Friedrich I. (Palatinate)

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Elector Friedrich I of the Palatinate, in prayer (contemporary donor disc from Maulbronn Monastery )
Elector Friedrich von der Pfalz (painting by Albrecht Altdorfer )
Oath of a feudal lord before Elector Friedrich the Victorious (from Friedrich's fief book of 1471)
Elector Friedrich kneeling before Madonna with baby Jesus (from Friedrich's fief book of 1471)
Grave in the crypt of the Jesuit Church in Heidelberg
Epitaph in the Jesuit Church in Heidelberg, 1810

Friedrich I the Victorious (born August 1, 1425 in Heidelberg ; † December 12, 1476 there ) was Count Palatine and Elector of the Palatinate (1451–1476).

Life

Friedrich's parents were Elector Ludwig III. and Princess Mechthild of Savoy.

Friedrich received careful training in the knightly skills that are common for a prince, such as fencing, hunting or riding, as well as in the seven liberal arts , but without a detailed treatment of the dialectics and rhetoric that were emerging at the time . Here was his teacher Ernst Landschad von Steinach, who had also studied theology.

politics

After the death of his brother Ludwig IV, Friedrich ruled from 1449 to 1451 as the guardian of his one-year-old nephew Philip , adopted him in 1451, renounced marriage himself and derived his right to be the real elector from this “arrogation”. Emperor Friedrich III. rejected this approach and refused to confirm Friedrich as elector.

The Amberg uprising in the Upper Palatinate, a resistance to his action, put down Friedrich in Amberg in 1454 . Through alliance politics and military conflicts he managed to expand his territory. His main allies were Louis IX. of Bavaria-Landshut and Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich.

After the death of the Archbishop of Mainz Dietrich Schenk von Erbach in 1459, disputes arose over his successor between the candidates, the initially elected Diether von Isenburg and Adolf von Nassau and their supporters among the princes. When Margrave Karl I von Baden , who had initially tried to mediate between the divided camps, then took the side of his brother, Bishop Georg von Metz , the Badisch-Palatinate War and the Bavarian War ensued .

Frederick I, who was on the side of the deposed Archbishop Diether, succeeded in 1462 in the Battle of Seckenheim , his opponents, Bishop Georg von Metz, Margrave Karl I of Baden and Count Ulrich V of Württemberg , to take prisoner and them To wrest recognition as elector, along with substantial ransom payments and assignments of territory. Gustav Schwab processed these events in his ballad Das Mahl zu Heidelberg .

In 1463 Friedrich's brother Ruprecht of the Palatinate became Archbishop of Cologne , which further increased Friedrich's power, as did an alliance with Charles the Bold of Burgundy in 1465 . This alliance was directed against Frederick's most powerful enemies, Emperor Friedrich III, Elector Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg and Duke Ludwig von Veldenz . 1469-71 he fell out again with the emperor because of the reform of the Alsatian monastery in Weißenburg and the unauthorized removal of the abbot Jakob von Bruck there . Several attempts at mediation by Ludwig IX. von Bayern-Landshut remained unsuccessful. In 1474 Frederick III spoke. the imperial ban on Friedrich I. However, this had no effect. The elector died in 1476 and was buried in the Franciscan monastery in Heidelberg at his own request. Church of the Holy Sepulcher and monastery went under in 1693, whereupon his remains were transferred to the Capuchin Church in 1696. After the abolition of the monastery in the course of secularization , the remains came to the Jesuit church in 1810 . The grave is now in the crypt, an epitaph in the nave.

The renaissance courtyard

Elector Frederick the Victorious gathered at his court a number of personalities who were closely connected with the Renaissance humanism that was spreading in Germany at the time . Central concepts of the Renaissance such as the idea of ​​fame, the maintenance of historiography with the aim of princely self-portrayal and the promotion of Studia humanitatis at one's own university were adopted through these interrelationships . At that time, important early humanists and scholars such as Peter Luder (from 1456), Matthias von Kemnat (from 1460), Peter Anton von Clapis (from 1465) and the singer, poet and doctor Johann Steinwert von worked in the vicinity of the Heidelberg court for a shorter or longer period of time Soest (from 1472). At the court of Frederick the Victorious, relevant models and new ideas for portraying princely rule from both Italy and the court of the dukes of Burgundy were taken up and made fruitful for their own self-portrayal.

