Gottfried Lange (Bishop)

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Gottfried Lange (* approx. 1425 in Lüneburg ; † July 8, 1458 ) was canon in Lübeck and in Bardowiek and, as Gottfried II. From 1457 to 1458, Bishop of Schwerin .

Life

Gottfried Lange came from a Lüneburg patrician family. He was the youngest son of Mayor Heinrich Lange from his first marriage to Elisabeth (Beke) Tzerstede (Sarstedt).

At the age of 15 he studied for a long time as a canon at Lübeck Cathedral and had obtained the position of canon in Lübeck through good relationships with his father. His father looked after the Lüneburg salt pans of the Lübeck cathedral chapter. Gottfried had just started his studies when in 1443 he gained a vicarie in Lüneburg. In order to be able to enjoy both benefices , he was granted papal dispensation.

From Michaelmas 1442 to 1444 he studied at the University of Erfurt and from 1452 to 1454 at the University of Bologna , the top address for law. There he became Doctor decretalium (in canon law) and procurator of the Natio Germanicae , a kind of spokesman for the Germans, and wrote an eulogy for the rector of the university. Lange was a learned jurist with humanistic interests and was one of the first Germans who, under the influence of Italian humanism, tried their hand at writing in 1453. His Historia exidii et ruinae Constantinopolitanae urbis describes the siege of the city of Constantinople .

At that time he was affirmed as a canon in Bardowick, canon in Lübeck and vicar to St. Johannes in Lüneburg. After his ordination he was only a deacon , 29 years old and not yet of the age required for the office of bishop. He received the dispensation from this obstacle to consecration and the commission on April 6, 1457. It seems that the consecration took place before May 26, 1457, and the entry into the diocese of Schwerin will probably have been around July 28, 1457. His father also played a considerable part in the negotiations between Bishop Nicolaus Böddeker and Canon Lange von Lübeck. The financial commitments entered into in the process, however, caused him considerable concern a little later. Because of the brevity of the pontificate of Bishop Gottfried II, only a few sources are available. Gottfried must have commissioned his episcopal seal for episcopal ordination. The only well-preserved copy hangs on a document dated August 2, 1457, with which Gottfried confirmed a document from the Schwerin cathedral chapter in favor of Nicolaus Böddeker.

After almost a year of his work, Bishop Gottfried fell ill in early July 1458 and died of the plague on July 8, 1458. It is not known where that was. He found his grave in Schwerin Cathedral. The tombstone placed on him, which has since been lost, is said to have had the following inscription: In the year of the Lord 1458, the 8th of July, the venerable in Christ's father, Herr Gottfried Lange, the right doctor and this church bishop, died; what soul rest in peace .

In a letter dated July 8, 1458, on the day his son Gottfried died, Hinrich Lange wrote another letter to the Bützow canon Peter Brand. He thanked Chaplain Peter, who was in Rome with Gottfried Lange, for the sad news of his son's illness, on whom he had put all hope for himself and his children. The studies in Erfurt and Bologna had caused great costs and the Schwerin bishopric owed 1000 guilders to Nikolaus Böddeker and in 1580 Mark Lübisch, which he had lent to his son in Rome. May Peter Brand help ensure that this money is not lost. The trade for the Schwerin bishop's chair had become a big loss-making business in several respects, both personally and economically. There were still legal disputes with the executor of Nikolaus Böddeker's will over the repayment of the 1000 guilders, which went as far as Rome in 1465. After Hinrich Lange's death in 1466, his heirs agreed on arbitration proceedings over the financial problems of Gottfried Lange's short term in office.

Seal and coat of arms

The colored representations in the coat of arms of the Lange patrician family in Lüneburg show a shield divided lengthways by silver and red with a half white bear rising to the right, armored in red on the mouth and paws. But there was also a heraldic shield with half a bear divided by green and red.

