Albrecht of Brandenburg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg , painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä. , after 1529
Signature Albrecht von Brandenburg.PNG
Albrecht von Brandenburg, painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä., 1543
Albrecht of Mainz, Albrecht Dürer , 1519
Grave monument to Cardinal Albrechts of Brandenburg in Mainz Cathedral

Albrecht von Brandenburg (born June 28, 1490 in Cölln on the Spree ; † September 24, 1545 at Martinsburg in Mainz ) from the House of Hohenzollern was initially co-ruling Margrave of Brandenburg with his older brother Joachim I. Nestor (as Albrecht IV. ). Then he entered the clergy and became (also as Albrecht IV. ) Archbishop of Magdeburg and (as Albrecht V ) Apostolic Administrator for the vacant Halberstadt . As early as 1514 he was also Archbishop of Mainz and as such metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz , sovereign of the Archbishopric Mainz , Elector and Arch Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and later Cardinal of the Roman Church .

As a promoter of the sale of indulgences and the highest-ranking clerical dignitary of the Roman-German Empire , he was one of the most important and popular opponents of Martin Luther .

Life

Albrecht was the second son and the seventh and youngest child of Elector Johann Cicero von Brandenburg . Together with his brother Joachim I. Nestor , he founded the university in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1506 , where he also studied. In the same year he entered the clergy, in 1513 at the age of 23 he became Archbishop of Magdeburg and Administrator of the Halberstadt Diocese and in 1514 Archbishop and Elector of Mainz (contrary to the canonical prohibition of having more than one bishopric, he succeeded him Uriel von Gemmingen ) and cardinal in 1518 . He ruled from 1514 until his expulsion on February 21, 1541 from his Moritzburg residence in Halle an der Saale .

In 1515 and 1516 he made an attempt to drive the Jews out of Mainz ( Magenza ), but it failed.

Albrecht von Brandenburg did not meet the requirements for taking over a bishopric. He had not yet reached the required age; he also did not have an academic degree, but received a study grant. For the due confirmation fee ( see: Simony ), Albrecht borrowed 20,000 guilders from Jacob Fugger in order to transfer the requested servitia to the Curia in Rome. A delegation headed by the Archbishop of Riga, Johannes Blankenfeld , traveled to Rome in Faktorei to cash out the money of the bank Fugger at the Vatican. Initially, the transaction and mission went smoothly until the Archbishop of Salzburg , Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg , objected to Albrecht's intended accumulation of benefices. As a result, the amount demanded by Pope Leo X of Albrecht for the servitude money increased.

Albrecht's advisors recommended a sale of indulgences as a way to repay his loan debt to Jakob Fugger.

In 1514 Albert proposed to the Pope that a special indulgence should be proclaimed in his dioceses as well as in his native Brandenburg, half of which should be earmarked for the new building of St. Peter in Rome and half for the treasury of his dioceses. The bull was finally issued on March 31, 1515.

The dishonest methods of the Dominican evacuation preacher Johann Tetzel , who worked on his behalf in the dioceses of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, gave Luther the reason to propose the 95 theses . As a result, Albrecht, although he favored humanism and had appointed Ulrich von Hutten to his court in Halle in 1515 , was in opposition to the Lutheran Reformation from the outset . At first Albrecht tried to mediate and to bring about a general reform of the church through a council . On July 19, 1525 he participated in the founding of the anti-Lutheran Dessau Confederation . Martin Luther initially had high hopes for Albrecht, but soon realized that no compromise was possible. In June 1528 Albrecht was forced Landgrave Philipp of Hessen the Treaty of Hitzkirchen close, abandoned in the Kurmainz to the spiritual jurisdiction over Hesse.

Under Archbishop Albrecht von Brandenburg, the first thalers and double thalers of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg were minted in 1524.

As late as 1530 in Augsburg , Albrecht called for peace and for a common defense against the Turks. 1534 he negotiated with Duke George of Saxony between the Protestant princes and the Roman King Ferdinand I the comparison of Kadan . In 1538 Albrecht signed the Halleschen Bund against the Schmalkaldic Bund with his brother Joachim . This step and the execution of Hans von Schönitz , a former but disgraced favorite of Albrecht, prompted Luther to publish a very violent diatribe against Albrecht.

