastian von Heusenstamm did not live to see this peace agreement at the Augsburg Reichstag. The death of the archbishop brought the Mainz cathedral chapter under pressure. Electoral Saxony demanded the leadership of the Reich Chancellery at the Reichstag, the Count Palatine and the Hessian Landgrave tried to enforce Reichard von Simmern , who was inclined to Protestantism, as Sebastian's successor. However, the cathedral chapter decided on Daniel Brendel von Homburg (1555–1582). It is possible that this decision prevented it from becoming Protestant. The pontificate of Homburg was decisive for the completion of the Catholic reform and the beginning of the Counter-Reformation . Because of the resolutions of the Augsburg Religious Peace, such actions had to be limited to the area of the Archbishopric. A large part of the archbishopric was under the rule of the Protestant Hessian landgrave or the Calvinist count palatine.
Without prejudice to this, the new archbishop set about the task before him. To do this, he first brought the Jesuits to Mainz. Contacts with the new order already existed in 1551. The new archbishop sent alumni for training to Jesuit colleges in Rome and Cologne and created the financial basis for a separate college in Mainz. In March 1561 an official contract was signed between the archbishopric and the order. In October the first Jesuits came to Mainz and opened a school where, in addition to high school, philosophical and theological lessons were also held. Archbishop Daniel ordered her acceptance as a university professor in 1562. In 1568 the founding deed of the new Jesuit college in Mainz was issued. This college was then the most important training facility of the Archbishopric for two centuries. The first rector of the branch was from 1561 until his death, Father Lambert Auer (1533–1573). The Jesuits succeeded in reviving the troubled Catholic religious system. The Protestant teachings that predominated in parts of the population disappeared again.
The second step was the implementation of the reform decrees of the Council of Trent . The council, which was interrupted after the prince uprising in 1552, was resumed by the new Pope Pius IV in 1561. The unstable relationships between the two denominational groups did not allow the clergy princes of Mainz, Cologne and Trier to participate. Archbishop Daniel feared that Count Palatine Friedrich III. could carry out his threat to secularize the archbishopric in his absence. The Protestants could also have seen the breach of religious peace in a visit to the council. The implementation of the Tridentine decrees was fraught with the same problems. The compulsory enforcement did not seem appropriate to the Elector of Mainz. The use of coercion could have strengthened Protestant tendencies and called the neighboring princes on the scene as protective powers. Daniel therefore relied on cautious implementation by drawing on clergy willing to reform.
The third step was the re-Catholicization of the Eichsfeld in particular and the preservation of the remaining Catholic monasteries . In 1572 Daniel succeeded in obliging the Mainz cathedral chapter to adhere to the Tridentine creed, which was a great success at the time in the generally Protestant German pin nobility . Then he turned to the Eichsfeld, which at that time made up a considerable part of the archbishopric, but was largely Protestant. To this end, the archbishop traveled there in 1574 and replaced the archbishop's ministers who were close to Protestantism with people he liked. The Archbishop rejected violence as a means of conversion, which is why the success of his policy only became apparent in the long term. Not only spiritual but also political motives were decisive for Daniel's actions. A Protestant Eichsfeld would have endangered the territorial existence of the archbishopric. The stability of the spiritual territories depended not least on the existence of the Catholic Church in the empire. This was particularly evident in the Cologne diocese dispute, the outcome of which in favor of the Catholic side also resulted in a strengthening of the Catholic Church in the west of the empire.
Religious renewal and reorientation
The Cologne diocese dispute had ignited after the Archbishop of Cologne Gebhard I von Waldburg announced his conversion to Protestantism in 1582. The successor of Daniel, who died in the same year, Wolfgang von Dalberg (1582-1601), had to consider together with the electoral college which position to take in the dispute. In long negotiations, a majority was finally found for Gebhard's Catholic competitor. But similar cases also determined imperial politics in the following years and thus also the politics of Wolfgang von Dalberg, who often had to act as a mediator.
In doing so, he pursued a rather mediating course - often to the annoyance of the Roman nuncios in Germany. Only after the danger of secularization of the archbishopric had been averted by stabilizing conditions at the beginning of the nineties, the archbishop pushed more strongly for the implementation of church reforms. These had already been promoted by his predecessor, but were far from being completed everywhere. In the cathedral chapter, however, the denominational division was overcome. In the election of Johann Adam von Bicken (1601–1604) there were no more directional battles as with his predecessors. His pontificate was marked by the revival of Catholic popular piety, which was expressed in magnificent processions. However, the archbishop also suppressed the Protestant practice of religion, albeit without using direct violence. In addition, under his rule there were numerous burnings of witches , especially in the upper monastery , which continued during the reign of his successor Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg (1604–1626). Johann Schweikhard was also primarily concerned with the Counter Reformation. In 1605 he published the hymn book "Catholisches Manual", which also contained German songs, and brought the Franciscans and Capuchins to Mainz. The turmoil of the Thirty Years' War entered the religious life that was thus unfolding again .
Thirty Years' War
The war initially even opened up new opportunities for the archbishopric. The victories of the Catholic armies brought back lost territories. The Counter Reformation began there. In addition, the Catholic religion was reintroduced in many Palatinate territories. Jesuits, Franciscans and Capuchins played a decisive role in this. Archbishop Georg Friedrich Greiffenclau von Vollrads (1626–1629) was still able to rule in peace to a large extent, but under Anselm Casimir Wambolt von Umstadt (1629–1647) it was over. The war spread to the ore pen. On December 22nd, 1631 the Swedish King Gustav II Adolf conquered the city. Four days earlier the archbishop and his court had gone into exile in Cologne. The Swedes planned the secularization of the archbishopric and the installation of a Protestant state under Axel Oxenstierna . Military defeats thwarted the plans. Archbishop Anselm Casimir was able to return in 1635 before he had to flee again in 1644, this time from French troops. The war and the looting transformed the archbishopric as well as the entire diocese at the end of the war into a destroyed and partially depopulated country.