Bishop Gottfried carried a round seal , a key seal with an image plate in red wax 35 millimeters in diameter. In Gothic architecture it shows a crowned Madonna in a halo with a child on her right arm under a pretty canopy. Below are two coats of arms, of which in the right the episcopal coat of arms with two crossed bishop's staffs and in the left the family coat of arms of Lange with a bear turned to the right.

The inscription reads: Sigillv (m) godfridi ep (iscop) i zwerinen (sis)

The seal of 1457 was lost in 1984. Since the Wismar City Archives moved to Altwismarstrasse 7-17, it has been available again.

Fonts

  • Historia excidii et ruinae Constantinopolitanae urbis , 1453

literature

  • Friedrich Lisch : Bishop Nicolaus Böddeker of Schwerin . In: Mecklenburgische Jehrbücher , Volume 24. 1859, pp. 24–43.
  • Karl Ernst Hermann Krause:  Lange, Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 632 f.
  • Konrad Eubel : Hierarchia catholica medii aevi . Volume II. 1914, p. 272 ​​( digitized version )
  • Alfred Rische: Directory of the bishops and canons of Schwerin with biographical remarks. Ludwigslust 1900.
  • Gerhard Müller-Alpermann: Status and origin of the bishops of the Magdeburg and Hamburg church provinces in the Middle Ages . Prenzlau 1930.
  • Josef Traeger : The Bishops of the Diocese of Schwerin. In: The Stiftsland of the Schwerin bishops around Bützow and Warin. St. -Benno-Verlag Leipzig 1984, p. 96 f.
  • Josef Traeger: The bishops of the medieval diocese of Schwerin . St. Benno Verlag Leipzig 1984, pp. 146-148.
  • Franz Josef Worstbrock: Lange, Gottfried , in: The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . (VL²). Part 5, col. 580-582.
  • Grete Grewolls: Gottfried II. Lange. In: Who was who in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . 1995, p. 251.
  • Andreas Röpcke : The short life of the Schwerin bishop Gottfried Lange. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher , Volume 127 (2012), pp. 57–63.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antje Meesenburg: Quantification and qualification in the personal history analysis of the Lübeck cathedral chapter in the pontificate of Eugen IV. (1431-1447), In: Pfarrer, Nonnen, Mönche. Contributions to the late medieval clerical prosopography of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg '. Neumünster 2011, pp. 45–57.
  2. ^ Alfred Rische: Directory of the bishops and canons of Schwerin. 1900 p. 20.
  3. ↑ Robert Gramsch: Erfurt lawyers in the late Middle Ages. The career patterns and fields of activity of a learned elite of the 14th and 15th centuries. Leiden / Boston 2003, no.348.
  4. ↑ Konrad Eubel: Hierachia catholica medi aevi . II. P. 272.
  5. ^ Repertory Germanicum Calixt III.
  6. ^ Message from the German Historical Institute in Rome to Josef Traeger
  7. ^ Archives of the Hanseatic City of Wismar, Spiritual Documents XLVII B.2.
  8. ^ Bernhard Hederich: Directory of the bishops of Schwerin . 1737, p. 455. at the bottom in the choir .
  9. ^ Archives of the Hanseatic City of Wismar
  10. ^ Friedrich Lisch: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher , Volume 24 (1859), Document Collection, pp. 252-256.
  11. ↑ Andreas Röpcke: The short life of the Schwerin bishop Gottfried Lange. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher Volume 127 (2012) p. 63.
  12. ^ Friedrich Lisch: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher , Volume 24 (1859) Urkundensammlung p. 218.
  13. ^ Message archive of the Hanseatic City of Wismar
  14. ↑ Andreas Röpcke: The short life of the Schwerin bishop Gottfried Lange . In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher . Volume 127 (2012) pp. 57-63.
predecessor Office successor
Nicolaus Böddeker Bishop of Schwerin
1457 - 1458 		Werner Wolmers
personal data
SURNAME Long, Gottfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gottfried II.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canon in Lübeck as well as in Bardowiek and Bishop of Schwerin
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Luneburg
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1458