Engelbert I of Cologne

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Engelbert's reliquary bust in Essen in the exhibition Gold vor Schwarz . Westphalian, silver-plated and gilded wood carving, Gothic, late 15th century
The equestrian statue of Count Engelbert II zu Berg in Burg Castle by Paul Wynand , 1929
Memorial for the murdered archbishop in Gevelsberg
Seal of Archbishop Engelbert

Engelbert von Berg , later called Engelbert the Holy (* 1185 or 1186 at Burg Castle ; † November 7, 1225 near Gevelsberg ), was Engelbert I Archbishop of Cologne . He was the second ruler named Engelbert in the county of Berg, which is often shortened to Engelbert II. Graf von Berg .

Life

Engelbert was born between November 8, 1185 and November 7, 1186 as the son of Count Engelbert I von Berg from the Berg-Altena dynasty and his second wife Margarete von Geldern at Castle Burg . Engelbert's older brother Adolf III. After his father's death in 1189 von Berg took over the county of Berg .

From 1198 Engelbert is documented as provost of St. Georg in Cologne . From 1199 to 1216 he was provost in Cologne. Elected at the insistence of his cousin, Archbishop Adolf I of Cologne , there was a double election. With his rival, the later Archbishop Dietrich I von Hengebach , he now litigated four years before the Curia and traveled twice to Rome for this purpose. Finally, the Pope conceded both elections and ordered a new election, from which Engelbert emerged as the unanimously elected. As cathedral provost, he represented the party of his uncle, the later deposed Archbishop Adolf I von Altena, to whom he also donated goods from the Cologne cathedral monastery. In 1203 he was elected Bishop of Münster, but refused the office because he was not the required age of 30 years. In 1206 he became Archbishop Adolf's supporter of the prostaufer position and because of the devastation he committed in the Archdiocese of Cologne from Pope Innocent III. banned, excommunicated and deposed as provost, but pardoned in 1208. In the end, Engelbert remained the realistic politician and came to a good understanding with his uncle's opponents. Since 1210 also provost of St. Severin in Cologne, he remained politically neutral in the years to come and did not commit himself to either the Staufer or Guelph side during the German controversy for the throne. In 1212 he took part in the Albigensian Crusade for 60 days with his brother Count Adolf von Berg .

His balanced policy finally enabled him to be elected Archbishop of Cologne on February 29, 1216, for which the approval of both the Pope and King Friedrich II had probably been obtained beforehand. In 1217 he was ordained a bishop by Archbishop Dietrich von Trier . The bishops of Münster, Liège and Osnabrück acted as co-consecrators. Pope Honorius III. Engelbert sent the archbishop's pallium in 1218 after he had previously paid for the damage caused to the cathedral chapter.

Engelbert's brother Adolf III came in 1218. von Berg without male descendants to death on the crusade in Egypt. Duke Walram IV of Limburg considered himself entitled to inheritance in the county of Berg, as his son Heinrich (later Duke Heinrich IV of Limburg ) was married to Irmgard von Berg , the only daughter of Adolf von Berg. Although his brother's daughter was already entitled to inheritance under the law at the time, Engelbert claimed his brother's inheritance for himself. The follow-up dispute was not decided in a judicial process, but by force through two feuds . The Duke of Limburg allied himself with the Duke of Cleves; Engelbert, in turn, entered into an alliance with Brabant in 1217 . Engelbert prevailed militarily and his opponent was forced to make peace in 1220. Engelbert confessed to Walram III. von Limburg paid an annual pension as a severance payment, which was to be paid as long as Engelbert von Cologne administered the Grafschaft Berg. After the archbishop's death, the county of Berg fell to Heinrich von Limburg.