From the end of the Thirty Years War to the Enlightenment
Pontificate of Johann Philipps von Schönborn
In this difficult situation, Johann Philipp von Schönborn (1647–1673) succeeded Anselm Casimir Wambolt von Umstadt. He immediately set about relieving his territory from the burden of war. To this end, he negotiated both with the allied imperial armies and with the French and Swedes. Even before his election as archbishop, he had come to the conclusion that the war could no longer be won. Therefore, he looked for ways to a peace treaty early on. He pushed through the participation of the imperial estates at the peace congresses in Münster and Osnabrück in 1644. When he failed there in his attempt to keep the religious question out of the negotiations, he was one of the first imperial estates to be ready to make concessions. In contrast to the hardliners like the papal peace mediator Fabio Chigi , he was not prepared to let a peace agreement fail because of the religious question. As Archbishop of Mainz, Johann Philipp automatically became head of the Reichstag and was thus able to have a decisive influence on the politics of the empire. He played a major role in bringing about a political comparison of the religions of the empire and the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Securing this peace determined his policy until his death. In the spiritual field he took care of the implementation of the Council of Trent. He ordered the introduction of Gregorian chant in the archdiocese and contributed to the edition of a Bible translation. In addition, he published the decisions of the council in writing and had a new ritual worked out, which remained in use until 1950. He was tolerant towards the Protestants. He summoned Protestant scholars to his court and tried to establish a new unit after the armed conflicts. Johann Philipp von Schönborn, who died on February 12, 1673, is one of the most important pastors in the history of the archbishopric.
Pontificates from 1673 to 1695
The reigns of Johann Philipp's immediate successor were marked by the threat of French troops. Even after initial admiration, Johann Philipp had withdrawn from France because of the hegemonic policy of the Sun King Louis XIV . His successor Archbishop Lothar Friedrich von Metternich-Burscheid (1673–1675) saw how French soldiers invaded his territory. At the request of the cathedral chapter, imperial protection troops moved into Mainz. The presence of these troops affected the choice of the successor. It fell to Damian Hartard von der Leyen (1675–1678), who was the patron of the emperor . The new archbishop did not have any political leeway in this situation, and so he could hardly set any accents in his short pontificate. The ten-month term of office of his successor, Karl Heinrich von Metternich-Winneburg (1679), was even shorter .
Baroque period
Archbishop Karl Heinrich's successor was Anselm Franz von Ingelheim (1679–1695) in November 1679 . Right at the beginning of his term of office he was confronted with the reunion policy of the French King Louis XIV . According to the peace treaties between the empire and France, Ludwig claimed all territories for himself that were dependent on the French crown, which in his opinion also affected the Palatinate and Rhenish lands. Anselm Franz now had to fear that Ludwig would also lay claim to Kurmainzer territories. Since neither Kurmainz nor the empire of the French army, which was bound by the Turkish wars, had grown, the elector first looked for a political solution. When it came to the formation of an imperial army, Anselm Franz gave his consent. In 1684 the French occupied the Reunion territories for 20 years. Ludwig was not satisfied with this, however, and laid claim to the succession of the Palatinate, which in 1688 led to the so-called Palatinate War of Succession . Ludwig let his army march into the Reich. Mainz was occupied in October 1688. An imperial army then enclosed the city in order to recapture it. The siege eventually led to the surrender of the French occupation, but the city was badly affected by the fighting. Already weakened by the war, the archbishop was also restricted in his ability to work from 1690 due to gout. In 1691, a coadjutor was chosen , but he died in 1694. The cathedral chapter then agreed on Lothar Franz von Schönborn as the new coadjutor. The nephew of the Archbishop of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn, was able to take up office after the death of Anselm Franz in 1695 (1695–1729).
Time of Lothar Franz von Schönborn
The early Enlightenment largely bypassed Mainz under the pontificate of Prince Lothar Franz. Coming from a powerful aristocratic family, he ruled his diocese and its territory in a centralist and absolutist way. His main sphere of activity was imperial politics, while he left the spiritual care to his auxiliary bishops . Lothar Franz managed to save the electoral state from further devastation caused by the still raging War of the Palatinate Succession. Lothar Franz exercised his influence at the emperor's court through his nephew Friedrich Karl von Schönborn , who had been Reich Vice Chancellor in Vienna since 1705.
Lothar Franz's term of office was characterized by a strengthening of the Catholic position in the archbishopric. The French reunion policy had already led to Catholics in the Protestant areas of the Palatinate, which spiritually belonged to the Archdiocese of Mainz, were again granted church property. Since 1685, the Palatine Elector also came from the Catholic House of Pfalz-Neuburg . Elector Philipp Wilhelm allowed Catholics to practice their religion freely and publicly in his entire territory. As a result, Catholic parish structures established themselves again. In 1698 the elector even decreed that the Simultaneum had to apply throughout his territory, that is, Catholics and Reformed people should have access to the churches. However, this provoked massive protests from the Protestant Kurbrandenburg (proclaimed kingship in 1701). In 1705 a declaration of religion determined in a compromise the abolition of simultaneum and freedom of religion for both denominations. In exceptional cases, however, simultaneous churches were preserved.
Elector Lothar Franz remembered his residence city primarily as a great master builder. The archbishop employed the most important master builders of his time, including Balthasar Neumann and Johann Maximilian von Welsch . He had dozens of churches and secular buildings built or redesigned in the baroque style. At the gates of the city he built a new summer residence, the Favorite . In order to maintain his family's influence, he campaigned for his nephew Friedrich Karl to be elected coadjutor. The cathedral chapter, whose influence the centralist Lothar Franz had pushed back considerably, did not follow him and instead elected Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg (1729-1732) as coadjutor in 1710 .