Succession

Elector Friedrich's successor was his nephew and adoptive son Philip , in accordance with the treaty in the "Arrogation" of 1451 . While Friedrich was still alive, both of them declared in unison that his now existing children (from his marriage to Clara Tott ) should only be entitled to inheritance in the Electoral Palatinate if Philip or his sons died before them. In the event of Philip's family line becoming extinct, the succession had been planned for that Frederick who was the closest relative and later became the Princely House of Löwenstein .

Marriage and offspring

Elector Friedrich was betrothed to Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria-Landshut in 1427 when he was a child. However, the engagement was broken off; Elisabeth married Count Ulrich V von Württemberg-Stuttgart in 1445 . When Friedrich adopted his underage nephew Philip in 1451 and assumed the electoral dignity himself in his place, he had to vow celibacy in order not to give the heir to the throne Philip any co-heirs who might later dispute the rightful inheritance.

From a love affair that began in 1459 between Elector Friedrich I and the Munich court maid Clara Tott from Augsburg, two sons emerged, for whom their father - except when the legitimate line died out - waived the inheritance. Both sons are recognized as legitimate in a large number of documents, but the date of the parental marriage is unclear; some sources mention the year 1462. The marriage did not become public until 1472, when Friedrich, the first-born son, tried to be accepted as a cleric in the cathedral monasteries of Speyer and Worms and therefore had to prove an unequivocal marital parentage. In the same year and already once in 1470, the future Elector Philip the Sincere had released his uncle, Elector Friedrich I, from the promise of celibacy made in his favor.

For reasons of state, the whole situation was kept as secret as possible. After the death of her husband, Clara Tott was even kept in captivity for years by his successor Philipp , just to keep the actual family situation from being made public. The early historians were mostly unclear and very cautious about the case because they did not want to fall out of favor with the mighty Electoral Palatinate. Later historians adopted these unclear formulations from their predecessors, especially since the subject lost dynastically and historically in importance over the course of time.

It was only the legally trained historians Johann Ludwig Klüber and August Wilhelm Heffter who carried out sustained research in this regard in the 19th century and wrote very detailed treatises on it, which, based on various sources, clearly document the marital birth of both sons of Frederick I and Clara Tott and also conclusively prove that Clara Tott must have been of aristocratic origin.

The two sons were:

  • Friedrich von Bayern (* around 1460; † October 16, 1474) was a canon at the Speyer Cathedral from 1472, then also at the Worms Cathedral. He died while his father was still alive and - like him - was buried in the Heidelberg Franciscan Church. His epitaph there expressly referred to him as the “legitimate son” of the elector. The tombstone, with a portrait of Frederick in clerical clothing, was still in this church in 1716, but it was badly damaged by the French.
  • Ludwig of Bavaria (1463–1523) was raised to the rank of imperial count on February 24, 1494 by the Roman-German King Maximilian I. His father, Elector Friedrich, left him the Grafschaft Löwenstein . Ludwig of Bavaria, as he was called, is the founder of the Princely House of Löwenstein-Wertheim .

Afterlife

Friedrich's subjects called him Fritz from the Palatinate , but his opponents called him the evil Fritz . The first basic biography, compiled entirely from documents and contemporary chroniclers, was published by the historian Christoph Jakob Kremer from the Electoral Palatinate in 1765, under the title: "History of Elector Friedrich the First of the Palatinate" .

Friedrich's bust is placed in the Walhalla .

