Peace of Zeilsheim
The Peace of Zeilsheim , concluded on October 5, 1463 in Zeilsheim , a present-day district of Frankfurt am Main , ended the Mainz collegiate feud that had been held from 1461 to 1463 .
prehistory
The cause of the collegiate feud was the dismissal and banishment of the Archbishop of Mainz , Diether von Isenburg , ordered by Pope Pius II on August 21, 1461 and the simultaneous appointment of Adolf von Nassau as the new archbishop. Since Diether refused to recognize this decision, a devastating war broke out between the two and their respective allies, in which Diether von Isenburg was ultimately defeated. Adolf's troops conquered the city of Mainz on the night of October 28, 1462 . Deprived of his main base and increasingly dependent on Count Palatine Friedrich I of the Palatinate , Diether was ultimately forced to give in.
The peace treaty
Margrave Karl I of Baden had already brokered a draft contract on June 1, 1463 in Idstein , according to which Diether von Isenburg would renounce the ore chair of Mainz and resign himself to some cities and castles. However, it was not carried out, probably because other parties interested in the outcome of the feud , in particular Frederick I of the Palatinate, did not see their own interests sufficiently protected. Diether's opponents, however, succeeded in reinforcing the already existing distrust between him and the Count Palatine to such an extent that he finally agreed to conclude a separate peace with Adolf von Nassau. The contract was signed on October 5, 1463 under a tree in the open field near Zeilsheim. Adolf von Nassau received the archbishopric of Mainz , with all of his debts accumulated in the course of the feud. As a severance payment, Diether von Isenburg received a small, independent principality, consisting of the Mainz offices of Höchst including the Höchst Castle as residence, Steinheim and Dieburg , and a considerable amount of money. After he had fulfilled his obligations, Pope Pius II released him from the ban in October 1463 .
Count Palatine Friedrich initially protested, but then agreed when the pledging of Bergstrasse was confirmed and he received the city of Pfeddersheim and income from the Rhine toll at Ehrenfels Castle near Rüdesheim . Then he too was released from the papal ban. Emperor Friedrich III. sanctioned the agreements of the Zeilsheim Treaty only 15 months later, on February 13, 1465.
An important consequence of the peace was that Kurmainz, which was financially shattered by the feud between the monasteries, had to cede almost all of its remaining rights in Upper and Lower Hesse to the Landgraves of Hesse. Both opponents had one of the two hostile Hessian landgraves as an alliance partner, Diether the landgrave Heinrich III. von Oberhessen, Adolf his brother Ludwig II. von Niederhessen. Both had deeply indebted to their allies and pledged Mainz possessions, and Adolf had to settle all debts to both landgraves.
Peace Cross Zeilsheim
At the exit from Zeilsheim to Münster there has been a red sandstone road cross since 1759, called the "Peace Cross" in memory of the Peace of Zeilsheim. It originally stood on the old Römerstrasse, which was known under the names Steinstrasse, Hohe Strasse or Elisabethenstrasse . In 1958 it was moved about 50 meters to the south due to the expansion of the Rhein-Main-Schnellweg to the federal motorway A66 .
literature
- Aloys Schmidt: On the Mainz collegiate feud 1462 . In: Yearbook for the Diocese of Mainz , Volume 3 (1948), pp. 89–99.
- Karl Menzel : The contracts between Count Adolf von Nassau and Diether von Isenburg-Büdingen to settle the dispute over the Archbishopric of Mainz . In: Nassauische Annalen , vol. 10 (1870), p. 1.
- Karl Menzel: Diether von Isenburg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 164-170.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz : Dietherr Count of Isenburg. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 1297-1298.
- Walther: Adolf II., Archbishop of Mainz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 119.