Helmold IV of Plesse

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Helmold IV von Plesse (* around 1230; † after January 1, 1268 and before November 24, 1269) came from a noble family from the tribal duchy of Saxony and belonged to the "older line" of those from and to Plesse . Helmold IV was a co-owner of the Plesse , a hilltop castle on the hills of the upper Leinetal between Northeim and Göttingen. During his time, he set up a burial place for the family members in the monastery church in Höckelheim. Helmold IV was subject to legal disputes with the monastery churches of Osterode and Walkenried . He had given the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg a promise of assistance in return for payment.

Personal relationships

Helmold IV von Plesse is not referred to as a knight in any document. He belonged to the "older line" of the Lords of Plesse (n) . His grandfather was Bernhard I. von Höckelheim / Plesse , his father was the knight Poppo von Plesse . His mother and sister were called Mechtild. The sources say nothing about whether Helmold IV had other siblings. He was born in the 1230s, because he is mentioned several times as a child in documents from the period between 1240 and 1244. In 1255 Helmold IV was about twenty-five years old and not yet married, because in a court case he was addressed as "domicellus de Plesse Helmoldus" - the medieval name for a young, single nobleman. Three years later he changed his address and was now called "Helmoldus die gracia nobilis de Plesse". The wording he chose indicates that he had meanwhile married. He had his children baptized under the names Helmold V., Mechthild and Sophie von Plesse. Helmold IV was about thirty-nine years old. He died after January 1, 1268, but before November 24, 1269, because on this day his cousin Gottschalk III mentioned. von Plesse only has it in blessed memory - "bone memorie".

Burial place of the Lords of Plesse in Höckelheim

It was during the time of Helmold IV that the burial place of the Lords of Plesse was set up in the choir of the monastery church and in the chapel below. Recent research has shown that the chapel was hardly finished before 1266. It is not known where the members of the von Höckelheim / Plesse family were buried up until then. Possible places for this are: a crypt under the chapel at Plesse Castle or a burial in the church of Höckelheim.

Religious, family-traditional and canonical arguments speak in favor of a burial in Höckelheim, because according to the monastery deed of foundation there was a church there before 1247. The Lords of Höckelheim / Plesse will have buried their ancestors in it. Sven Lüken points out that "the theological ideas of the Middle Ages of the social bond between the living and the dead were expressed in many ways in the thought of the ... community of saints" and that this was particularly evident in the vicinity of living spaces and burial sites. This also applies to the transitional generation , the brothers Bernhard I and Gottschalk I von Höckelheim / Plesse and to an even greater extent it applies to their sons, who adhered to Höckelheim - the place close to the deceased - according to the deed of foundation. But because the burial place was hardly completed before 1266, Poppo and other family sons and their wives were probably still buried in their Höckelheim patronage church. Helmold IV von Plesse will already have been buried in the crypt, because he died after it was completed.

In Höckelheim you can only find a modest testimony that reminds of the monastery and hereditary burial. It is a bas-relief carved in stone from the pre-Reformation period depicting the Virgin Mary with the Christ child; The coat of arms of the Lords of Plesse was incorporated into the inscription of the relief. Far more documents have been preserved in the archives. Karl-Heinz Bernotat sifted through these traditions and summarized his work with the remark that "the Höckelheim monastery was to a certain extent a second center of power and the expression of the self-image of the sex until the end of the southern Lower Saxon branch of the Lords of Plesse." Everything we know about the monastery today was either described and sketched in 1580 or vividly recorded in picture cards after the devastating fires that struck the monastery in 1582 and 1587. "There is no similarly well-documented nobility burial from the late Middle Ages or early modern times in the wider area." According to tradition from 1580, there were no more grave slabs or epitaphs in the hereditary burial that went back further than the year 1369. The graves had already collapsed where one could have come across even older evidence during the inventory. Only a coat of arms keystone in the Gothic vault of the underground burial chapel still reminded of the family.

Research raised the question of whether the Peter and Paul Chapel on the Plesse or the cemetery in front of the castle might have been used for the burial of the Lords of Plesse until around 1266. This can be ruled out for the reasons given. Excavation research has shown that the first chapel on the castle existed between 1150 and 1200; However, evidence of a crypt under the chapel has not yet been presented. In addition, there is no canonical proof that the castle chapel was even allowed to be buried. The fact that there was a cemetery in front of the castle does not change that, which is documented as early as 1254, because the burials there may also have been the responsibility of the pastor of the Eddigehausen church.

