Erhard von der Mark

Erhard von der Mark, portrait by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen

Cardinal coat of arms (schematic representation)

Erhard (Eberhard) von der Mark , also from the Mar (c) k, French Erard de La Marck (born May 31, 1472 in Sedan , † March 18, 1538 in Liège ) was Prince-Bishop of Liège and Roman Catholic Cardinal , also known as "Cardinal von Boullion", and came from a branch of the Rhenish-Bergisch noble family of the Counts von Berg. From 1505 he was Prince-Bishop of Liège and from 1507 to 1525 Bishop of Chartres , and from 1520 Archbishop of Valencia .

origin

Erhard was the third son of Robert I. de La Marck and his wife Jeanne de Saulcy, also called Jeanne de Marlay. His older brother was Robert II de La Marck , governor of the Duchy of Bouillon .

He received his training from 1483 at the University of Cologne , where Remigius von Malmedy was his teacher and Arnold von Tongern was one of his court masters. In 1499 he became canon in Trier and Tours .

Episcopate

The Chapter of Liège elected him Prince-Bishop of Liège on December 30, 1505. The regalia was awarded by Emperor Maximilian I on April 22, 1509.

The episcopate of Erhard von der Mark was characterized by the struggle for the duchy of Liège between the Habsburgs , and since 1477 also rulers of Burgundy and the French royal family. At first Eberhard stood with Ludwig XII. from France (1462-1515) in good contact, the latter even sent him as an envoy to Maximilian I (1459-1519) so that he would remain loyal to the alliance of Cambrai (December 10, 1508), also known as the League of Cambrai ; as a reward he was appointed Bishop of Chartres (from 1507 to 1525) and administrator of the rich Abbey de Beaulieu in Argonne . In the same year he accompanied the French king on his campaign against Genoa .

But the death of the French King Ludwig in 1515 and the succession by his son-in-law Franz I changed Erhard's political orientation. Because his efforts to gain cardinal dignity with the help of the new French king failed mainly due to the intrigues of the Duchess of Angoulême, Erhard gradually switched from advocate to opponent of France. In the alliance treaty of Sint Truiden (April 27, 1518) he was on the side of the German emperor.

Even after the death of Emperor Maximilian in January 1519, the Liège prince-bishop took the side of Charles V to succeed the deceased emperor and opposed the application of the French king, who, as Duke of Milan, was also Prince of the Holy Roman Empire German nation. The election of a king on June 28, 1519 was also the preliminary stage to the imperial coronation. Erhard was a member of the electoral delegation sent to the electors. This proximity of the bishop to the newly elected king, who as Duke of Burgundy grew up in the immediate vicinity of Liège, paid off in the years that followed.

The emperor and Spanish king appointed Erhard Archbishop of Valencia in gratitude and asked him to be elevated to cardinal status (under the title of St. Chrysogonus , secret survey 1520, published 1521). On August 9, 1521 he was elevated to cardinal by Pope Leo X. His titular church was San Crisogono .

The Liège bishop was the first prince of Germany to issue an edict based on the papal bull Exsurge Domine against Luther . Erhard accompanied Charles V to the Reichstag in Worms (1521) . Luther's most relentless opponent at the Reichstag was the nuncio of Pope Hieronymus Aleander , from 1513 to 1516 chancellor of Prince-Bishop Erhard in Liège. The draft of the Edict of Worms came from the old confidante of Erhard.

Even when his brother Robert von der Mark, Prince of Sedan, sided with France shortly after receiving his cardinal dignity and declared war on the Empire, Erhard stayed on the side of the Empire.

In 1529 he was present at the signing of the Peace of Cambrai between Emperor Charles V and the French king. The peace treaty is also referred to as the Lady Peace of Cambrai because it was mediated by Margarethe of Austria and Luise of Savoy .

In 1530 he was with Charles V at the Reichstag in Augsburg . Erhard also took part in Ferdinand's election and his coronation (1531).

Only four decades after the destruction of Liège in 1468, Erhard ensured a new economic rise for the principality. Instead of war, rebellion and destruction like under his predecessor Ludwig von Bourbon , Erhard von der Mark ensured 30 years of peace, an episcopate of law and order. Its merit was the establishment of a faster and more accepted judiciary. The legacy of Erhard von der Mark in Liège, still visible today, is the episcopal palace. In place of the destroyed palace, Erhard has a new palace built by the architect Arnold van Mulken , which is still part of today's Palace of Justice in Liège.

literature

• Jean Baptiste Joseph Boulliot: biography ardennaise . Volume 2. Self-published, Paris 1830, pp. 175–179 ( digitized version )
• Honoré Fisquet : La France pontificale (Gallia christiana), histoire chronologique et biographique des archevêques et évêques de tous les diocèses de France depuis l'établissement du christianisme jusqu'à nos jours, divisée en 17 provinces ecclésiastique. Métropole de Paris. Chartres . E. Repos, Paris 1864–1873, pp. 161–164 ( digitized version )
• Karl Theodor Wenzelburger:  Eberhard von der Mark . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 548 f.

Web links

• Mark, Eberhard von der. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed July 23, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich Neu:  Erhard (Eberhard) von der Mar (c) k. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 577 f. ( Digitized version ).
2. ^ Karl Theodor Wenzelburger:  Eberhard von der Mark . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 548 f., Here p. 549.
3. ↑ Mark, Eberhard von der. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website ), accessed July 23, 2016.
4. ↑ Kurfürstliches Palais ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann IX. from Hoorn	Bishop of Liège 1505–1538	Cornelius von Berghes
René d'Illiers	Bishop of Chartres 1507–1525	Louis Guillard
Alfonso of Aragon	Archbishop of Valencia 1520–1538	George of Austria
Albrecht of Brandenburg	Cardinal priest of San Crisogono 1521–1538	Hieronymus Aleander