Henry XVI.

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Duke Heinrich XVI. of Bavaria-Landshut (1386–1450)

Henry XVI. the Reich von Bayern (* 1386 probably in the Burghausen castle ; † July 30, 1450 in Landshut ) from the House of Wittelsbach was Duke of Bavaria-Landshut from 1393 until his death . He was the first of the three “rich dukes” who ruled Bavaria-Landshut in the 15th century. He profited from the extinction of the lines of his Wittelsbach cousins ​​and made his duchy the strongest power in southern Germany. In 1429 he acquired a quarter of Bavaria-Straubing and in 1447 Heinrich managed to get by far the largest part of the Duchy of Bavaria-Ingolstadt .

Life

Early years and guardianship

Heinrich was born in 1386 as the eldest son of Duke Friedrich the Wise of Bavaria and his second wife Maddalena Visconti . His father had previously been married to Anna von Neuffen; their daughter Elisabeth had married Maddalena's older brother Marco and died in 1382. From Friedrich's second marriage, Heinrich had two older sisters, Elisabeth and Margarete, and the younger siblings Magdalena and Johann. Margarete and Johann died in childhood, Elisabeth and Magdalena were later married appropriately by their brother.

The four Bavarian partial duchies after the division of the country in 1392
The division of Bavaria-Straubing in 1429
Duke Heinrich XVI. and his wife Margarete of Austria in a window of the Landshut town hall
Grave slab of the daughter Johanna († 1444) in Mosbach

In the division of 1392 - also known as the third division of Bavaria - the Dukes Stephan III. , Friedrich and Johann II. Bavaria in three independent duchies, which are named after their residence cities Bavaria-Ingolstadt , Bavaria-Landshut and Bavaria-Munich . Friedrich, who had administered Lower Bavaria since 1376, received the economically strongest part in Bavaria-Landshut. When he died unexpectedly only a year later, the seven-year-old Heinrich succeeded him. Initially, however, he was under the guardianship of the Upper Bavarian dukes Stephan III. and Johann II. and after Johann's death in 1397 that of his sons Ernst and Wilhelm III.

Heinrich's mother, the Lower Bavarian Viztume and the Lower Bavarian countryside were able to repel all attempts by his guardians to reverse the division of 1392 and thus take away his duchy again. In 1401 , King Ruprecht officially enfeoffed Heinrich, who had come of age, with Bavaria Landshut. The young duke ruled largely independently, but remained nominally under the tutelage of Ernst and Wilhelm until 1404. A few months after the end of the guardianship, on August 24, 1404, Heinrich's mother Maddalena also died.

Duke of Bavaria-Landshut

After taking up his government, he passed a constitution, according to which decisions of the cities were dependent on his approval. He reserved the right to appoint the judges, treasurers and city councilors himself and banned the craft guilds. In 1408 he got into a dispute with the city of Landshut. He called all councilors to him, had them arrested, expropriated and driven out. This led to an uprising in the city in 1410, which he discovered in time through betrayal. He had members of fifty Landshut families executed, blinded or expelled from the country and their property confiscated. At the same time, he began to expand his Landshut residence.

Relations with his cousin Ludwig VII the "bearded" of Bavaria-Ingolstadt deteriorated despite the Freising arbitration rulings of May 7, 1408. He allied himself with Ludwig's enemies in the parakeet society and in the Konstanz League . Ludwig questioned Heinrich's origins and claimed that he came from a cook with whom his mother had a relationship. Heinrich retaliated by an attack on April 17, 1414 when Ludwig was on his way to the Council of Constance . From 1420 to 1422, the Bavarian War raged between Heinrich and Ludwig, otherwise the two of them usually settled their protracted conflict through Veme Courts . The ox war 1421–1422 against Count Georg III. He was able to finish victoriously from the Fraunberger family .

When after the death of Johann III. In 1425 the Straubing line died out, Emperor Sigismund laid down in the Pressburg arbitration the four-way division of the area for the dukes Ernst, Wilhelm III., Ludwig and Heinrich. Over the years, Heinrich's rival Ludwig grew into an opponent in his own son Ludwig VIII the "hunchback". After his death, Heinrich managed to bring Ludwig VII into his power on August 13, 1446 by paying a large ransom to Margrave Albrecht Achilles . He kept him in Burghausen until his death.

Unlike when the dukes of Bavaria-Straubing died out, when he still had to share with Bayern-Ingolstadt and Bayern-Munich, Heinrich was able to acquire almost all of Bavaria-Ingolstadt in 1447, since his only possible competitor Albrecht III. of Bayern-Munich remained undecided. In doing so, he made his partial duchy the strongest power in southern Germany. After the mines in Reichenhall, he now also controlled mining around Kitzbühel.

During his reign he increased the tariffs and introduced his own Landshut mint in 1433. He protected the Jews as financiers of the economy and thus favored the development of an active Jewish community in Landshut. He made trips to Prussia twice, in 1410/11 and 1422/23 .

