Gerhard I of Dhaun

Gerhard I. Wildgraf von Dhaun and Kyrburg († September 25, 1259 in Erfurt ) was Archbishop of Mainz and Imperial Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from the family of the Wildgrafen .

Life

Gerhard was a son of the wild count Konrad II (1194–1263). Three of his brothers also held high church offices: Konrad was Bishop of Freising , Heinrich Abbot of the Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin and Simon Provost of St. Mauritz in Mainz. Gerhard, who is related to the royal chancellor and bishop of Speyer Heinrich von Leiningen , had already made a career in the archbishopric before he was promoted to archbishop. He was already cathedral capitular and cathedral cantor in the 1240s, before he was declared deposed by the Fritzlar Council in 1244 after he had refused to accept Siegfried III's policy . von Eppstein to follow and join the anti-Staufer party.

In 1249, however, he reconciled himself with the archbishop, switched sides and was subsequently rehabilitated by the Pope . In July or August of 1251 he succeeded Christian II von Bolanden, who had been found too peaceable and overwhelmed with the grave problems of the conflict between the emperor and the pope . Because he either never broke internally with the Staufer party or hoped for territorial gains, he supported the young Conrad IV and fell under the papal ban more frequently in the following years .

In February 1254 Mainz and Worms concluded the "Eternal Alliance", which Oppenheim joined on April 3 and Bingen on May 29 . This led to the development of the Rheinische Städtebund , which was joined by the three clerical electors of Mainz, Trier and Cologne, in addition to Cologne and Basel . The federal government was supposed to guarantee the enforcement of the Mainz peace and it was given such importance that a new imperial organization appeared on its basis. But after the battle death of King Wilhelm of Holland , this alliance also broke. The Interregnum finally began and also presented Gerhard I with new challenges. The lack of a central authority promoted the sovereignty of the individual states and also exposed the electoral state to serious competition. In the event of disputes that became inevitable as a result, the Archbishop was taken prisoner by Duke Albrecht of Braunschweig on January 16, 1256 . As a result, he could only vote through an intermediary, the Archbishop of Cologne, in the election of a king on January 13, 1257. The election did not lead to any result because three of the seven electors opted for a different candidate and the seventh elector, the King of Bohemia, did not want to cast a clear vote.

The empire therefore remained torn. Gerhard I, released for high ransom payments, fell behind the Archbishop of Cologne, to whom he had to represent in the election of the king, in terms of Reich politics more and more. His territorial efforts in Hesse, which had brought him into captivity in the first place, were also unsuccessful. When he died on September 25, 1259 in Erfurt , whose citizenship he had to grant extensive council rights in 1255 , he did not leave an orderly legacy . He was buried in the barefoot church there.

His nephews were: Emicho Wildgraf von Kyrburg († 1311), Bishop of Freising, Gerhard Dompropst von Freising, Hugo Domkapitular in Mainz and Friedrich Wildgraf von Kyrburg , provincial master or grand prior of the Templar Order for Upper Germany.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Brother: Wildgraf in Kyrburg and Schmidtburg, Emich II . Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

predecessor	Office	successor
Christian II of Bolanden	Archbishop of Mainz 1251–1259	Werner von Eppstein