Golden freedom

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The Golden Freedom was a privilege from 1168, with which Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa confirmed Bishop Herold von Würzburg in his ducal rights. The Würzburg bishops later used the title Duke of Franconia to indicate that it was not a territorially closed duchy.

Origin of the document and its name

The famous document was drawn up at the Reichstag in Würzburg on July 10, 1168. It was written by Wortwin, an expert from Würzburg .

The duplicate of the document was given a gold seal, from which the name Güldene Freiheit comes. This designation of the privilege and the document has been handed down in the Würzburg bishop's chronicle of Lorenz Fries since the 16th century.

Jurisdiction and other regulations

The charter relied on old rights from the time of Charlemagne . The forged documents by Heinrich II von Stühlingen , Herold's predecessor, which were supposed to confirm Würzburg's claims, were hardly discussed.

The rights that were confirmed to the diocese consisted primarily of jurisdiction. It extended to the diocese and largely also to the counties in it. Centers courts and counters were only allowed to be set up with the consent of the bishop. This ended the work of the Hochstiftsvogtei of the Counts of Henneberg, who had held this office since 1103.

In addition, this document forbade the rebuilding of the castles Bramberg near Haßfurt and Burg Frankenberg near Amorbach , which had been destroyed by the emperor , as the peace in the country had been disrupted from these . This was seen as a clear sign of the emperor's support for the Würzburg bishop against the rising nobility. In fact, the emperor also restricted the Würzburg bishop by appointing the Lords of Dürn as monastery governors of Amorbach at the same time , who built their Wildenberg Castle just a few kilometers west of Frankenberg Castle and thus blocked the bishop again.

evaluation

For the Würzburg bishop, the result fell short of expectations despite the achievements. The title of "Duke of Franconia" should mean a position of supremacy for the Franconian area and bring rights beyond its own borders. The title thus still had a more symbolic meaning. For the emperor, the document signified a further link in his imperial policy of dissolving old tribal duchies and establishing new territorial duchies.

literature

  • Peter Kolb, Ernst-Günther Krenig (Ed.): Lower Franconian history . Volume 1: From the Germanic conquest to the high Middle Ages . Echter, Würzburg 1989, ISBN 3-429-01263-5 , pp. 343-346.
  • Gerhard Lubich : On the way to "Golden freedom" (1168). Dominion and space in the Francia orientalis from the Carolingian to the Staufer period (= historical studies. Vol. 449). Matthiesen, Husum 1996, ISBN 3-7868-1449-X .
  • Peter Herde: Friedrich Barbarossa, the catastrophe before Rome of August 1167 and the Würzburg "golden freedom" of July 10th, 1168 , in: Yearbook for Franconian State Research , Vol. 56 (1996), pp. 149-180.

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