Engelbert was in close contact with Emperor Friedrich II. In 1220 Friedrich II appointed him provisional administrator ( Reichsverweser ) and guardian of his son Heinrich , whom Engelbert crowned king in Aachen in 1222 . Engelbert held these offices until his death, making him the most politically influential person in the empire. This is also confirmed by the Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis , issued in 1220 , an agreement between Frederick and the ecclesiastical imperial princes, in the drafting of which Engelbert, as “governor Regni Teutonici”, played a leading role. Through them, almost all rights ("regalia") previously reserved to the king, such as market, coin or fortification rights, were transferred to the clergy princes, who were first referred to here as "sovereigns". Engelbert, like his uncle and predecessor Adolf I von Altena, was significantly involved in the progressive development of both the electoral kingship and the territorial sovereignty in Germany.

Engelbert's share in the development of the state is expressed through the granting of legal status or city rights for at least 11, probably 13 city castles, including Wipperfürth , Attendorn , Brilon , Siegen , Werl and Herford . He is considered to be the actual founder of the Arch-Cologne territory between the Maas and Weser (" Duchy of Westphalia ").

Engelbert's assassination

On November 7th, 1225, Engelbert was on his way back from Soest to Cologne via Schwelm , where he wanted to consecrate the church, in a ravine in what is now Gevelsberg, attacked by a group of armed men led by his relative, Count Friedrich von Isenberg , and killed by his ministerial . The role of Friedrich, who in his capacity as lord of the Isenburg castle is also referred to as the Isenburg man , has already been described ambiguously in contemporary reports: On the one hand, he cheers his people on in the fight against the fiercely defending, 1.80 meter tall bishop, his companion almost all had fled; on the other hand, he laments his death as a great misfortune and prevents the decapitation of the corpse. History today assumes that Engelbert's death was not planned, but that he should be kidnapped and imprisoned according to the customs of the time.

Walram IV of Limburg and other counts, who were in opposition to Engelbert's territorial and devognation policy, are suspected to be the masterminds behind the attack. An indication of Walram's involvement is the capture of an archiepiscopal castle by a Limburg army two days after Engelbert's death, the planning and preparation of which must have taken well over two days. Many high nobility in Westphalia and the Rhineland saw their position endangered by Engelbert, who wanted to expand the Cologne territory and therefore u. a. Claimed lucrative bailiwicks, which until then were under their control, secured their income and were often the basis of their own territorial development efforts of local counts. The inhabitants of the city of Soest also took advantage of the opportunity and immediately after Engelbert's murder, they demolished the episcopal fortress in the city, the palatium .

The attempt of his entourage, who returned to the scene of the crime that night, to have Engelbert's body laid out in Schwelm, failed due to the refusal of the clerics there. The attempt to bring him to Engelbert's ancestral seat in Berg, today's Burg Castle , is said to have failed because the funeral procession was allegedly denied entry. His body was finally brought to Altenberg to the Cistercian monks settled there by the Bergisch counts, washed in the monastery and prepared for burial. Four days after Engelbert's death, the train arrived in Cologne with his remains. The meat loosened from the bones by cooking was buried in the tower of the old cathedral in Cologne, while its heart remained in the Altenberg cathedral . According to medieval legal practice, the bones were required to bring a lawsuit and therefore placed in a shrine to be able to show them.

On November 14, 1226 Friedrich von Isenberg was seized in Liège after his return from a trip to Rome, where he had apparently successfully tried to convince the Pope of his innocence. He was handed over by the Count of Geldern and then whacked in Cologne. His possessions Nienbrügge , fortifications around the settlement, castle and bridge as well as Isenberg Castle near Hattingen were razed by Count Adolf I. von der Mark . The citizens of Nienbrügge were settled by Adolf between Lippe and Ahse on the "Ham", where he founded the city of Hamm on Ash Wednesday 1226 .

With Engelbert I's violent death, the renovation phase of Castle Burg an der Wupper , which he began in 1218, ended , where an equestrian statue by the sculptor Paul Wynand was erected in his honor in 1929 . In the knight's hall of the castle, his murder is depicted on a mural by Claus Meyer (1856–1919) based on the hagiographic description written by Caesarius von Heisterbach .

