Dietrich von Portitz

Dietrich Kagelwit

Dietrich von Portitz or Dietrich Kagelwit , or Dietrich von Kugelweit (* around 1300 in Stendal ; † December 17, 1367 ) was the highest chancellor in the Kingdom of Bohemia and from 1361 to 1367 Archbishop of Magdeburg .

Live and act

Portrait of Dietrich Kagelwit based on Martin Friedrich Seidel's picture collection

Dietrich was the son of a clothes maker in Stendal. He came from the Altmark family von Portitz, who later entered the nobility. First he attended the cathedral school in Stendal, entered the Cistercian order and took the monk's vows in the Lehnin monastery . The monastery was in economic difficulties, which Dietrich solved with great skill. His ability was recommended to Bishop Ludwig von Brandenburg , who hired him as protonotary in 1329 and later promoted him to official and court master . Portitz was auxiliary bishop in Brandenburg from 1346 to 1347 . When Bishop Ludwig died, Dietrich applied unsuccessfully for the vacancy in the Diocese of Brandenburg .

Thereupon he went to the court of King Charles of Bohemia . From 1347 to 1351 he was auxiliary bishop in Olomouc , and from 1353 as Dietrich III. Bishop of Minden . However , he could only devote a little of his time to the diocese of Minden because the services of his royal lord took full advantage of him. He was entrusted with the administration of finance in the Kingdom of Bohemia. With his own funds he redeemed pledged Bohemian goods for the Crown of Bohemia and received all of Bohemia's income in return.

As plenipotentiary and envoy of the king he was in 1354/55 because of the imperial coronation with Pope Innocent VI. in Avignon . He thus played a major role in Charles's coronation as emperor in 1355 and took part in Charles IV's procession to Rome. In gratitude for his successful work, he was promoted from the king to provost of Vyšehrad and in 1360 to supreme chancellor of Bohemia and prince in the royal Bohemian council. In addition, he received Parkstein Castle as a fief for life . In 1357 he led the emperor's campaign against Albrecht Duke of Bavaria . On November 29th, he concluded an armistice with Duke Albrecht, which at the turn of the year 1357/58 led to peace and the abandonment of all Albrecht claims.

Magdeburg Cathedral

In 1361, at the request of the emperor, he was raised to the rank of Archbishop of Magdeburg by the Pope against the resistance of some canons . So he could solemnly move into Magdeburg on November 16 and receive the homage of the people. Here, too, one of his first tasks was to put the broken finances in order. He bought back many pledged goods, villages and even castles and cities and completed the construction of the Magdeburg cathedral . On October 13, 1363, the inauguration took place in the presence of high ecclesiastical dignitaries. Portitz stayed in Bohemia only occasionally.

A scourge of that time was the rampant robbery and feuds that the archbishop faced. In 1362 he concluded a peace alliance with the neighboring princes and nobles, which obliged everyone involved to prosecute the peace breakers. In the last year of his life in 1367, Dietrich led an unfortunate campaign against the Bishop of Hildesheim , who had undertaken raids in the neighborhood. Dietrich allied himself with Duke Magnus von Braunschweig and together they advanced with their armed forces as far as the vicinity of Hildesheim . Here the unexpected counter-attack of the Bishop of Hildesheim took place and brought them a complete defeat in the Battle of Dinklar . A large number of knights and nobles fell into the hands of the victors and had to be ransomed for a large ransom . Archbishop Dietrich died on December 17, 1367.

Archbishop Dietrich was buried behind the high altar in the choir of the Magdeburg Cathedral in accordance with his testamentary decree.

monument

For the Berlin Siegesallee designed Ludwig Cauer a marble bust Kagelwits as a side figure of the monument group 13 with the central still image Charles IV.

Trivia

Lehnin Monastery

The writer Willibald Alexis reproduces the legend Dietrich Kagelwit and the pig's ears in his novel The Werewolf . Then, as a monk in the Lehnin monastery, Kagelwit presented the resting and exhausted Emperor Charles IV with a soup creation with pig's ears, which deeply impressed the emperor (see Lehnin monastery ).

literature

alphabetically ascending

• Willibald Alexis : Dietrich Kagelwit and the pig's ears . In: Richard George (Hrsg.): Hie good Brandenburg all way! W. Pauli's Nachf., Berlin 1900;, pp. 188 ff. (Excerpt from Alexis' novel Der Werwolf . 1847).
• Jiři Fajt, Michael Lindner : Dietrich von Portitz - Cistercian, Imperial Councilor, Archbishop of Magdeburg. Politics and patronage between representation and asceticism (approx. 1300–1367) . In: Jiři Fajt, Wilfried Franzen, Peter Knüvener (eds.): The Altmark from 1300 to 1600. A cultural region in the field of tension between Magdeburg, Lübeck and Berlin . 1st edition, Lukas Verlag für Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-106-8 , pp. 156-201.
• Joachim Leopold Haupt: Yearbooks of the Zittau city clerk Johannes von Guben and some of his successors in office . In: Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences (Hrsg.): Scriptores Rerum Lusaticarum. Collection of Upper and Lower Lusatian historians. NF 1 . Görlitz 1839, pp. 148-149.
• Karl Janicke:  Dietrich, Archbishop of Magdeburg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 183-185.
• Eberhard Kemnitz: Kagelwit. The unusual German-Bohemian career of Archbishop Dietrich von Portitz between Altmark and Avignon (around 1300–1367) . Dr. Ziethen Verlag, Oschersleben 2019, ISBN 978-3-86289-175-7 .
• Margarete Kühn :  Dietrich von Portitz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 678 f. ( Digitized version ).
• EF Mooyer: On the chronology of Schleswig bishops In: Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg Society for Patriotic History (Hrsg.): Yearbooks for the regional studies of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. Volume 2 . Kiel 1859, p. 15 ff. ( Digitized version ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrike Hohensee: The Golden Bull: Politics - Perception - Reception, Volume 1; P. 194
2. ↑ Ulrike Hohensee: The Golden Bull: Politics - Perception - Reception, Volume 1; P. 382
3. ^ Karl Janicke:  Dietrich, Archbishop of Magdeburg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 183-185.

predecessor	Office	successor
Heinrich I. von Warendorp	Bishop of Schleswig 1351-1354	Nicholas III Brun
Gerhard I of Schauenburg	Bishop of Minden 1353-1361	Gerhard II of Schauenburg
Otto of Hesse	Archbishop of Magdeburg 1361–1367	Albrecht II of Sternberg