Albert von Mußbach

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Border stone with the coat of arms of the von Mußbach family in the Mußbach manor

Albert von Mußbach (* before 1262; † March 26, 1277 in Speyer ) was a noble canon in the prince-bishops of Speyer and Worms , who was the victim of an assassination .

Origin and family

Albert came from a ministerial family that named itself after the village of Mußbach in the Upper Palatinate and of which several representatives appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries. Albert's brother Johann von Mußbach was canon in Speyer, Egon von Mußbach appeared as ministerial of the Bishop of Speyer as early as 1217, Richard von Mußbach and Egeno von Mußbach officiated in the 14th century as grand priors of the Order of St. John , Egeno, for example, from 1306 to 1317 as commander of Heimbach in the southern Palatinate .

job

Albert von Mußbach is documented for the first time on May 3, 1262 as a Speyer canon , in 1265 he was also canon in Worms , in 1275 he founded the Branchweiler Hospital near Neustadt .

Under Bishop Heinrich von Leiningen († 1272) Albert officiated from 1269 as dean of the cathedral of Speyer and remained in this office under the successor Friedrich von Bolanden († 1302). During his forced absence, cathedral dean Albert took his place. The bishop was captured by Knight Wolfram von Fleckenstein in 1276 and arrested at Fleckenstein Castle . King Rudolf I therefore besieged the castle and freed the shepherd.

In 1276, when there was no bishopric, the free imperial city of Speyer tried to appropriate various rights of the diocese. The main point of contention was the ungeld , a kind of sales tax that the bishop collected from time immemorial and that was now claimed by the city. Cathedral dean Albert complained about it to Pope John XXI. , who on January 9, 1277 commissioned the Mainz cathedral dean to investigate the case. Four days later, he confirmed to the episcopal see of Speyer all the freedoms, rights and graces that previous kings and popes had bestowed on it. But before the papal cops arrived in Speyer, the complainant was murdered.

assassination

Central archive of the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate. The historic Schlegelhof, where Albert von Mußbach lived, stood here.

The dean of the cathedral lived south of the Speyer cathedral in Schlegelhof, where the central archive of the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate stands today. On Good Friday , March 26, 1277, he wanted to be early in the morning Mette go into the cathedral. Between Schlegelhof and cathedral cloister is lurking on him and killed him. When he was found, his body had a deep chest wound with injury to the heart, as well as multiple back and side wounds. In addition, the throat was cut, the skull was broken, exposing parts of the brain, and the left hand was severed from the body. Tradition reports that a stray pig ate the brain matter before the body could be recovered.

The perpetrators were searched intensively. Witnesses who did not answer, or people who covered the murderers, had to reckon with the church ban, which the priests of the diocese had to announce by ringing bells and burning candles in all churches. Nevertheless, the culprits remained undiscovered.

Bishop Friedrich von Bolanden stated that the murdered Albert "rose up like a wall to protect the house of God and was jealous for justice in everything". The cathedral chapter made the decision to have the cathedral dean fetched for Good Friday mass by a valet with a burning candle. A stone cross that no longer exists today was erected at the site of the crime. Johann von Mußbach, cathedral capitular and nephew of the slain, endowed a mass foundation for the uncle and himself in 1315.

literature

  • Konrad von Busch and Franz Xaver Glasschröder : choir rules and the younger sea book of the old Speyer cathedral chapter . Historical Association of the Palatinate, Speyer 1923, p. 153 f . (with biographical information about the person).
  • Franz Xaver Remling : History of the bishops of Speyer . tape 1 . Mainz 1852, p. 526 f . ( Digital scan ).
  • Friedrich Blaul : The Imperial Cathedral at Speier . Neustadt an der Haardt 1860, p. 20 ( digital scan ).
  • Emil Michael: History of the German People from the Thirteenth Century to the End of the Middle Ages . tape 2 . Herder Verlag, Freiburg 1899, p. 242 ( detail scan ).
  • Joachim Specht: Murder in the shadow of the cathedral . In: Pilgrim calendar 2017 . Yearbook of the Diocese of Speyer. Speyer 2016, p. 82 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The history of the Catholic parish in Mußbach St. Johannes. www.mussbach.de, accessed on November 29, 2019 .
  2. ^ Michael Frey : Attempt of a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal Bavarian Rhine district . tape 2 . Verlag F. C. Neidhard, Speyer 1836, p. 578 ( digital scan of the von Mußbach family ).
  3. ↑ Description of the manor house. Fördergemeinschaft Herrenhof Mußbach, accessed on October 9, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Historical timeline of the wine village of Mussbach on the German Wine Route. www.mussbach.de, archived from the original on October 9, 2017 ; accessed on October 9, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Albert von Mußbach
BRIEF DESCRIPTION noble canon in the prince-bishopric of Speyer and in the prince-bishopric of Worms
DATE OF BIRTH before 1262
PLACE OF BIRTH uncertain: Mußbach
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1277
Place of death Speyer