Heinrich forced his wife to stay away from the Landshut court in Burghausen. From this it was concluded that Heinrich had started the Landshut tradition of banishing his wife to the Burghausen castle; legend has it that his son and grandson followed him in it. The latest research shows, at least for the grandson Georg and his wife Hedwig, who resided in Burghausen, an exceptionally harmonious married life.

Henry XVI. died in 1450. Whether he succumbed to the plague, as is often shown later, is a matter of dispute. He is buried in the Seligenthal monastery ; his only surviving son Ludwig IX. became his successor and in the same year was able to secure the largest part of the Duchy of Bavaria-Ingolstadt by contract.

progeny

Duke Heinrich married Margaret of Austria (* 1395; † 24 December 1447) on November 25, 1412 in Landshut , the daughter of Duke Albrecht IV of Austria and his wife Johanna Sophie of Bavaria from the Straubing-Holland line of Wittelsbach . The marriage had six children, three of whom reached adulthood.

family tree

Ludwig the Bavarian
 
 Beatrix of Silesia-Schweidnitz
 
 Frederick II of Sicily
 
 Eleanor of Anjou
 
 Stefano Visconti
 
 Valentina Doria
 
 Mastino II della Scala
 
 Taddea da Carrara
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Stephan II of Bavaria
 
 
 
 
 
 Elisabeth of Sicily
 
 
 
 
 
 Bernabò Visconti
 
 
 
 
 
 Beatrice Regina della Scala
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Frederick the Wise
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Maddalena Visconti
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Henry the Rich
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

swell

The main sources of Heinrich are the originals or copies of the Bavarian State Archives overlapping letters and contracts of the Bavarian dukes, especially the certificate series Neuburg documents and electoral Bavaria records of the Secret State Archives that house documents of the Secret House archive and Neuburger Kopialbücher . Further archival sources are in the State Archives Munich and Landshut , the Landshut City Archives and the House, Court and State Archives of the Austrian State Archives . The Baierische Landtaghandlungen edited by Franz von Krenner are important above all, but not only, for the relationship between the duke and the landscape . The Bavarian chroniclers Andreas von Regensburg , Veit Arnpeck , Hans Ebran von Wildenberg , Ulrich Füetrer and Johannes Aventinus , on the other hand, are not very productive due to the often tendentious presentation .

literature

  • Matthias Bader: The feudal system of Duke Heinrich XVI. of the rich of Bavaria-Landshut. A written-based study of the rule and administrative practice of a territorial principality in the first half of the 15th century (=  studies on the Bavarian constitutional and social history . Volume 30 ). Commission for Bavarian State History, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7696-6660-1 (also dissertation, University of Munich 2010).
  • Helga Czerny: The death of the Bavarian dukes in the late Middle Ages and in the early modern period 1347–1579. Preparations - dying - funeral ceremonies - burial - memoria (=  series of publications on Bavarian national history . Volume 146 ). CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-10742-7 , p. 139–155 (also dissertation, University of Munich 2004).
  • Bernhard Glasauer: Duke Heinrich XVI. (1393–1450) the empire of Bavaria-Landshut. Territorial politics between dynasty and empire (=  Munich contributions to historical science . Volume 5 ). Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-8316-0899-7 (also dissertation, University of Munich 2009; specialist review ).
  • Gerald Huber : The Rich Dukes. Bavaria's golden century . Pustet, Regensburg 2013.
  • Karin Kaltwasser: Duke and nobility in Bavaria-Landshut under Heinrich XVI. the rich (1393-1450) . Dissertation, University of Regensburg 2004 ( PDF ).
  • Kurt Reindel :  Heinrich XVI. the rich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 346 ( digitized version ).
  • Sigmund Ritter von Riezler :  Heinrich the Rich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 474-476.
  • Theodor Straub : Bavaria under the sign of the divisions and partial duchies . In: Max Spindler , Andreas Kraus (Hrsg.): Handbook of Bavarian History . 2nd Edition. tape II . CH Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-32320-0 , p. 196-287 , especially 247-248 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Karin Kaltwassers article on the Landshut civil unrest in the Bavarian Historical Lexicon .
  2. ^ Werner Paravicini: The Prussian journeys of the European nobility . Part 1 (=  supplements of the Francia . Volume 17/1 ). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1989, ISBN 3-7995-7317-8 , pp. 150 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ Helga Czerny, Death of the Bavarian Dukes, argues in detail against the plague, which is sometimes assumed to be the cause of death . Pp. 145-148.
  4. ↑ Detailed information on the sources Bernhard Glasauer: Herzog Heinrich XVI. Pp. 20-24, 348-352; Karin Kaltwasser: Duke and nobility in Bavaria-Landshut. Pp. 10-13, 267-270.
predecessor Office successor
Friedrich Duke of Bavaria-Landshut
1393–1450 		Louis IX
Louis VII Duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt
1447 		united with Bavaria-Landshut
personal data
SURNAME Henry XVI.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henry the Rich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Bavaria-Landshut
DATE OF BIRTH 1386
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1450
Place of death Landshut