literature

  • Henry J. Cohn: The early renaissance temporal court in Heidelberg (Translation of: ibid .: The early Renaissance Court in Heidelberg 1971). In: Ders .: The rule in the Palatinate on the Rhine in the 15th century (= treatises on the history of the Palatinate 16), Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 2013. pp. 255–284.
  • Franz Fuchs; Pirmin Spieß (Ed.): Friedrich the Victorious (1425-1476). Contributions to the research of a late medieval sovereign (= treatises on the history of the Palatinate 17). Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 2016. ISBN 978-3-942189-16-3 .
  • Hagen Seehase, Detlef Ollesch (ed.): Elector Friedrich the Victorious of the Palatinate. (1425-1476). Imhof, Petersberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86568-828-6 .
  • Franz Fuchs : Anti-imperial poems from the environment of Elector Friedrich the Victorious of the Palatinate. In: Franz Fuchs, Paul-Joachim Heinig, Jörg Schwarz (eds.): König, Fürsten and Reich in the 15th century (= research on the history of the emperors and the popes in the Middle Ages. Vol. 29). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20473-0 , pp. 307-317.
  • Klaus Graf: Nachruhm - Reflections on the princely culture of remembrance in the German late Middle Ages . In: Nolte, Cordula; Spieß, Karl-Heinz; Werlich, Ralf-Gunnar (Ed.): Principes. Dynasties and courts in the late Middle Ages (= residence research 14). Stuttgart 2002, pp. 315-336. Online access to ARTDok
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: Knowledge for the farm. The late medieval writing process using the example of Heidelberg in the 15th century . Munich 1994 ( online edition of BSB Munich ).
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: The victorious prince in the scholar's design. At the beginning of court humanism in Heidelberg. In: August Buck (ed.): Court humanism. Weinheim 1989, pp. 17-50.
  • Henny Grüneisen:  Frederick I the Victorious. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , pp. 526-528 ( digitized version ).
  • Eberhard wood, Wolfgang Huschner (ed.): German princes of the Middle Ages. Twenty-five life pictures. Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-361-00437-3
  • Karl-Friedrich Krieger: Friedrich I the Victorious, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Elector of the Palatinate (1425–1476) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 4, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-8904-2 , Sp. 955.
  • Karl Menzel :  Friedrich the Victorious . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 593-603.
  • Jörg Schwarz: Friedrich the Victorious, the Regensburg Christian Day 1471 and the concepts of cooperation, confrontation and compensation. In: Oliver Auge , Ralf-Gunnar Werlich, Gabriel Zeilinger (Eds.): Prince at the turn of the century between group picture and individuality. Forms of princely self-portrayal and their reception (1450–1550) (= Residences research. Vol. 22). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-4524-2 , pp. 263-289.
  • Ellen Widder: Chancellor and law firms in the late Middle Ages. A histoire croisée princely administration in the south-west of the empire , Stuttgart 2016 (publications of the commission for historical regional studies in Baden-Württemberg, series B: Research, 204).

Web links

Commons : Frederick the Victorious  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Schmidt (ed.): History of the education of the Palatinate Wittelsbacher. Documents along with a historical overview and register. Berlin 1899, p. XIV.
  2. ^ Website of the Franciscan monastery in Heidelberg.
  3. ↑ Henry J. Cohn: The early renaissance temporal court in Heidelberg (Translation of: ibid .: The early Renaissance Court in Heidelberg 1971). In: Ders .: The rule in the Palatinate on the Rhine in the 15th century (= treatises on the history of the Palatinate 16), Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 2013. pp. 255–284.
  4. ^ Klaus Graf: Nachruhm - Reflections on the princely culture of remembrance in the German late Middle Ages . In: Nolte, Cordula; Spieß, Karl-Heinz; Werlich, Ralf-Gunnar (Ed.): Principes. Dynasties and courts in the late Middle Ages (= residence research 14). Stuttgart 2002, pp. 315-336. Online access to ARTDok . Jan-Dirk Müller 1989: The victorious prince in the scholar's design.
  5. ↑ Birgit Studt: Fürstenhof and history. Legitimation through tradition . Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 1992.
  6. ^ Source on the possible succession of Elector Friedrich's children from Johann Ludwig Klübers' treatise
  7. ^ Source on the possible succession of Elector Friedrich's children from Johann Ludwig Klübers' treatise.
  8. ↑ On the family relationships and descendants of Elector Friedrich the Victorious. In: Carl von Rotteck: Das Staats-Lexikon , 1847.
  9. ^ Johann Ludwig Klüber: "The marital descent of the Princely House of Löwenstein-Wertheim" , 1837.
  10. ↑ August Wilhelm Heffter: “Vote by a North German journalist on Klübers of marital descent of the Löwenstein-Wertheim Princely House” , 1838.
  11. ↑ On the funeral of the elector's son Friedrich von Bayern.
  12. ↑ Bernt Engelmann: Wir Subjects , Frankfurt am Main 1976, p. 97.
  13. ↑ Digital view of the book
predecessor Office successor
Philip the Sincere Elector Palatinate
1451–1476 		Philip the Sincere
personal data
SURNAME Friedrich I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frederick the Victorious; Palatine Fritz (nickname); bad fritz (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elector Palatinate
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1425
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1476
Place of death Heidelberg