Successor of Lothar von Schönborn
Franz Ludwig's term of office lasted only three years, after having been coadjutor for 19 years. It could not leave any special traces in the history of the bishopric, but it did in the cityscape. The Teutonic Order , which today is the seat of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and, together with the castle and the new armory, shapes the city's banks of the Rhine goes back to him .
Franz Ludwig's successor was Philipp Karl von Eltz (1732–1743) , who was almost 67 when he took office . He was more concerned with the spiritual than the political affairs of the electoral state. But as the highest-ranking imperial and elector, he could not keep himself out of political processes. So he got caught in the conflict between the Kingdom of Prussia, which was growing stronger under Frederick II, and the Empire of Austria. With the assurance of an annual pension of 100,000 guilders, the Austrian heir to the throne Franz Stephan von Lothringen secured the Mainzer's vote in the upcoming election. The right to the throne of the Lorraine had only come about because Emperor Charles VI. in the so-called “ Pragmatic Sanction ” had assigned the succession to the throne of his daughter Maria Theresa . This sanction was not recognized by Prussia and its allies. The result of the conflict was the War of the Austrian Succession . Philipp Karl broke his promise and elected the Wittelsbacher Karl-Albrecht with the other electors as emperor in 1742. A year later he died in Mainz.
enlightenment
The age of the Prussian-Austrian dualism restricted the political role of the Elector of Mainz. Philipp Karl's successor Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein (1743–1763) declared himself neutral in the War of the Austrian Succession and was thus able to keep his state out of the turmoil of the war to a large extent. In 1745 the elector succeeded in mediating the Füssen peace treaty between Austria and Bayer. In 1756, Mainz joined the Reich execution procession against the Prussian King Friedrich II, who had just attacked Saxony and thereby threatened Electoral Mainz territory. Friedrich conquered the Electoral Mainz city of Erfurt and demanded high contributions, which ruined the finances of the electoral state. Elector Johann Friedrich Karl then again declared himself neutral in the further disputes and thus essentially renounced any further role in imperial politics.
Reform process under Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein
Decisive for the fortunes of the archbishopric and the electoral state were not so much the military conflicts between the great powers of the 18th century, but rather the beginning of the Enlightenment in the electoral state. The decisive role in this reform process fell not to the elector, but to his uncle and grand court master Anton Heinrich Friedrich von Stadion (1691–1768).
The stadium initially took on the economy and administration. He aligned the economy in the sense of mercantilism , relocated industrial companies such as the Höchst Porcelain Manufactory and removed the merchant class from the merchant guild. He issued new trade regulations, established a chamber of commerce and a commercial court, and held two annual trade fairs in the city. In addition, the infrastructure and legal system were subjected to far-reaching reforms. Another focus of the stadium and the elector was school education. The educational system was reformed and the Beatae Mariae Virginis Institute, founded by the Englishwoman Maria Ward, was established in Mainz and still operates a school there today .
In addition to the school system, the university system was also subjected to changes. Theological education was redesigned according to a new concept. All of these reforms intervened in the sphere of activity of the Jesuit order , whose monopoly-like position in education was a thorn in the side of the Enlightenment in particular. In contrast to the Grand Chamberlain von Stadion, who was completely imbued with enlightening ideas, Archbishop Johann Friedrich Karl protected the Jesuits throughout their lives, which allowed them to initially maintain their position. Since the Osteiner approached the reforms cautiously, his territory was considered by the Enlightenmentists of that time to be reactionary and backward. The Enlightenment in Mainz only made its breakthrough under his successor.
Enforcement of the education
After the death of Johann Friedrich Karl, the choice of fell Mainz cathedral chapter on Emmerich Joseph von Breidbach to Bürresheim (1763-1774). This consistently continued the reforms carried out by the stadium and the economy, the judiciary and the government. In contrast to his predecessor, he no longer took the traditional rights of the Jesuits into consideration when reforming the educational system. While the changes in the economy, justice and administration were mostly due to actual grievances, the reform of the educational system and the monastery administration also dealt with ideological issues. To many, the Jesuits in particular appeared to be advocates of an outdated teaching and church system. When Pope Clement XIV (1769–1774) rescinded the order under pressure from anti-Jesuit governments, the corresponding decree was immediately executed in Mainz and the Jesuit fathers were brought out of the city in closed carts and accompanied by armed men. It was similar for them in the Archdiocese of Worms, whose prince-bishop was Emmerich Joseph. The archbishop immediately ordered the vacant chairs to be filled. The Emmericianum grammar school was set up in the former Jesuit college, while the Jesuit novitiate was taken over by the diocesan seminary.
In addition to his school policy, which was shaped by the Enlightenment, Emmerich Joseph represented the idea of the newly emerging episcopalism at the church-wide level , with which he turned against the centralistic claims of the Roman Curia. The differences between the German bishops and the Pope that arose from episcopalism played an important role long after Emmerich Joseph's death in 1774.
When Emmerich Joseph's successor was elected, the opponents and supporters of the new course faced implacable opposition in the cathedral chapter, with the restorative forces being in the majority. Just one day after the archbishop's death, some reform commissions were disbanded and other posts were filled. The capitulars elected cathedral curator Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal (1774–1802), who had distinguished himself as a representative of the Restoration, as the new archbishop . Erthal immediately fulfilled the expectations of his constituents when he curtailed the influence of the Enlightenment forces at court and transferred the school prefecture to an ex-Jesuit and anti-Enlightenment opponent, who was also responsible for the selection of teachers. This seemed to have fulfilled the hopes of the restorative forces. But it soon became apparent that the archbishop and elector could not be tied to one line.