In return for assuming his debts, Albrecht granted his Protestant subjects the freedom to practice their religion in the Magdeburg Abbey , but was expelled from Moritzburg in Halle (Saale) after 27 years of residence in 1541. Thereupon he advised the emperor to use force against the Protestants and accepted the Jesuit order, founded in 1540, as the first of all German princes in Mainz. At the Reichstag in Speyer in 1544, he arranged for an ambiguous imperial farewell with regard to the Protestant estates and made preliminary agreements with the Catholic princes on the war that would soon break out.

coat of arms

The great coat of arms

The "Great Coat of Arms", in 15 parts, as it appears on the various seals, medals, pictures and on the bronze grave plate in Mainz Cathedral, shows on a shield in a characteristic curved shape in five rows of coats of arms from the top left (heraldic right):

  • Field 1, on a golden background a red armored black lion, all around twelve times in a silver-red border (Burgrave Nuremberg),
  • Field 2, on a silver / white background a gold-armored, red eagle with golden clover stems (Margraviate Brandenburg),
  • Field 3, on a blue background a gold-reinforced red griffin (Duchy of Stettin),
  • Field 4, on a silver / white background a gold-reinforced red griffin (Duchy of Pomerania),
  • Field 5, divided, on a golden background a growing red crowned and armored black lion above a red staircase on a blue background (Rügen rule),
  • Field 6, on a silver / white background a gold-reinforced, red griffin with green wings (Duchy of Wenden),
  • Field 7, on a golden background a black griffin (Duchy of Kassuben),
  • Field 8, the heart shield, three shields (2 + 1) placed, the spiritual rule, on a red background a silver wheel (Mainz), next to it red-silver divided (Magdeburg), below it silver-red divided (Halberstadt),
  • Field 9, a golden griffin on a blue background (Herrschaft Rostock),
  • Field 10, a silver fish griffin on a red background (Usedom reign),
  • Field 11, the Zollernschild, silver-black quartered (family coat of arms of the House of Hohenzollern),
  • Field 12, divided, on a red background a growing silver griffin, below blue-silver chess (Duchy of Wolgast),
  • Field 13, on a golden field a red cross with a red rose in each corner (Herrschaft Gützkow),
  • Field 14, red field - sovereignty or blood ban sign, as a sign of high jurisdiction over life and death,
  • Field 15, a silver eagle armored with gold on a red background ( Ruppin reign ).

family

Leys Schütz as St. Ursula

There are various references to Albrecht's lover in the literature. The Mainz local history researcher Franz Joseph Bodmann named a Redinger woman as a concubine in 1800 . The more recent research found no evidence for this person, but rather assumes that he lived in a marriage-like relationship with Elisabeth "Leys" Schütz and the Frankfurt widow Agnes Pless, née Strauss . With Leys he had a daughter named Anna, whom he married to his secretary Joachim Kirchner. She in turn had a son named Albrecht. He made Agnes Pless, a successful business woman , the head of a beguinage that he had founded in Aschaffenburg's Schöntal .

Albrecht made no secret of these relationships. It is believed that Leys is depicted in some of Cranach's paintings . One picture shows the beloved as an adulteress from the Gospel of John . The cardinal himself is represented in the crowd, in contrast to the others who are about to stone the sinner, but with consciously open, empty hands. Two pairs of Cranach tablets in Aschaffenburg show Albrecht and his partner as Saint Martin or Saint Erasmus and Saint Ursula , another pair of tablets in the Grunewald hunting lodge (inv. No. GK I 9369 and 9370) shows Albrecht again as Saint Erasmus with Saint Ursula .

Albrecht was also the godfather of Moritz von Sachsen , who was also brought up at Albrecht's residence, today's Moritzburg in Halle / Saale.

Albrecht as patron of the arts and Renaissance prince

Albrecht was impressed by the work of the Medici and other Italian church princes. He was in contact with humanists and artists and became a friend of the sciences and promoter of the arts. Similar to how Elector Friedrich the Wise of Saxony expanded Wittenberg , Albrecht planned to expand the city of Halle into the residence of a territory similar to a church state . He had the impressive St. Mary's Church and then the Hallesche Dom rebuilt from two simple churches . For the interior design of the cathedral, he commissioned Lucas Cranach for 16 altars with a total of 142 pictures, which were to be painted in five years. This was the largest painting commission in German art history. In addition, he had Grünewald paint the Erasmus Mauritius table altar . He also sponsored Hans Baldung Grien . The cityscape of Halle is still characterized by Albrecht's orders. These include the most important Renaissance cemetery in Europe, the Stadtgottesacker , and his castle, the Moritzburg, which he named after the patron saint of his archbishopric, St. Moritz . His attempts to found a denominational university in Halle failed. He used the remaining large monastery buildings as a so-called New Residence . He greatly enriched the church treasure of Halle and a collection of relics called " Hallesches Heiltum ", which he had taken over from his predecessor. When he had to flee in 1541, he took many of the art treasures he had donated with him. Several Cranach pictures and a relic calendar (a relic was collected for every saint of the day) came into the possession of the collegiate church of St. Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg . Most of the treasures fell victim to a fire shortly after Albrecht's escape. Albrecht donated the margrave chapel at the German national church Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome .

Albrecht saw his patronage as a godly work for his soul's salvation and financed this work with the aforementioned indulgence trade, which benefited in particular the renovation of St. Peter's Church in Rome .

Albrecht introduced what was probably the first Renaissance design on a building in Central Germany. 1520 to 1523 was at the Halle Cathedral built a gable wreath in front of the roof of the choir in the forms of early Renaissance, the clear references to contemporary architecture in Venice (z. B. Round-gable of the Scuola San Rocco 1495) shows.