Walther von der Vogelweide , in the service of the Staufer Emperor Friedrich II , writes in the so-called Engelbrecht tone:

“I praise swes life, the dead I want to lament
so we in the become princes have succumbed from Kôlne
owe des duz carried in diu erde mac!
i ne can't find any marter in siner debt:
in alze mustard an eichîn wit umb sînen collar.
in wil sin ouch neither burn nor degenerate nor flay
break with the wheel or tie on it:
I am always waiting to see if the bright ones slind into living waves. "
“I praise Wes' life, I always want to lament his death
So woe to him who slew the noble Prince of Cologne!
Woe to the fact that the earth may still carry him!
Judging by his guilt, I cannot find a suitable torture:
For him it would be too gentle to put a noose of oak rope around his neck.
Do not burn it, neither dismember its limbs nor peel off its skin,
neither break with the wheel nor tie it to it:
I'm just waiting to see if Hell won't devour him alive. "

Resting place and veneration

His bones are now kept in a baroque shrine that Archbishop Ferdinand von Bayern had made in the treasury of Cologne Cathedral . The goldsmith Conrad Duisbergh created it between 1630 and 1633. The separately buried "Heart of the Holy" is now kept and shown as a relic in a modern reliquary in Altenberg Cathedral . Finger relics can be found in the Catholic parish church of St. Engelbert in Solingen-Mitte, the church of St. Martinus in Solingen-Burg and in the Währinger parish church in Vienna . There is also a piece of a rib in Währing. Part of the forearm is kept in the former St. Engelbert parish in Gevelsberg . In the cathedral treasure to eat a Engelbert reliquary is obtained that the Essen convent belonged. Engelbert is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and is listed in the Martyrologium Romanum, the official directory of the blessed and saints of the Catholic Church. His feast day is November 7th. His successor Heinrich von Müllenark commissioned the monk Caesarius von Heisterbach to write a hagiography , probably to prepare for the canonization. Not least because of the miracle stories spread by Heisterbach, the Gevelsberg monastery was founded on the spot . This became a center of Engelbert's worship.

A memorial plaque for him was placed in the Walhalla near Regensburg . As part of the redesign of the sculpture program for the Cologne town hall tower in the 1980s, Engelbert von Cologne was honored with a figure by Titus Reinarz on the fourth floor on the west side of the tower.

Forensic examination 1978

Forensic doctors examined his bones in 1978 and were able to prove almost 50 injuries from blows and stabs from various weapons with millimeter precision. The high number of deep injuries is interpreted as a sign of fierce resistance from Engelbert and a panic reaction of the attackers, since a few of these blows have certainly been fatal. His height was 1.80 m.

swell

  • Caesarius von Heisterbach : life, suffering and miracles of St. Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne (= The historians of the German prehistoric times. Volume 100). Translated by Karl Langosch. Münster / Cologne 1955.

literature

Lexicon articles and short profiles

Important older research literature

  • Julius Ficker : Engelbert the saint, Archbishop of Cologne and Reichsverweser , Cologne 1853, published by JM Heberle (H. Lempertz). - (digitized version) , reprint: Aalen 1985.
  • Vinzenz Jakob von Zuccalmaglio : Engelbert the saint, Count von Berg, Archbishop of Cologne and restorer of the German Empire. A presentation. Opladen 1875 (digitized) .
  • Franz Emil Brandstäter: Engelbert with the nickname "the saint", Archbishop of Cologne, Count von Berg, Duke of Westphalia and Lower Lorraine, administrator of the German Empire. In: Yearbook of the Association for Orts- und Heimatkunde in Grafschaft Mark , Volume 5 (1890-1891), pp. 139-158 ( digitized version ).
  • Wolfgang Kleist: The death of Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne. A critical study. In: Journal for patriotic history and antiquity . Volume 75 (1917), pp. 182-249.
  • Hans Foerster: Engelbert von Berg, the saint (= Bergische researches. Volume 1). Martini and Gruttefien, Elberfeld 1925.