As early as 1774, Erthal began reforming the rural school system and relied on progressive forces. In 1777 he returned to the modern financial and administrative policy of his predecessor, and university and church policy was again aligned more closely to the standards of the so-called Catholic Enlightenment. In the same year Erthal issued a decree on strict supervision of all monastic property. This represented a departure from Erthal's monastery-friendly policy towards a policy that was already followed by the Enlightenmentist Emmerich Joseph von Breidbach zu Bürresheim. From this point in time at the latest, the Elector's policy was shaped by the Enlightenment. In 1774 he appointed Chancellor Anselm Franz von Bentzel, who was dismissed in the course of the Restoration, as curator of the Universities of Mainz and Erfurt in 1782 and entrusted him with the reorganization of the two institutions. Its work made the Mainz University one of the most modern, science-oriented and tolerant universities in the empire.
In terms of Reich politics, Erthal tried to restore more importance to his offices. As Imperial Arch Chancellor, he joined the Princes' League in 1785, which, however, was only granted a short life due to Prussian claims and denominational differences. In terms of church politics, Erthal was, like his predecessor, connected to the idea of episcopalism. In this course he was supported by his auxiliary bishop (since 1783) Johann Valentin Heimes , who also advocated major reforms in the still baroque design of church services, the domination of the nobility in the cathedral chapter and celibacy.
The reform concerns were discussed at the Emser Congress, which was opened in July 1786. Delegates from the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier and Salzburg, including Auxiliary Bishop Heimes, discussed the rights of the metropolitan seats in relation to Rome. As a result of the conference, the Emser puncture recorded an expansion of power by the metropolitans, which was certainly also in the interests of the Mainz auxiliary bishop home. Erthal, on the other hand, in his support of the Ems Congress, had in mind above all to win the assembled archbishops over to the Prince League. When this proved illusory, he lost interest in the Congress. In 1787 he entered into a secret agreement with the Curia, after which his reformatory and political panache waned. In any case, the time was not good for further initiatives: the old archbishopric was on the verge of collapse at the end of the 18th century.
Fall of the archbishopric and electoral state
Effects of the French Revolution
The direct cause for the collapse of the archbishopric and electoral state came from the French Revolution . The political forces of the empire, above all Prussia and Austria, viewed the upheavals in France as a threat and united against France. France responded in April 1792 by declaring war on Austria, the Reich responded by declaring war on France in July 1792. Erthal joined the First Coalition War despite his own concerns. Without knowing it, he ushered in the end of his archbishopric and the electoral state. The main allies concentrated their troops in the north-west and therefore left a gap in the Rhineland through which the French army could advance towards Mainz in September 1792. In October she reached the town that Erthal and his court had already left for Aschaffenburg . She capitulated without a fight. The French established the first republic on German soil in the city, but the republic of Mainz was short-lived . In March 1793 the city was surrounded and besieged by coalition forces . After weeks of artillery bombardment, the French occupation capitulated in July 1793. The city and many churches with it were destroyed by this bombardment. The ideas of the revolution brought to Mainz by the occupation could not be reversed by retaking the city.
End of the archbishopric
Overall, however, the coalition troops could not hold their own against the superior French armies. In 1797 the Peace of Campo Formio was concluded, in which Austria agreed to the cession of the areas on the left bank of the Rhine claimed by France. Prussia did not object. On December 30, 1797, the French troops moved back into Mainz, which Archbishop Erthal had again and now left for good. Mainz and the areas on the left bank of the Rhine were annexed to the French Republic. Many parts of the archdiocese located in this area were barely manageable in the next two years, which was mainly due to the fundamental opposition of the revolutionaries to the Catholic Church. That only changed when Napoleon came to power in November 1799. Napoleon sought a compromise with the church and concluded a concordat with Pope Pius VII (1800–1823) that allowed him to reorganize the church in his state. Napoleon formed the new diocese of Mainz from parts of the old archdiocese and the dioceses of Worms, Speyer and Metz. It now belonged to the Archdiocese of Mechelen as a suffragan . All monasteries and clerical territories on French territory were secularized. On November 29, 1801, the Pope confirmed the redistribution of the dioceses in the bull "Qui Christi Domini".
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
Erthal, who resided in Aschaffenburg, then realized that the archbishopric could no longer be saved. In order to at least preserve his state, he agreed to the changes in the diocesan borders. In 1802, however, the emperor and the Reichstag in Regensburg set up an extraordinary imperial deputation to regulate the compensation of the princes expelled from the territories on the left bank of the Rhine. The main conclusion of this deputation, adopted on February 25, 1803 - Elector von Erthal had died in the meantime - ordered in § 25 the transfer of all dignities of the Mainz ore chair to the cathedral church of Regensburg. On May 1, 1805, Pope Pius VII confirmed the translation. The ecclesiastical province, which had existed since 782, was history. For Erthal's successor Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the newly created spiritual territory of the principalities of Aschaffenburg and Regensburg remained the only one of its kind. From 1806 the elector-arch-chancellor of the now defunct Holy Roman Empire called himself the prince primate and also received Frankfurt am Main . In 1810 he lost his Regensburg territory to Bavaria and was resigned to the principalities of Hanau and Fulda , which he united with Frankfurt and Aschaffenburg to form the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . On the right bank of the Rhine, the dioceses had not yet been rewritten; the areas of the old archbishopric were administered by the Vicariate General in Aschaffenburg until their final dissolution. Dalberg, the last Archbishop of Mainz, died in Regensburg in 1817.
