Adalbero of Würzburg

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Cover plate of the tomb of St. Adalbero in the collegiate church of Lambach Abbey
Church window designed by Martin Häusle in the Liesing parish church
Engraving of St. Adalbero, by Johann Salver

Saint Adalbero (* around 1010; † October 6, 1090 in Lambach ) was Bishop of Würzburg from 1045 . In the investiture controversy he made a name for himself as an opponent of Henry IV and therefore died far away from his diocese.

origin

Adalbero was the son of Count Arnold II von Lambach-Wels in what is now Upper Austria (from the family of Count von Formbach ) and the East Franconian Countess Reginlint. He was born around 1010 in Lambach an der Traun . After studying at the Würzburg Cathedral School , Adalbero entered the service of King Heinrich III. In 1045 he named him the successor of Saint Bruno on the Würzburg bishopric.

Adalbero as bishop

Bishop Adalbero had the cathedral construction begun by Bruno continued and in 1057 took the initiative to build the Neumünster Church (collegiate monastery St. Johann zu Neumünster) (1058-1063) in the immediate vicinity. The researchers attribute pioneering achievements to him in the reform of church life. He had close contacts with the Benedictine reformers in Cluny , Gorze and Hirsau . He brought the monk Egbert from Gorze , who developed a wide range of activities as a renovator of the Münsterschwarzach Abbey . Egbert, also called Eggebertus / Ekkebert, was also up to the November 25, 1077 abbot in Benedictine - monastery Neustadt am Main . Until Harsefeld at Stade in northern and Lambach and Melk in the south, the influence of Münsterschwarzacher reformer spread. Adalbero founded such a reformed Benedictine monastery on the family seat of his family in Lambach. In 1057, Adalbero occupied the Würzburg collegiate monastery of St. Peter, Paul and Stephan ( St. Stephan for short ) with Benedictine monks from Münsterschwarzach.

After the death of Henry III. Adalbero intensified his engagement at imperial and court days as well as synods and distinguished himself as an advisor and mediator. In 1066 he married Heinrich IV with his wife Bertha von Susa in Würzburg . Together with other princes, he brokered the peace of Speyer in 1075 .

In the investiture controversy that broke out shortly thereafter , Adalbero sided with Pope Gregory VII with all the consequences and thus took a position against King Henry IV. Gregory opposed the practice that the bishops were appointed by the sovereign and not by the pope. However, the court in Worms spoke out with Heinrich against Gregor's ideas of a universal church and declared the Pope to be deposed. Gregor, for his part, banned King Heinrich from church , whereupon the latter had to start the famous “ walk to Canossa ”. With the reconciliation of the adversaries in Canossa , the former relationship of dependency between the bishops and the king was re-established.

With other princes, Adalbero then proclaimed Duke Rudolf von Rheinfelden as the new king in 1077 . But the citizens of Würzburg remained loyal to King Heinrich and prevented Adalbero's return to the city. Immediately after his return from the walk to Canossa in 1077 or 1078, Heinrich IV appointed the Naumburg bishop Eberhard as administrator of Würzburg. Eberhard died in 1079 near Würzburg when he fell from his horse. Heinrich IV later appointed the counter-bishops for Würzburg Meginhard II and later Emehard . Adalbero turned down offers of mediation: you could kill him but not bend him, he protested. In spring 1085 he was declared deposed by the Mainz synod and had to go into exile.

In 1086, the counter-king Hermann led him back to Würzburg, from where he was soon expelled again. Adalbero continued to work, loyal to the Pope, was a co-founder of the Zwiefalten Abbey in Swabia and was involved in his monastery in Lambach . On October 6, 1090 he died in Lambach and was buried in the collegiate church consecrated in 1089 by his childhood friend, Bishop Altmann von Passau . Soon after his death he was venerated as a saint in his Upper Austrian homeland , and in Münsterschwarzach his veneration has been proven since the 17th century.

Trivia

In 1883 Pope Leo XIII confirmed . Adalbero officially as a saint for the universal Church, who was venerated as such soon after his death. In the Würzburg Neumünster Church there is a glass shrine designed by Josef Amberg in 1948 , which contains a thigh bone of Adalberos as a relic . In addition, the neo-Romanesque church Adalberokirche in Würzburg commemorates the saint. In this one can also be found a bust . In 2010, the millennium of his birth was celebrated in various places, especially in Lambach Abbey.

literature

Web links

Commons : Adalbero von Würzburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Wießner: The Diocese of Naumburg 1 - The Diocese 2. In: Max Planck Institute for History (Ed.): Germania Sacra . NF 35,2: The dioceses of the church province of Magdeburg. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, p. 747 ( scan in Google book search).
  2. ↑ Our founder. Lambach Abbey, accessed on November 27, 2019 (short biography Adalbero).
predecessor Office successor
Bruno Bishop of Würzburg
1045-1090 		Emehard
personal data
SURNAME Adalbero of Würzburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adalbero
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Würzburg and Count of Lambach-Wels
DATE OF BIRTH around 1010
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1090
Place of death Lambach