Harassment of monasteries

There are two documents that the Nörten clergyman and judge Sigebodo issued on March 4, 1255. According to the court file, there was a request for surrender that Helmold IV had filed against the provost of the monastery church at Osterode because of the tithe in Eisdorf. Helmold IV was of the opinion that he was entitled to the tithe of Eisdorf, which the provost had in his possession. In court, the matter was dealt with in two steps: The judge initially dismissed Helmold IV's complaint straightforwardly. In the second legal act, for which Sigebodo only needed seven lines and no witnesses, the monastery church in Eisdorf was awarded the tithe . The trial file does not reveal what the tithe consisted of in Eisdorf. It is probably not very different from similar taxes to monasteries or secular landlords in other places. For example, the Lords of Plesse were entitled to the field tithe in their villages, which they received in kind: oats, wheat, barley, spelled, peas, vetches and beans. Then there was the tithe of chickens, geese, pigs and lambs. One suspects that the court proceedings were not about any minor issues. So of course, was meant Helmold IV - - "Sibodo iudex ordinarius" wanted to be also not dealt with this matter again, because he threatened in its judgment each. With excommunication ( "excommunicationis et anathematis"), the future disturb the the monastery in its ownership rights would. Helmold IV von Plesse undoubtedly knew the ecclesiastical, social and economic consequences of an excommunication: for example, anyone who was condemned in this way received no sacraments and lost the right to a church burial. Only through repentance, confession and sensitive material requirements could one free oneself from the ban. Gottschalk III, for example, had to do this on October 31, 1282. found out about Plesse when Archbishop Werner von Mainz wanted to free himself from an excommunication: half of Ziegenberg Castle, one hundred allodial hooves (!) in four villages and ten marks in interest were the punishment. He got the property back as a fiefdom, but was no longer the owner. An excommunication triggered the secular "imperial ban" until 1555, which resulted in the economic and political ruin of what was banned.

In 1258 - three years after the trial in Nörten - Helmold IV was again noticed in a similar way. This time the knight Basilius von Windhausen (alias von Osterode) informed Duke Albrecht I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg that Helmold IV was molesting the Walkenried monastery in an unjustified manner. The knight also wrote to the bailiffs of Seesen, Gottingen and Einbeck on this matter. The incident goes back a long way, beginning in the 1220s with Basilus von Windhausen in the western Harz: There the knight was working on behalf of the Walkenried monastery as a buyer of real estate or legal titles to real estate. With this strategy, the monastery pursued the goal of setting up various mining and smelting operations in the region under the flag of its "Grangie" Immedeshausen - the forests supplied wood, charcoal, water and ores. The monastery acquisitions also included goods between Gittelde and Seesen and half of the Pandelbach forest. The Lords of Plesse were previously vassals of the Guelphs in these possessions. The transaction, which was engineered by Basilius von Windhausen and was extremely complicated by a notary, finally ended with the fact that the Lords of Plesse received some barter goods in Sultheim (desert northwest of Northeim) in exchange for their fiefdom at Forst Pandelbach. With this, the Walkenried monastery came into the possession of the Pandelbach forest in the years 1224/1225. Apparently the gentlemen von Plesse did not really want to see this at first and argued about the matter for almost thirty years; perhaps they did it because they realized too late that they were completely cut off from the financial blessings of metallurgy in the Harz Mountains. Ultimately, Ludolf II von Plesse was forced to renounce his alleged ownership rights to the Padelbach Forest in favor of the Walkenried Monastery on a court day in Papenhagen in 1253. But as if everything had not yet been finally settled, his cousin Helmold IV von Plesse harassed the monastery again in 1258 with these ownership rights, so that the complaint of the knight Basilius von Windhausen to Duke Albrecht I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg was definitely justified Has.