New beginning: The diocese of Mainz
Under French rule
The reorganization of the new diocese was the most important task of the Alsatian Joseph Ludwig Colmar (1802-1818) , who was appointed arbitrarily first bishop by Napoleon . The new diocese territory united parts of four dioceses and mainly comprised the Palatinate and Rheinhessen. Colmar, who had previously been the parish priest in Strasbourg, was no longer a politician like so many of his predecessors, but above all a pastor. While his predecessor Dalberg, who was still responsible in the areas on the right bank of the Rhine, was looking for a political solution, Colmar set about the re-Christianization of his diocese, which was accompanied by internal reforms. Colmar managed to save the Mainz Cathedral from demolition and to revive the traditional forms of piety, especially the Corpus Christi processions . In addition, he paid great attention to religious education. In 1805 he opened the Mainz seminary in the old Augustinian monastery in Mainz and appointed Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann to be its director . As a result, the Mainzer Kreis was founded , a group known as ultramontane in the language jargon used at the time . At the organizational level, he created a new parish and vicariate structure. The Mainz cathedral chapter was reorganized and now consisted of ten bourgeois clergymen. Only a few years later, however, profound changes occurred again, triggered by Napoleon's fall and the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Rewrite
Napoleon's defeat in the Peace of Paris in 1814 led to the annulment of the territorial cessions of 1797. However, a restoration of the old ecclesiastical principalities was out of the question. At the Congress of Vienna, the territories were divided up in tough negotiations among the victors over Napoleon. The territorial reorganization also led to a new definition of the diocese borders in Germany. Since Bavaria received the Rhine Palatinate, the areas there were again outsourced to the Diocese of Mainz and the Diocese of Speyer was re-established from it. The Aschaffenburg areas of the old archbishopric came to the diocese of Würzburg. The city of Mainz itself was awarded to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.
The reorganization of the church in the empire did not take place through a common policy, as Prince Primate Dalberg had proposed, but through several concordats between the individual states with the Holy See . The states of Württemberg, Baden, Nassau, Hessen-Kassel, Hessen-Darmstadt and Frankfurt (as well as some small states) came together in March 1818 to reorganize the diocese of Mainz. Initially, the diocese of Mainz should include the states of Nassau, Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Darmstadt. In this case, Hessen-Darmstadt demanded archbishopric dignity for the diocese. But the diocese did not expand to include Nassau and Hessen-Kassel. The two states feared a strong metropolitan seat in Mainz and gave preference to the Baden proposal for a newly founded Archdiocese of Freiburg. On August 16, 1821, the new paraphrase was written into the papal circumscription bull " Provida solersque ". From this point on, the diocese of Mainz was identical to the area of the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. With the exception of minor corrections, nothing has changed at the borders since then.
With regard to the new occupation practice, a compromise was not found until 1827. Accordingly, the first bishops of the new dioceses should be appointed by the governments. After that, the governments only had the right to remove names that were not acceptable from the lists of candidates sent by the cathedral chapters. This regulation remained in force until the Baden Concordat of 1932, which in turn still applies today.
The diocese and the Hessian-Darmstadt state government
The diocese of Mainz was now on the territory of a Protestant principality, which postulated the rule of the state over the church. It was therefore in the interest of the Grand Duke to occupy the bishopric of Mainz with a bishop who was acceptable to him and aligned with the state church. This inevitably led to a conflict with Rome. As a result, the chair, which had become vacant due to Colmar's death in 1818, could not be filled for years. Regarding the right of appointment, a compromise was not reached until 1827, but it was not possible to agree on a candidate. Only after the death of the Hessian-Darmstadt favorite Carl Joseph von Wreden in 1829 was the way clear for a new appointment to the bishopric.
The conflict between ultramontanes and state churches also determined the following years of the diocese. There was also a conflict between Enlightenment and Restoration and between denominations. The ultramontane movement had its nucleus in the Mainz seminary, where a school of theology had formed that was shaped by the French philosophers of restoration. The state government finally took countermeasures and ordered the abolition of the seminar and the establishment of a Catholic faculty controlled by it at the University of Giessen.
It was not until 1851 that Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler set up a "theological training institute at the episcopal seminary in Mainz" again without the permission of the authorities.
The second half of the 19th century, which has now begun, was characterized by a strengthening of the Catholic self-image. The moderate generation, shaped by the Enlightenment, slowly resigned, in their place came forces that increasingly revolted against interventions by state authorities in internal church affairs. The state church was accordingly rigorously rejected by these currents. The upheavals in the revolutionary year 1848 benefited them. The freedom of the press made it easier to distribute Catholic publications, the association law led to the establishment (by Adam Franz Lennig ) of the "Association for Religious Freedom", which was renamed the Pius Association shortly afterwards . In October 1848 this association already had 17 central associations with 1200 local associations, which gathered for a meeting of delegates in Mainz. That was the hour of birth of the German Catholic Day .
The central demand of the Katholikentag, which had the events in the Frankfurt Paulskirche in view, was above all the church freedom. The Hessian state government had already complied with this general demand of German Catholicism during the March Revolution . However, this did not diminish the conflicts between state and church. When Bishop Peter Leopold Kaiser died in December 1848, the state government therefore tried to promote a moderate candidate to the bishopric. However, her preferred candidate, Leopold Schmid, failed due to the resistance of the ultramontane forces in the cathedral chapter. It was not until 1850 that the bishop's chair could be refilled after tough struggle. The cathedral capitals sent a proposal of three to Rome, from which Pope Pius IX. appointed the provost of St. Hedwig in Berlin Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler (1850–1877) as the new bishop.
Ketteler immediately turned to the task of returning the rights withheld by the state government to the church. The alleviations of the revolutionary year were withdrawn in 1850. In 1854, Ketteler reached an agreement that allowed him to fill all spiritual positions independently. This convention soon became a stumbling block for liberal and Protestant circles. In 1866, Ketteler himself asked for the provisions to be repealed, which, however, largely persisted under customary law.