Recent research literature

  • Thomas R. Kraus : The emergence of the sovereignty of the counts of Berg up to the year 1225 (= Bergische research. Volume 16). Ph. CW Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 1980, ISBN 3-87707-024-8 .
  • Paul Steinebach : Investigation of high medieval cities. City foundations, condominiums and privileges of Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne. Hanover 1984.
  • Josef Lothmann: Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne (1216–1225), Count von Berg, Archbishop and Duke, Imperial Administrator (= publications of the Cologne History Association. Volume 38). Dissertation, Cologne 1993.
  • Gerhard E. Sollbach: The violent death of Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne on November 7th, 1225. A medieval criminal case. In: Yearbook of the Association for Ort- und Heimatkunde in the Grafschaft Mark , Volume 93/94 (1995), pp. 7-49.
  • Wido Meister: The ravine in which the Archbishop Engelbert von Berg was attacked. In: Romerike Berge. Issue 4/2003, pp. 2-6.
  • LWL Museum for Archeology (Ed.): Knights, castles and intrigues. Revolt in 1225! The Middle Ages on the Rhine and Ruhr. Exhibition catalog. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2010. Therein:
    • Heinz Finger : The violent death of Cologne Archbishop Engelbert and the prehistory. Pp. 21-33.
    • Ulrich Andermann: The conspiracy against Engelbert I of Cologne on November 7th, 1225 and its consequences. Attempt to reconstruct and evaluate legal history. Pp. 35-46.
    • Wilhelm Janssen : aristocratic rule and ducal power. Political structures and developments between the Ruhr and Lippe 1180–1300. Pp. 47-58.
  • Bernhard Suermann: Reckless power man? Defender of the Church? Peacekeeper willing to compromise? A contribution to the Engelbert reception. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein , Volume 103 (2010-2011), Neustadt an der Aisch 2012, ISBN 978-3-87707-854-9 , pp. 6-21.
  • Alexander Berner: Crusade and regional rule. The older counts of Berg 1147–1225. Böhlau, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22357-1 .

Web links

Commons : Engelbert I. von Köln  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Stürner : Thirteenth Century, 1198–1273 (= Gebhardt Handbook of German History. Volume 6). Stuttgart 2007, p. 222.
  2. ^ So Wolfgang Kleist: The death of Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne. A critical study. In: Journal for patriotic history and antiquity . Volume 75, 1917, pp. 182-249; recently confirmed by Ulrich Andermann: The conspiracy against Engelbert I of Cologne on November 7, 1225 and its consequences. Attempt to reconstruct and evaluate legal history. In: LWL Museum for Archeology (Ed.): Knights, castles and intrigues. Revolt in 1225! The Middle Ages on the Rhine and Ruhr. Exhibition catalog. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2010, p. 44 u. Note 56.
  3. ^ Reliqiengrab in St. Engelbert , accessed on April 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ st-martinus-burg.de , accessed on April 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ The relic of St. Engelbert to Vienna. In:  Wiener Zeitung , November 23, 1934, p. 4 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz.
  6. ↑ The St. Engelbert relics in the Währing parish church. In:  Reichspost , March 18, 1935, p. 4 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt.
  7. ^ Martyrologium Romanum. Città del Vaticano 2001, 2nd revised edition 2004, page 611.
  8. ^ Sculptures on the fourth floor. In: stadt-koeln.de. accessed on January 15, 2015.
predecessor Office successor
Adolf I. Archbishop of Cologne
1216–1225 		Heinrich I.
Adolf III. Count of Berg
1218–1225 		Henry IV.
personal data
SURNAME Engelbert I of Cologne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Engelbert von Berg; Engelbert II von Berg; Engelbert the saint
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Archbishop of Cologne
DATE OF BIRTH 1185 or 1186
PLACE OF BIRTH Schloss Burg ( Burg an der Wupper )
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1225
Place of death near Gevelsberg