Henry VI. from Hohenberg

Coat of arms of the Fulda prince abbot Heinrich von Hohenberg

Henry VI. von Hohenberg (* 1277 ; † 1353 in Fulda ) was abbot of the imperial abbey of Fulda from 1315 to 1353 .

Administration

Heinrich von Hohenberg came from an East Franconian noble family and became a Benedictine at the age of 14 . From 1301 he was dean of the Holzkirchen monastery in Fulda . After he had been elected in 1315 by the Fulda convent to succeed the deceased Abbot Eberhard von Rotenstein, he traveled to Avignon in 1316 and received confirmation from the new Pope Johannes XXII in return for payment of 400 guilders .

Prince Abbot Heinrich's term of office was marked by severe and bloody conflicts with the citizens of Fulda and by pogroms against the Jews during the plague epidemic of 1348/1350.

Dispute with Fulda

In 1319/20 Abbot Heinrich had a second abbey castle built within the city. The citizens protested against this. They allied themselves with Count Johann I von Ziegenhain , the high bailiff of the imperial abbey, who saw an opportunity to expand his bailiff's rights. Both abbot castles were stormed and the new one, including the tower and curtain walls, was destroyed. At the complaint of the abbot to King Ludwig the Bavarian who had fled the city, the city of Fulda and Count Johann were given imperial ban.

Abbot Heinrich used his now strengthened power as city lord in 1326 to increase the city's annual tax from 100 to 800 pounds Heller for the next seven years .

The following year he said himself during the dispute between King Ludwig the Bavarian and Pope Johannes XXII. from the king and took the side of the Pope, who was exiled in Avignon . Thereupon Ludwig's partisans set fire to the Frauenberg monastery in Fulda and devastated the Petersberg priory .

The damage was hardly repaired when Heinrich wanted to increase the taxes of the city of Fulda again in 1330. Resistance formed again in the city. Thereupon the abbot imprisoned some wealthy citizens and demanded a bail of 9500 pounds heller for their release . This led to another uprising. On April 7, 1331, the Fulda aldermen and citizens signed a contract directed against the prince abbot with Count Johann von Ziegenhain and opened the city gates to him. The two abbey castles, the monastery, the Frauenberg monastery , to which Heinrich had fled, and the Petersberg provost were again sacked and looted, but Heinrich's ministerials managed to put down the uprising. Count Johann escaped capture with difficulty. Again the city and Johann von Ziegenhain were punished with the imperial ban. Archbishop Balduin von Trier brokered an atonement that came into force on September 9, 1331. The citizens of Fulda had to restore the tower and the curtain walls of the new castle and pay significant compensation. Because of the severe conditions, which were considered unreasonable, there were again acts of insurrection, which Heinrich then put down with a vassal army. The leaders of the uprising were publicly executed and their property confiscated. The city of Fulda received a council and mayor under the supervision of a princely mayor . The oldest city ​​seal of Fulda, a blessing abbot, dates from this year. The funds raised through the fines and confiscation of property were used at least partially to restore and fortify the Frauenberg monastery and to rebuild the Petersberg provost.

The waiting towers around Fulda were built under Heinrich von Hohenberg .

End of the Ziegenhainer Vogtei

Johann von Ziegenhain had to return all the booty, exchange the prisoners and pay a considerable sum as atonement . Only after full payment should he be authorized to exercise his bailiff rights again. On February 22, 1339 Abbot Heinrich acknowledged the last payment. Just a few years later, on May 5, 1344, Heinrich bought all of the remaining rights of the Fulan umbrella bailiff from Johann for 7,100 pounds of Heller, although the abbey was deeply in debt. Receipt of the full purchase price was confirmed in 1346. Only the hereditary Marshal's office in Fulda was expressly retained; it included the disciplinary jurisdiction over the entire knighthood of Fulda, the chairmanship of state parliaments and the command of the feudal nobility and ministeriality.

First shooting festival in Fulda

The first rifle festival in Fulda took place during Heinrich's tenure in 1327 . Troops from the Würzburg bishopric had invaded Fulda near Hammelburg in July , as Heinrich had refused to pay a subsidy payment to the Würzburg bishop Wolfram Wolfskeel von Grumbach by the Pope . However, the Würzburg were driven back by the militant members of the Hammelburg guilds and rifle guilds under the leadership of Count Berthold VII. Von Henneberg-Schleusingen . The Hammelburgers then marched towards Würzburg and Bishop Wolfram was forced to conclude peace in the face of this threat. When the news spread, a party was celebrated in Fulda.

Plague and pogrom

In the years 1348 and 1450 the Europe-wide plague also raged in Fulda, where it claimed around three thousand victims. The Jews , who were also accused as scapegoats in Fulda, asked Abbot Heinrich in vain for protection and help, and almost all of them, around 180 people, were killed by Fulda citizens in the first ever pogrom in Hesse. The plague pledge that was made at that time, the pilgrimage to the Frauenberg, has been preserved until modern times.

literature

• Aloys Ruppel: The deeds of the Fulda abbot Heinrich VI. von Hohenberg (1315–1353) in the description of a contemporary. In: Fulda history sheets. Volume 5, 1906, pp. 149-158.
• Bernhard Mohr: The foreign policy of the Fulda abbot Heinrich VI. von Hohenberg (1315-1353). Actiendr, Fulda 1928. (At the same time: Marburg, University, dissertation, 1928). ( online )

Web links

• History of Fulda at pytlik.de

Remarks

1. ^ Eugen Thomas: Sistem of all private rights in Fulda: A contribution to the collection of German provincial rights and constitutions . tape 1 , 1788, pp. 111–113 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2017]).
2. ^ Wilhelm Helmer: The waiting towers around Fulda in "Buchenblätter - Supplement of the Fuldaer Zeitung for Heimatfreunde", 51st year number 15, August 12, 1978 (pp. 57–59 in the Fuldaer Zeitung)
3. ↑ Since Emperor Ludwig IV increased the penalty originally set at 1,000 pounds hellers to 4,000 pounds hellers, Johann initially refused to pay. Abbot Heinrich wrote to the emperor that the punishment was too high, and Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse , who had been appointed patron of the abbey, also sided with Johann. It was not until 1334 that Johann accepted an atonement reduced to 2,100 pounds hellers, which he was allowed to pay off in installments.
4. ^ Alfred Wendehorst: The Diocese of Würzburg Part 2 - The series of bishops from 1254 to 1455 . In: Max Planck Institute for History (Ed.): Germania Sacra - New Part 4 - The Dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province of Mainz . De Gruyter, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-11-001291-X , p. 53 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2017]).
5. ↑ Pictures - Festtrubel 2015. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 13, 2016 ; Retrieved on January 2, 2017 (Already in 1327 Schützenfest in Fulda). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Eberhard von Rotenstein	Prince Abbot of Fulda 1315–1353	Henry VII of Kranlucken