A conditional promise of assistance

The castle loan obliged the Lords of Plesse to serve the Bishop of Paderborn in the event of a request for help. For example, Helmold II von Plesse fulfilled his feudal obligations in 1211 by appointing Bishop Bernhard III. from Paderborn to Livonia and took part in battles against the pagan Estonians. On a completely different legal basis, however, there was a promise of assistance that Helmold IV von Plesse made on April 3, 1258, to Dukes Albrecht I and Johann I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. This was about a promise for which the dukes had to pay in advance and which was tied to all sorts of restrictions. The document, written in Latin, begins - quite unusually - as follows: "Helmold by the grace of God, nobleman from the Plesse family, greets the readers of this document and wishes them a good attitude in everything." On the matter itself, Helmold IV said:

"It is our will that now and in the future it is always known that we will accept thirty silver marks from our famous gentlemen, Dukes Albert and Johann von Braunschweig, and that after we have vowed loyalty, we promise them and their brothers (Otto , Bishop of Hildesheim and Konrad, Bishop of Verden) to serve with our castle and our body (“corpore nostro”) as long as we live, against whomever. But you and your brothers must stand up for us and against us defend all who want to harm us through no fault of our own.
If nevertheless the bailiffs or other men of them harm us or our people with anything or press them and we have to replace that for them and they arrange for it not to be atone within six months for what has been reciprocated by us, we are released from such a promise from then on, according to the law considered amicable.
But if our relatives disturb the said gentlemen, our dukes, in any way or treat them unfairly and, in spite of our admonition, fail to do them what has been done, we must support the dukes and help them against our relatives.
But if the dukes do an injustice to our relatives out of a mood and they do not take precautions on our admonition to give satisfaction to our relatives, then we can refuse to stand by either the dukes or our relatives.
If, however, war begins against the aforementioned gentlemen, our dukes, and if they want us to give them help in the form of independently financed troops that we have paid for ourselves (propriis in expensis), they have to give us so much money for it as it generally seems appropriate to us and our friends.
Indeed, that this will remain so between us as it has been agreed, this present paper is confirmed by our seals. Witnesses to this matter are: Luthard von Meinersen, Werner von Boldensele - the nobles; Truchseß Anno, Hermann von Ulsar, Heinrich, the provost of St. Blasius in Braunschweig, Wilkin, Vogt in Göttingen, Friedrich, Vogt in Einbeck and many more. This happened in Göttingen in the year of grace 1258 to the III. Nones of April. "

It is noticeable that Helmold IV von Plesse made his promise of assistance to the Dukes of Braunschweig without his relatives. The reasons for this are unclear, but there seems to have been political differences of opinion in the community of heirs, because Helmold IV did not rule out that his relatives disturb the “dukes in any way or treat them unfairly and fail to do them enough, despite our admonition . ”Helmold IV went even further, because he did not intend to remain neutral in such a case by declaring:“ With regard to what has been done, we must support the dukes and help them against our relatives. ”This promise is most remarkable. after all, the castle had been jointly owned by the Bernhard and Gottschalk lines since 1170. Although the shares of the Bernhard line were concentrated at Poppo since the 1230s and at Helmold IV since the 1250s, there were still several relatives in the other line who were co-owners of the Plesse. That is why the gentlemen von Plesse have so far acted together in all matters of their community of heirs without exception, either as an exhibitor or in witness lists of documents. In the present case, this was different for the first time, because Helmold IV made his declaration alone, so that the conciliatory sounding opening phrase was possibly also addressed to the address of his cousins, because in it he "greets the readers of this document and wishes them a good attitude with everything".

In terms of national history, the promise of assistance is an example of those arrows in the quiver with which the dukes - after the change in constitutional law of 1235 - tried to impress the opponents of their sovereignty. The historical connection arises from a flashback to the time of the Guelph-Staufer power struggles. These clashes began between Henry the Lion and Emperor Friedrich I (Barbarossa) in the late 12th century and ended - diplomatically and militarily - only in 1214 in the Battle of Bouvines , when the Staufer-French army (King Philip II August on the side of Emperor Friedrichs II.) Over the Guelph-English contingent of Emperor Otto IV. Victorious extensively and finally. From then on, Emperor Friedrich II wore the crown of the empire, but the conflict between the two dynasties smoldered for another twenty years. It was not until 1235 that the Staufer transferred the fiefdom of the newly created duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg to the nephew of his deceased adversary. Otto I of Braunschweig - also called "the child" because of his youth - was raised to the rank of imperial prince in 1235. The components of his imperial fief were initially still divided between Lüneburg, Braunschweig and the Göttingen area. With skill and an instinct for power, Otto I consolidated his sovereignty and rounded off the property until 1252 through a multi-meshed network of acquisitions and contracts. The gentlemen von Plesse were always involved in this.