The second half of Ketteler's term of office was marked by the First Vatican Council . Ketteler took part in the meeting and stood in the camp of the minority who rejected a definition of the Pope's infallibility. However, Ketteler was not a fundamental opponent of infallibility , but protested against the design of the infallibility dogma.
Kulturkampf
The last years of Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler's pontificate were marked by the so-called Kulturkampf . After the German state was declared following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the Catholic Church and its affiliated orders and associations were subjected to repression by the Prussian-dominated state authorities. The government around the first Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck saw in the Catholics enemies of the Reich who were responsible not to their own state but to the Pope in Rome, therefore to a foreign power. Von Ketteler was one of the most resolute opponents of the Kulturkampf Laws and accordingly mobilized Catholic public opinion. In Mainz, the "Association of German Catholics" was founded in 1872, which was supposed to campaign for the freedom of the church and against arbitrary measures by the state. From 1873 the culture war in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt increased significantly. The government recognized the newly elected Old Catholic Bishop Joseph Hubert Reinkens and allowed the Old Catholics to use Catholic churches and cemeteries. In 1874, the government decided on state school sovereignty and obliged candidates for priesthood to attend a three-year German university, at the end of which they had to pass a state examination. The bishop's protests were unsuccessful. The diocese reacted with passive resistance and had the theology students trained in Eichstätt or Rome. Parishes that had become vacant were not officially reoccupied.
When von Ketteler died in 1877 on a return trip from Rome, the government refused to recognize the elected successor Christoph Moufang . Moufang had been president of the 21st German Katholikentag in 1871, on which the establishment of the opposition “Association of German Catholics” had been prepared. The choice of a compromise candidate did not materialize. The diocese then remained vacant for nine years and was administered by Moufang as administrator . The culture war only relaxed under Pope Leo XIII. (1878-1903). From 1886 the Prussian state government gradually revised the Kulturkampf Acts, and in the same year a bishop could be elected again in Mainz. After some back and forth, the choice fell on the cathedral chapter Paul Leopold Haffner (1886–1899), who had already been on the triple list of the cathedral chapter in 1877. Prussia and also Hessen-Darmstadt tried to get closer to the church in the period that followed. In 1887 the law on the pre-training of clergy was passed, and in the same year the seminary, which closed in 1876, was reopened. In 1895 the ban fell. Other laws from the Kulturkampf time, including the law on the introduction of civil marriage, remained in force. The relationship between church and state was settled with the conclusion of the Kulturkampf. It was only adapted to the new political conditions with the Baden Concordat in 1932.
20th century
Weimar Republic
The year 1919 marked the beginning of the first German republic. While Catholicism, which was more like monarchy, was rather negative for the new form of government, democracy was received positively by Rhenish Catholicism, i.e. also in the diocese of Mainz. The difficulties of the republic in the first post-war years also determined the church conditions of that time. The seriously ill Bishop Georg Heinrich Maria Kirstein (1904–1921) was appointed a coadjutor with the right of succession in March 1921, Ludwig Maria Hugo (1921–1935) . A month later he took up the office of bishop.
After the First World War, the focus was on pastoral aspects. The war had brought heavy losses. Two million German soldiers had not returned home from the front. Then there were the traumatic experiences of the returnees and the population threatened by hunger in their homeland. The first years of the republic were marked by unrest and coup attempts, plus the difficult economic situation caused by reparations and inflation. Mainz and a large part of the diocese were occupied by the French. The needs of the post-war period led to the establishment of the first Caritas association in Mainz .
From a political point of view, the time of the Weimar Republic in the diocese was determined by a good understanding between the new state of Hesse and the church. Only the question of the denominational schools caused controversy. In 1932 the relationship between church and state was redefined in the Baden Concordat.
At the ecclesiastical level, the reform movements that had already existed at the beginning of the century and before began to occupy a wider area. This included above all the liturgical movement , whose better-known representatives included the Mainz priest Romano Guardini (since 1923 professor in Berlin). The communion of children , which was already requested by Pope Pius X. , was introduced in the diocese, and forms of piety such as devotion to the Sacred Heart were revived. In addition, there was an extensive church building and restoration program, the first of which was the Mainz Cathedral , which was threatened with collapse in the 1920s due to the rotting of the foundations. In addition to new pilgrimage sites, 27 parishes or curaties were created .
At the beginning of the 1930s, however, the NSDAP gained increasing popularity. The signs between church and politics were increasingly pointing to confrontation.
National Socialism
From 1930 the confrontations between the church and the Hitler party NSDAP increased. The Mainz vicar general Philipp Jakob Mayer declared on September 1, 1930 that the NSDAP was one of the groups forbidden by the church. No Catholic is allowed to become a member of this party. The party's corporate participation in Catholic services or funerals is prohibited. A party member may only receive the sacraments if he promises to leave the party. The sharp explanation led to considerable protests on the part of the NSDAP and also to discussions between the dioceses, whereby the term "Mainz position" developed for the explanation. It did not, however, proceed from a uniform approach by the German episcopate against the Nazi movement.
The Mainz Ordinariate, however, stuck to its strictly negative attitude until Hitler took power in 1933. The movement condemned by the magisterium had thus become the legitimate state authority to which obedience was owed. This posed considerable problems for the German episcopate with regard to how to deal with Hitler and the NSDAP. In his government declaration of March 23, 1933, Hitler succeeded in allaying the bishops' concerns about the aggressive anti-Catholicism of the Nazi movement by promising a peaceful arrangement of the relationship between state and church as part of a policy that was friendly to Christianity. The bishops, including Bishop Hugo, declared their conditional loyalty in Fulda on March 28, 1933, albeit without lifting the “condemnation of certain religious and moral errors contained in earlier measures”. The previous regulations regarding the reception of the sacraments and participation in church services in uniform remained in place, but were de facto no longer sustainable and riddled with opposing instructions. The personal attitude of the Bishop of Mainz and his vicar general to the declaration has not been passed down.
