Henry III. from Virneburg

Henry III. von Virneburg (* around 1295; † December 21, 1353 ) was Archbishop and Elector of Mainz (1328 / 37–1346 / 53).

Heinrich was a son of Count Ruprecht II of Virneburg († before 1308) and his wife Kunigunde von Neuenahr and a nephew of Cologne Archbishop Heinrich II of Virneburg , whose influence on Pope Johannes XXII. was decisive for the papal appointment of his nephew as Archbishop of Mainz. The Mainz Cathedral Chapter had chosen the Archbishop of Trier Baldwin of Luxembourg as the successor to the late Matthias von Buchegg , with whom Heinrich had a bitter dispute over the Archepiscopate of Mainz until 1336. Only then was it generally recognized.

Heinrich was considered a supporter of Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria . This led to tension with Pope Benedict XII. In 1338 a provincial synod took place in Mainz , at which Heinrich wanted to mediate between the Pope and the Emperor. He wrote a statement to the Curia on March 27, 1338, but the attempt at mediation failed. In the Thuringian Count War from 1342 he stood on the side of the counts fighting against the Wettins .

In 1346 Heinrich was because of his partisanship for Emperor Ludwig IV. By Pope Clement VI. deposed, who in that year operated the election of his old friend Charles IV to the Rex Romanorum in order to remain victorious in the dispute with Ludwig the Bavarian. On April 7, 1346, Clemens appointed Gerlach von Nassau as the new Archbishop of Mainz instead . After the death of Emperor Ludwig in the following year, Heinrich's importance declined; nevertheless, he held his own, mainly thanks to the energetic support of his provost Kuno II von Falkenstein , in Mainz until his death in 1353, in a constant dispute with Gerlach.

The renewed Mainz schism had considerable negative effects on the territorial policy of the electorate. Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse took sides with Gerlach von Nassau and in 1347 decisively defeated an army of Heinrich between Fritzlar and Gudensberg in northern Hesse. After this defeat, in 1353, after Heinrich von Virneburg had died , Kurmainz had to take his Hessian possessions from the landgraves as fiefs; only Fritzlar, Amöneburg and Naumburg remained in possession.

Heinrich was buried in Mainz Cathedral .

literature

• Karl Georg Bockenheimer :  Heinrich III. (Archbishop of Mainz) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 540 f.
• Fritz Pfeil: The fight of Gerlach of Nassau with Heinrich von Virneburg for the ore monastery Mainz. Darmstadt, 1910.
• Peter Herde :  Heinrich III .. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 371 f. ( Digitized version ).

predecessor	Office	successor
Baldwin of Luxembourg	Elector Archbishop of Mainz 1328–1353	Gerlach of Nassau