The sons of Otto I, the dukes Albrecht I and the much younger Johann I von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, consistently continued the policy of their father, with open accounts from the Staufer-Welf conflict period towards unfaithful vassals occasionally being settled without further ado. Now it paid off for the Lords of Plesse that they had basically always opted for the Guelphs with their castle. As vassals of the Bishop of Paderborn, this was comparatively easy for them, because from there they did not achieve any obligations that could have disrupted their dealings with the Guelphs. Because of these favorable framework conditions and their political skills, they belonged to the inner circle of the ducal councils and stood up again and again for the Welfs - once even as paid service providers. After the division of the estate in 1267, Duke Albrecht I became the sovereign with the area around Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel, the lands in Calenberg and in the Göttingen area. The more rounded Lüneburg region and the city of Hanover received Duke Johann I.

literature

  • Walter Baumann: The Lords of Plesse and the Walkenried Monastery . In: Flecken Bovenden (Ed.): Plesse Archive. Series of publications in annual succession (1966–1998), Goltze-Druck, Göttingen. No. 16 (1980), pp. 51-63.
  • Karl-Heinz Bernotat: The Höckelheim monastery and the hereditary burial of the Lords of Plesse at the end of the 16th century . In: Flecken Bovenden (Ed.): Plesse Archive. Series of publications in annual succession (1966–1998), Goltze-Druck, Göttingen, Heft 14 (1979), pp. 19–40.
  • Sven Lüken: “celebrata est (…) in cimeterio ante castrum”. Considerations about the location of the cemetery on the Plesse . In: Thomas Moritz (Ed.): A solid castle - the Plesse, interdisciplinary castle research. Verlag Erich Goltze, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-88452-350-3 , pp. 141-146.
  • Thomas Moritz: The excavations in the area of ​​the St. Peter du Paul chapel at Plesse Castle, community Bovenden, district Göttingen . Archaeological and architectural findings. In: Flecken Bovenden (Ed.): Plesse Archive . Series of publications in annual succession (1966–1998), Goltze-Druck, Göttingen, Heft 20 (1984), pp. 35–108.
  • Robert Scherwatzky: The rule of Plesse . Publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1914, DNB 362591911 .
  • Josef Dolle (Hrsg.): Document book on the history of the rule Plesse (until 1300). Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hanover 1998, ISBN 3-7752-5820-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ UBPlesse No. 169
  2. ↑ UBPlesse No. 141
  3. ↑ UBPlesse nos. 117, 122-124, 126, 129, 141
  4. ↑ UBPlesse No. 169
  5. ↑ UBPlesse No. 180
  6. ↑ UBPlesse No. 294
  7. ↑ UBPlesse No. 297
  8. ↑ UBPlesse No. 229
  9. ↑ UBPlesse No. 239
  10. ↑ Lüken 2000, pp. 141–146
  11. ↑ UBPlesse No. 150
  12. ↑ Lüken 2000, page 141
  13. ↑ UBPlesse No. 150
  14. ↑ a b Bernotat 1979, pages 19-40
  15. ↑ Moritz 1984 page 77
  16. ↑ UBPlesse No. 164
  17. ↑ UBPlesse Nos. 169, 170
  18. ↑ Scherwatzky 1914 page 49
  19. ↑ UBPlesse No. 286
  20. ↑ UBPlesse Nos. 184, 185
  21. ^ Baumann 1980 pp. 51-63
  22. ↑ UBPlesse No. 69
  23. ↑ UBPlesse Nos. 75, 76
  24. ↑ UBPlesse No. 76
  25. ↑ UBPlesse No. 161
  26. ↑ UBPlesse No. 180
  27. ↑ The concessions made by Frederick II and his successors to the clerical (confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis, 1220) and secular princes (statutum in favorem principum, 1232) consolidated the prince's power at the expense of the royal power and the cities. The way to a territorial state ruled by princes was free.
  28. ↑ UBPlesse, for example, nos. 181, -183, 187, 188, 193, 195, 205, 214, 215
  29. ↑ UBPlesse No. 180

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personal data
SURNAME Helmold IV of Plesse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Co-owner of Castle Plesse
DATE OF BIRTH around 1230
DATE OF DEATH between January 1, 1268 and November 24, 1269