The Reich Concordat of July 20, 1933, promised by Hitler in his March 20 declaration, raised additional hopes that the aggressive hostility of the Nazis towards the Catholic Church was now finally over. This soon proved to be great mistake out: Hugo, whose opposition attitude was not forgotten, was repeatedly the target of Nazi propaganda and despite guaranteed by the concordat, the Catholic associations and clubs were dissolved and brought into line . The Catholic press was hit similarly. Hitler had never thought of adhering to the Reich Concordat.
Ludwig Maria Hugo , who died in 1935, was succeeded in July of the same year by Albert Stohr (1935–1961), who shared and clearly expressed his predecessor's position on Nazi ideology. He was immediately confronted with further measures by the NSDAP-led government against the church. The Nazis began trials of religious and priests for alleged moral or foreign exchange offenses. When Pope Pius XI. had the encyclical With Burning Concern published on March 21, 1937 , the measures became even more severe. There were arrests and admissions to concentration camps . From 1938 the Catholic schools in the diocese were closed, in 1939 clergymen were banned from teaching religion in elementary schools , even if this could be done by secular teachers. In the same year the Ilbenstadt monastery was closed and the seminary had to cease operations.
Stohr behaved politically cautious towards the outside world, but within the church belonged more to the camp of the Berlin bishop and opponent of the regime Konrad von Preysing . However, the Bishops' Conference was never able to agree on a common course and therefore remained silent in the face of the crimes of the Nazi regime.
From 1942, Mainz and the diocese were increasingly affected by the war. 80% of the episcopal city was destroyed by bombs on February 27, 1945. In the Monastery of Perpetual Adoration , the entire convent was wiped out with one exception. Bensheim, Bingen, Darmstadt, Offenbach and Worms in the diocese were also badly hit.
Post War, Reform and Present
For Mainz, the war ended on March 21, 1945. The diocese faced great challenges. The coming years were shaped by the challenges of reconstruction and the integration of refugees and displaced persons from the east. The diocese had 450,000 Catholics in 1945. By 1960 the number rose to 710,000. Many of the refugees and displaced persons were resettled in diaspora areas. With this, the federal government wanted to improve the relationship between the denominations. For the pastoral care structures in the diocese this meant a profound change. New churches and parishes had to be built. Over a hundred churches were built by the end of Stohr's tenure in 1961.
Mainz became the capital of the newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946 . It had become a university town as early as 1946, ironically on the initiative of the French occupying forces, which had dissolved the old university at the end of the 18th century. The diocese kept its borders and is now in the territories of the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate ( Bad Wimpfen is an exclave in Baden-Württemberg). In 1952, Stohr was able to push through the establishment of denominational schools, which lasted until the corresponding constitutional changes in 1967 and 1970.
The religious renewal took place through the Jubilee Catholic Day of 1948, for which 180,000 Catholics gathered and the Mainz diocesan synod in March 1955. The Second Vatican Council , which opened in 1962, had far greater effects on religious life . Stohr's successor Hermann Volk (1962–1983, † 1988) took part in the church assembly and in 1973 was elevated to cardinal . He was the first cardinal of the diocese since Albrecht von Brandenburg in the 16th century. The resolutions of the council were implemented at the joint synod of the dioceses in the Federal Republic of Germany in Würzburg from 1971 to 1975. To this day, they determine the everyday life and constitution of the Catholic Church in Germany.
In 1983 Karl Lehmann succeeded the people who had retired for reasons of age. From 1987 to 2008 he was chairman of the German Bishops' Conference , and in 2001 he was also promoted to cardinal. Among other things, German reunification falls under his pontificate. Within the church, one increasingly has to deal with the problem of growing numbers of people leaving the church and the shortage of priests . Lehmann's resignation was accepted in May 2016 on his 80th birthday by Pope Francis , who, after an almost one year vacancy, appointed Peter Kohlgraf as the new bishop in April 2017 .
See also
- List of the bishops of Mainz
- List of the auxiliary bishops of Mainz
- Roman Catholic Church in Germany
literature
- Friedhelm Jürgensmeier : The diocese of Mainz. From Roman times to the Second Vatican Council. Knecht Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1988; ISBN 3-782-00570-8
- Friedhelm Jürgensmeier (Ed.): Handbook of the Mainz Church History. Echter Verlag, Würzburg 1997–2002.
- Volume 1: Christliche Antike und Mittelalter , Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-429-02258-4 (divided into two half-volumes 1/1 and 1/2)
quoted from:- Ernst Dassmann: The diocese in Roman and Frankish times.
- Franz Staab : The Mainz church in the early Middle Ages.
- Ernst-Dieter Hehl: The Mainz church in Ottonian-Salic times.
- Friedhelm Jürgensmeier: The archdiocese during the investiture dispute.
- Volume 2: Günter Christ and Georg May Archbishopric and Archdiocese of Mainz. Territorial and ecclesiastical structures , Echter Verlag Würzburg 1997, ISBN 3-429-01877-3
- Volume 3: Modern times and modernity , Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-429-02425-0 (two half volumes)
Quoted from:- Hermann-Josef Braun: The diocese from 1918–1945.
- Volume 1: Christliche Antike und Mittelalter , Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-429-02258-4 (divided into two half-volumes 1/1 and 1/2)
- Hans Werner Nopper: The pre-bonifatianischen Mainz bishops , Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2429-9 .