In Dresden two magnificent mitres of Albrecht von Brandenburg have been preserved. The restoration of the 500 year old miter embroidered with freshwater pearls was documented in a.

  • Albrecht von Mainz as Saint Jerome while studying, Lucas Cranach the Elder. Ä., 1526

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Jerome, Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä.

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg as St. Erasmus Mathis Gothart-Nithart , called Grünewald around 1520

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Erasmus with Saint Mauritius, Matthias Grünewald around 1520

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Martin Simon Franck 1543

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg praying on the cross - by Lucas Cranach d. Ä.

  • Mass of St. Gregory with Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg - from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Ä.

Musical reception

In the opera Mathis der Maler (1938) by Paul Hindemith , in which Albrecht von Brandenburg sings a leading role (tenor), the contradictions of his nature are dramaturgically thematized in the second, fifth and sixth pictures: his generosity as an art patron and the transcendental significance of painting for him, his ambivalent relationship to Luther and the Reformation as well as his presumed (not finally proven) love affair with the bourgeois daughter Ursula Rehdingerin (in the opera: Ursula Riedinger)

Bust in the Siegesallee

For the former Berliner Siegesallee , often smiled at as “Puppenallee” , the sculptor Johannes Götz designed a marble bust of Albrecht as a side figure to the central statue for his electoral brother Joachim I in monument group 19 , unveiled on August 28, 1900. Götz also represented Albrecht a cap-like headgear and a hooded cloak made of damask based on the model of Cranach's painting from 1527. In contrast to Cranach, who saw Albrecht as Saint Jerome , the bust emphasizes Albrecht's youthfulness. Götz emphasized his patronage and his interest in art by presenting Albrecht in deep contemplation of an apostle figure by Peter Vischer . The allegorical depiction of a putto in the back of the bench, which draws Dürer's portrait of Maximilian , underlines Albrecht's understanding of art. A second figure is watering the Reformation tree . This representation indicates that Albrecht was benevolent towards the Reformation in his younger years and only developed into its resolute opponent after the Peasant Wars . The family coat of arms is embedded in the bust base. The bust has been preserved with fractures and partially chipped face and has been resting in the Spandau Citadel since May 2009 . The architectural parts of the monument group and thus also the allegorical pictures of the bench have been lost.

literature

Web links

Commons : Albrecht von Brandenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Albrecht von Brandenburg  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ingrid Heike Ringel: Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg . In: Friedhelm Jürgensmeier (Hrsg.): Contributions to Mainz Church History2 . tape 2 . Frankfurt a. M. 1991.
  2. ^ Arye Maimon: Albrecht II's attempt to expel Jews from Mainz and his failure (1515/16). In: Yearbook for West German State History. Volume 4, 1978, pp. 191-220.
  3. ↑ Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel
  4. ↑ Greg Steinmetz: The richest man in world history. Life and work of Jacob Fugger. FBV, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-89879-961-4 , p. 149.
  5. ↑ Christiane Schuchard: What is an indulgence commissioner ?; in: ed. H. Kühne, Johann Tetzel und der Ablass: Accompanying volume to the exhibition "Tetzel - Ablass - Purgatory" in the monastery and Nikolaikirche Jüterbog; ISBN 978-3-86732-262-1 Lukas Verlag Jul 2017 (2017). P. 122 ( online via google books )
  6. ^ Kerstin Merkel: Albrecht and Ursula. A walk through literature and the making of legends. In: Andreas Tacke (Ed.): "... we want to give space to love". Cohabiting ecclesiastical and secular princes around 1500 (= series of publications by the Moritzburg Foundation, Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt; 3). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0052-0 , pp. 157-187.
  7. ^ Oskar Panizza : German theses against the Pope and his dark men. With a foreword by MG Conrad. New edition (selection from the “666 theses and quotations”). Nordland-Verlag, Berlin 1940, p. 88 f.
  8. ↑ cf. Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. October 5, 2006, p. 9.
  9. ↑ Uta Lehnert: The Kaiser and the Siegesallee. Réclame Royale. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-496-01189-0 , pp. 167-170.
predecessor Office successor
Johann Cicero (Co-) Margrave of Brandenburg
1499–1513 		Joachim I.
Ernst II of Saxony Prince Archbishop of Magdeburg
1513–1545 		Johann Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach
Ernst II of Saxony Administrator of Halberstadt
1513–1545 		Johann Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach
Uriel of Gemmingen Elector and Archbishop of Mainz
1514–1545 		Sebastian von Heusenstamm
Adriano di Castello Cardinal priest of San Crisogono
1518–1521 		Erard de La Marck
Francesco della Rovere Cardinal priest of San Pietro in Vincoli
1521–1545 		Jacopo Sadoleto
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht of Brandenburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albrecht of Hohenzollern
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cardinal, Elector, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, Administrator of Halberstadt, Margrave of Brandenburg
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1490
PLACE OF BIRTH Cölln on the Spree
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1545
Place of death Martinsburg to Mainz