Berthold von Henneberg

Coat of arms of the Archbishop of Mainz

Berthold von Henneberg (* 1441/1442 ; † December 21, 1504 in Aschaffenburg ) was Archbishop of Kurmainz , thus Imperial Arch Chancellor and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and largely responsible for the reform of the Empire .

Life

His coat of arms around 1485, painted and leaded glass from the Middle Rhine , today in the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt

family

He was born as the twelfth child of Count Georg von Henneberg-Römhild from the Franconian noble family von Henneberg . One of his brothers was the Bamberg prince-bishop Philipp von Henneberg .

Career as a clergyman

At a young age, Berthold von Henneberg received cathedral benefices in Strasbourg , Cologne and Bamberg . From 1464 he received Sacerdotalpfründen in Mainz , first as domicellar , then from 1472 in the Mainz cathedral chapter , from 1475 he was the successor of Richard von Stein cathedral dean . He then studied in Erfurt and Padua , at times he was a student of Nikolaus von Kues . From 1467 he was at the court of the then emperor Friedrich III. active.

Archbishop and Elector of Mainz

Arms Stein Archbishop of Mainz, formerly in Albinischloss the castle Dieburg , today rising between Schloss Fechenbach and Castle Fechenbach

On May 20, 1484, Berthold von Henneberg was unanimously elected Archbishop of Mainz; Pope Innocent VIII confirmed his election on September 20, 1484. He received the episcopal ordination through the Worms Bishop Johann III. on March 13, 1485 in Mainz. He tried to preserve the borders of the Mainz electoral state and already at that time demanded necessary reforms and land peace between the rulers in the empire.

In 1486 he wanted to introduce censorship of books to keep Christian doctrine and faith clean. Berthold von Henneberg was also a sponsor of the University of Mainz , which was the first in the empire to be open to the influence of humanism . He allowed his subjects to levy a beer tax, the Ungeld (also Umgeld or Ohmgeld).

In 1487 and again in 1499 Berthold von Henneberg held provincial synods .

In 1494 he personally took over the management of the Imperial Chancellery at the royal court.

Arch Chancellor

In the course of the imperial reform , Berthold von Henneberg was, as Archbishop of Mainz , a member of the Diet of Worms in 1495 , at which the princes elected him spokesman for the imperial estates . In this function he wrested the consent of the later Emperor Maximilian I from a Reich regiment. The Eternal peace was equally due to his lengthy use as the establishment of the Imperial Chamber and the "Handling peace and justice" as a contract between King and stalls.

The imperial regiment met for the first time in 1500. As Arch Chancellor, Berthold von Henneberg presided over it without dominating it. It was intended as a corporate form of government for the empire, but Maximilian I saw it as a curtailment of his power, which is why he tried to ignore the imperial regiment wherever possible. It consisted of 21 members: the emperor, the arch-chancellor and the elector as permanent members as well as other princes from six imperial circles created for this purpose ( Franconia , Swabia , Bavaria , Upper Rhine , Westphalia and Lower Saxony ) as well as free imperial cities . It passed resolutions in the name of the emperor (including his seal), whereby the emperor had no right of objection.

In 1502 the imperial regiment disbanded due to ongoing problems with the emperor.

Death of Berthold

In 1504, Berthold von Henneberg died on December 21 after a protracted illness one year before the Reichstag in Cologne (June 1505), in which the failure of the Reich Regiment - seven years after its introduction as part of the Reich reform - was finally decided. Of the other measures, the Landfriede and the Reichskammergericht remained , but their competencies were always renegotiated, for example when Emperor Charles V himself broke the land peace in the Schmalkaldic War or when it was not possible to agree who the Reichsacht that the Reichskammergericht over Albrecht Alkibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach should execute.

Afterlife

Berthold's grave memorial in Mainz Cathedral was designed by Hans Backoffen . In 1824 he received a bust in the Walhalla (designed by Ernst Mayer ).

literature

• Karl August Klüpfel :  Berthold (Elector and Archbishop of Mainz) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 524-528.
• Ernst Bock:  Berthold von Henneberg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 156 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Karl Siegfried Bader : Imperial and class reform ideas in the imperial reform of the late 15th century . In: Historical yearbook . Volume 73, 1953, pp. 74–94.
• Fritz Hartung : Berthold von Henneberg, Elector of Mainz . In: Historical magazine . Volume 103, 1909, pp. 527-551.
• Erik Hühns: Theory and Practice in the Imperial Reform Movement of the 15th Century, Nikolaus von Cues, the Reformatio Sigismundi and Berthold von Henneberg . In: Scientific journal of the Humboldt University Berlin, social and linguistic series . Issue 1, 1951/52, pp. 17-34.
• Karl Bauermeister: The Archbishop of Mainz von Henneberg as prince (1484–1504). Phil. Diss. Strasbourg 1913.
• Friedhelm Jürgensmeier : The diocese of Mainz: from Roman times to the Second Vatican Council . Frankfurt a. M., 1988.
• Friedhelm Jürgensmeier (Ed.): Handbook of the Mainz Church History, Volume 6, Modern Times and Modern Times Part 1. Würzburg 2002.
• Joseph Weiss: Berthold von Henneberg. Archbishop of Mainz (1484-1504). His ecclesiastical and ecclesiastical position. Freiburg im Breisgau 1889.

Web links

Commons : Berthold von Henneberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Schramm : Mainzer Gold im Glas. The history of the Mainz Aktien-Bierbrauerei. Told in the year of its 100th anniversary, 1859–1959 . Mainz Aktien Bierbrauerei, Mainz 1959.
2. ↑ Dietmar Heil: The Reichstag in Cologne 1505 results of an edition of the German Reichstag files. Pp. 35–48 historicalkommission-muenchen.de [1]

predecessor	Office	successor
Adalbert III. of Saxony	Elector-Archbishop of Mainz 1484–1504	Jakob von Liebenstein