- Georg May: The Archbishop of Mainz as a primate in: Archive for Catholic Canon Law, hrgg. by Winfrid Aymans, Heribert Schmitz, Karl-Theodor Geringer, Volume 164, Kirchheim & Co GmbH, Mainz 1995, ISSN 0003-9160 .
- Joseph Selbst : Mainz Church History for Teaching Use , 1892; Revised and supplemented in 1950 by Adam Gottron and Anton Philipp Brück
- Helmut Hinkel : Fides Moguntina - Studies on Mainz Church History . Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag, Mainz 2013, ISBN 978-3-943904-34-5 .
- Claus Arnold / Christoph Nebgen (ed.): Pictures of life from the diocese of Mainz. Vol. 1: Eleven portraits. (= New Yearbook for the Diocese of Mainz), Echter, Mainz / Würzburg 2016
- Claus Arnold / Christoph Nebgen (ed.): Pictures of life from the diocese of Mainz. Vol. 2: Fourteen portraits. (= New Yearbook for the Diocese of Mainz), Echter, Mainz / Würzburg 2017
- Claus Arnold / Martin Belz (ed.): Pictures of life from the diocese of Mainz. Vol. 3: Ten portraits. (= New Yearbook for the Diocese of Mainz), Echter, Mainz / Würzburg 2020
Individual evidence
HMKG: Handbook of Church History in Mainz ( see above )
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 14
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 21
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 15
- ^ Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses ; 1,10,2, cf. also Dassmann in: HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 21
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG, vol. 1/1 p. 22
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 17
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 20
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 21ff
- ↑ On the whole: Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 20 ff.
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 70
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG, vol. 1/1 p. 35
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 26
- ↑ That skilled in: HMKG, Vol 1/1 S. 23;. Nopper, The pre-Bonifatianischen Bishops , p. 27
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 28
- ↑ Hieronymus, Epistula 123.15 (quoted from Dassmann, HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 26). The number is likely to be exaggerated, as no church at that time could hold several thousand people.
- ↑ Other assessments assume that 436 was the year Aureus died, cf. also the article Aureus (Mainz)
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 37
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG, vol. 1/1 p. 41
- ↑ a b Dassmann in: HMKG Bd. 1/1, p. 51
- ↑ That skilled in HMKG Vol. 1/1 S. 51, also Nopper, The vorbonifatianischen bishops , p 41
- ^ Nopper, Die vorbonifatianischen Bischöfe , p. 42
- ↑ a b Dassmann in: HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 52
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG vol. 1/1, p. 53
- ↑ Dassmann in: HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 40
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 23
- ↑ Staab in: HMKG, Vol 1/1 S. 119th
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 32
- ↑ Staab in. HMKG Vol 1/1 S. 119
- ↑ Staab in. HMKG Vol 1/1, pp 138
- ↑ Staab in. HMKG Vol 1/1, pp 139
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 40, Staab affirmative in: HMKG vol. 1/1, p. 139
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 50
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primate , in: Archives for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 76
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primas , in: Archives for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 77f.
- ↑ More on this under the section "The Ottonian-Salic Imperial Church" further down in the text
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primate , in: Archive for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 78f.
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primate , in: Archives for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 87
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primate , in: Archives for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 100
- ↑ May, The Archbishop of Mainz as Primate , in: Archives for Catholic Church Law 1995, p. 121
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, history p. 63
- ↑ Hehl in: HMKG vol. 1/1 p. 203
- ↑ Hehl in: HMKG Vol. 1/1, p. 205
- ↑ a b Hehl in: HMKG vol. 1/1, p. 208
- ↑ Hehl in: HMKG Vol. 1/1, p. 198
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 66
- ↑ Hehl in: HMKG, Vol. 1/1 p. 275
- ↑ Jürgensmeier in: HMKG Vol. 1/1, p. 285
- ↑ See article Freie Stadt Mainz
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 87
- ^ Günter Christ, Government and Administration, in: Handbuch der Mainzer Kirchengeschichte, Würzburg 1997, p. 65
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 99
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 113
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 123
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 134
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 138
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 144. The number of cathedral capitulars had not yet been determined at that time, s. May, Handbuch der Mainz Kirchengeschichte, vol. 2, p. 490
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 150
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 158
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 168
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 187
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 195
- ↑ On the question of how evident this danger was, researchers are not unanimous. Jürgensmeier calls the election fateful, while Rolf Decot sees no further signs of a possible Protestantization of the archbishopric after the suppression of Protestantism under Archbishop Albrecht.
- ^ For example, the Starkenburg Office, which had been pledged since the Mainz collegiate feud, Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 213
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 213f.
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 215
- ↑ a b Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 222
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 230
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 234
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 242
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 242f
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 244
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 247
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 248
- ↑ a b Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 251
- ↑ a b Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 253
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 254
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 260
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 262
- ↑ Main conclusion of the Extraordinary Reich Deputation, § 25
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 270
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 273
- ↑ so the constitution of the Grand Duchy of 1820, s. Jürgensmeier, history , p. 275
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 276
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 286
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 291ff
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 295
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 296
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 297
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 307
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 308
- ↑ a b Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 310
- ↑ a b c d Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 313
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2, p. 1205
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2 p. 1206
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2. P. 1206
- ↑ Church Official Gazette for the Diocese of Mainz, year 1933, p. 19, item 46
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG vol. 3/2 p. 1207f
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2, p. 1209
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 314
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2, p. 1210
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , pp. 315–316
- ↑ Braun in: HMKG Vol. 3/2, p. 1213
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 318
- ^ City of Mainz: A brief overview of the history of the city of Mainz
- ↑ Jürgensmeier, Geschichte , p. 320
- ↑ Friedhelm Jürgensmeier: 25 Years of the Institute for Church History in Mainz 1980 - 2005 .
