Gerold of Oldenburg

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Gerold von Oldenburg and Lübeck († August 13, 1163 in Bosau ) succeeded the vice-vice-daughter as Bishop of Oldenburg in Holstein in 1154 .

Origin and requirement

Gerold came from the Swabian homeland of the Welfs . Gerold had earned services at the court of the Guelph Heinrich the Lion in Braunschweig as court chaplain and scholaster of the St. Blasius monastery .

Calling and consecration

Gerold was appointed by Duchess Clementia , the first wife of Henry the Lion in 1155 as the successor to Vizelin , who died in 1154 . Gerold, however, like Vizelin, immediately fell into the mill of enmity between Archbishop Hartwig of Bremen and Duke Heinrich the Lion. Since Gerold was a man of Henry the Lion, the Archbishop, as the responsible Metropolitan , refused to ordain Gerold , referring to the canonically dubious procedure of the survey.

Henry the Lion solved the problem by taking Gerold with him on his Italian journey in 1155 and there - in disregard of the archbishop's rights and only at the second attempt - achieved an ordination by the initially hesitant Pope Hadrian IV .

Act as a bishop

After his ordination, Gerold initially stayed in the vicinity of Henry the Lion and did not yet enter his district in 1155, but urged the duke to provide a sufficient material basis for the diocese. This put through for Count Adolf II of Holstein the additional equipment of the diocese with Eutin and three neighboring villages and a total of 300 Hufen . Gerold then founded a market and a castle in Eutin . In this castle - and neither in the actual, but completely desolate diocese of Oldenburg, nor in Vizelin's provisional facility in Bosau - Gerold took his seat in 1156.

Gerold managed that the Segeberger Stift , which had been relocated to Högersdorf , was relocated back to Segeberg in order to have the staff necessary for solemn church services at least there on the edge of his diocese. He intensified the slavish Slavic mission and initiated the construction of churches in Oldenburg, Süsel , Ratekau , Gleschendorf and Lütjenburg .

In 1160 - according to recent investigations not until 1163 - the diocese was moved to Lübeck by Heinrich the Lion on Gerold's initiative . The Duke ordered the construction of the first cathedral in Lübeck in 1163 , which was consecrated to the Virgin Mary , John the Baptist and St. Nicholas in his and Gerold's presence . At the same time, the cathedral chapter and the Lübeck Johanniskloster were founded.

Gerold had to get through a serious conflict with the Holsten , who had begun to settle some parts of Wagrien and refused to pay him the tithe he was entitled to. Here, too, Gerold was only able to assert himself thanks to Henry the Lion's word of power.

Death and succession

In the year of the consecration of the Lübeck cathedral, Gerold undertook another visitation trip through his district. After a mass in Lütjenburg, Gerold collapsed. The patient was brought to Bosau, where he died on August 13, 1163. He was buried in Lübeck Cathedral. Its supposed tomb was rediscovered in connection with the war damage caused by the air raid on Lübeck in 1942 under the choir in the area of ​​the earlier Romanesque apse. However, recent investigations have come to the conclusion that this tomb dates from the period from 1335 to 1342. All four sides are painted with crucifixion scenes. This crypt, which was considered Gerod's crypt for a long time, is preserved but not accessible. However, the frescoes contained therein have been documented photographically since the opening. Gerold's successor as Bishop of Lübeck was the Abbot of the Riddagshausen Monastery, Konrad I of Riddagshausen .

literature

predecessor Office successor
Vice-Lady Bishop of Oldenburg
1155–1160
-
- Bishop of Lübeck
1160–1163
Konrad I. von Riddagshausen