Court day at Besançon (1157)

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At the court conference at Besançon in 1157 in the eponymous episcopal town on Burgundian soil, Chancellor Roland read out a letter from the Pope , which describes the imperial crown as a papal benefit. Thereupon a violent dispute broke out between the Roman-German Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa and the imperial princes on the one hand and the Church of Rome on the other.

prehistory

The court day at Besançon was preceded by a number of disputes between Pope Hadrian IV and Barbarossa , which began shortly after his coronation as emperor in 1155. A little later they culminated in the Pope appointing the Archbishop of Lund as the primate of the Nordic Church, who founded other Nordic archbishoprics and thus acted not only against the old claims of Bremen , but above all against the interests of the empire: with the uprising From Lund to the Archbishopric, the Pope withdrew the Scandinavian Church, which had been subordinate to the Archdiocese of Bremen-Hamburg since the missionary work by Saint Ansgar, from the influence of the Archbishop of Bremen. The Danish king's fiefdom dependence on the German emperor was also influenced by this. Obviously the Pope tried to withdraw the Scandinavian Church from German influence and to increase its influence. In response, Eskil was temporarily captured by Lund .

Point of contention

At the court day at Besançon, two papal legates appeared with a public letter from Hadrian IV to the Roman-German emperor, which began with a scandal when the address read: “Our most holy father, Pope Hadrian, greets you All of the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, one as your Father, these as your brothers ”. The letter thus placed the cardinals on the same level as the emperor and treated the latter as the pope's feudal man. This profoundly contradicted Friedrich Barbarossa's sacred conception of imperialism and the equality of emperor and pope.

The letter stated that the Pope had given him the full power of the empire and would have liked to give him even greater beneficia . When Friedrich's Reich Chancellor, the former Provost of Hildesheim , Rainald von Dassel, translated this ambiguous word, which was probably used intentionally, with " fiefdom " in order to avoid the danger that the papal side would create facts if the imperial side accepted this ambiguity without being contradicted, arose among those present Imperial princes a tremendous excitement. The Latin word beneficium can be translated both with “beneficence” and with “fiefdom”.

There was an exchange of blows between the imperial chancellor Rainald and the papal chancellor Rolando Bandinelli . The papal chancellor, who had not contradicted the sharper translation, even presumptuously asked, "By whom does the emperor hold his office if not the Pope?" (A quo ergo habet, si a domno papa non habet imperium?) the indignation among the secular and clerical dignitaries present increased so much that the emperor himself had to defend Bandinelli against the sword (according to other sources the battle ax) of the Count Palatine of Bavaria , Otto von Wittelsbach .

The Besançon dispute practically led to the temporary break in relations between Emperor Barbarossa and the Pope. The papal envoys had to leave the country at the behest of the emperor. At the same time, Frederick I prohibited German clergy from traveling to Rome and making appeals to the Pope. In a reply from the German emperor to the letter from the Pope, it says: "We'd rather lay down the crown of the empire than let it be pulled into the dust at the same time as our person. What is painted [the lateran painting, the Lothar as a feudal man of the Church], may what is written be erased, so that eternal monuments of enmity do not remain between kingship and priesthood . "

Progress

Since not only the emperor and the secular princes, but also the German bishops unanimously opposed the papal view, Hadrian IV withdrew from his position. A new papal embassy had the word “beneficium” interpreted to mean that it should not be understood as a fief, but as a benefit. However, the conflict was no longer limited to just that one word meaning. Ultimately, a dispute broke out about the peaceful coexistence between secular and ecclesiastical power. Since then, the term “sacrum Imperium” has also been used and emphasized the holiness of the empire from the Carolingian and Roman- Christian tradition. Overall, however, both parties agreed that in the end the power of the empire should be fully restored, which was attempted by Barbarossa's second trip to Rome in 1158.

literature

  • Knut Görich : The honor of Friedrich Barbarossa. Communication, Conflict, and Political Action in the 12th Century. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-534-15168-2 , pp. 106ff.
  • Ernst-Dieter Hehl : Beneficium - interpreted benevolently. The court day of Besançon 1157. In: Johannes Heil , Janus Gudian, Michael Rothmann and Felicitas Schmieder (eds.): Paths of remembrance. Colloquium in honor of Johannes Fried (= Frankfurter Historische Abhandlungen. Vol. 49). Steiner, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-515-11831-6 , pp. 135–156.

Remarks

  1. ^ Opll, Ferdinand: Friedrich Barbarossa . Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-89678-665-4 , p. 59.
  2. ↑ Needy, Friedemann: Die Staufer . Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-89678-288-6 , p. 26f.
  3. ^ Gesta Friderici III, 10 . In: Georg Waitz and Bernhard von Simson (eds.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 46: Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. imperatoris. Hanover 1912, p. 177 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  4. ^ Wilhelm Treue: German history. From the Teutons to Napoleon. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1990.