Johann I of Merlau
Johann I von Merlau († 1440) was prince abbot of the imperial abbey of Fulda from 1395 to 1440 .
Life
He came from a noble free family in Upper Hesse , named after their ancestral home in Merlau , which is now a district of Mücke in the Vogelsberg district . He was the first abbot to swear the so-called "old statutes" of September 1, 1395, a kind of basic law of the principality.
Even under its predecessors, the abbey ran into considerable financial difficulties due to numerous and sometimes serious feuds with knight families in the area, but especially with the Landgraves of Hesse , and when Johann took office the abbey had a debt of 300,000 guilders. A major fire in 1398 drove up the debt by a further 80,000 guilders. Added to this were the costs of new feuds and disputes with members of the Fulda knighthood and with neighboring secular and spiritual lords, such as Bishop Johann II of Würzburg .
In this situation, Johann was forced in 1419 to give him from the collegiate chapter and the new Archbishop of Mainz Konrad III. Hermann II von Buchenau , who was urged by Dhaun, to accept as coadjutor and administrator , who was to take over the secular affairs of the monastery. This led to a serious argument within a short time. Abbot Johann continued to insist on his rights, but was attacked by Hermann von Buchenau at Neustadt Castle in 1420 and expelled to the village of Ottershausen. Although he called the two spiritual leaders of the abbey, Archbishop Konrad III. von Mainz and the Würzburg Bishop Johann II. for help, but the two ignored his statements and instead appointed Eberhard von Buchenau, a relative of the coadjutor, as the bishop's chief bailiff. Johann was finally chased completely from the Principality of Fulda by Hermann von Buchenau in 1425 and allied himself with the Hessian Landgrave Ludwig I.
With his help, Johann managed to return to Fulda as abbot in 1427. Archbishop Konrad von Mainz had declared the feud to the Landgrave on July 21 because of a controversial pledge pending on the county of Waldeck . The Landgrave, for whom the close attachment of the Fulda Abbey under the coadjutor Hermann von Buchenau to Mainz posed a considerable threat, defeated a Mainz army decisively at Fritzlar (23 July) in the Mainz-Hessian War of 1427 and then pursued the Mainz people to after Fulda. There, the city and the abbey refused to grant the Mainz protection within their walls. The landgrave defeated the Mainz a second time (August 10th), occupied the city, drove out Hermann von Buchenau, and reinstated Abbot Johann.
In the course of the peace treaty concluded in Frankfurt in December 1427 , Johann pledged to Landgrave Ludwig and Archbishop Konrad, among other things, two thirds of Geisa and Rockenstuhl with all uses, inclines, interest and accessories for 16,000 guilders; the castle and man fiefs and the clerical fiefs remained excluded.
When the end of the Count's House of Ziegenhain was looming and Count Johann II. Von Ziegenhain gradually initiated the transfer of his possessions to Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse, Johann von Merlau volunteered. He enfeoffed the Landgrave in 1434 with the Fulda part of the county of Nidda , and when Count Johann II entrusted his two counties Ziegenhain and Nidda to the Landgrave in February 1437, Prince Abbot Johann and the Hersfeld abbot Albrecht von Buchenau , as previous overlords, approved , signed this contract and transferred their shares in the two counties to the landgrave as a fief against payment of cash compensation.
In terms of church and domestic politics, Johann is known that in 1396 he allowed the reconstruction of Ebersburg Castle , which was destroyed as a robber baron's nest by Prince Abbot Bertho II von Leibolz in 1270 ; However, he forced the Knights of Ebersburg to recognize their feudal obligation and forbade them to relocate or sell the castle or parts of it to foreign masters. From 1420 he gave all the women's monasteries of the Fulda sovereign territory Propste (“praepositi”) to manage their secular affairs. He had the St. Elisabeth Hospital built at the gates of the city of Geisa .
Johann remained in office until his death in 1440. His successor was his former opponent Hermann von Buchenau.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The “Old Statutes” were supplemented in 1440, occasionally by the election of Johann's successor Hermann von Buchenau, and remained in force until 1803. ( Residences Commission of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen: Fulda )
- ↑ http://www.hehl-rhoen.de/pdf/kronfeld_landeskunde.pdf
- ↑ http://www.burgenwelt.org/deutschland/ebersburg/gelie.htm
- ^ Die Ebersburg ( Memento from January 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Stiftung Bürgerhospital Geisa, St. Elisabeth nursing home
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Friedrich I of Romrod |
Prince Abbot of Fulda 1395–1440 |
Hermann II of Buchenau |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Johann I of Merlau |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Johann von Merlau |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prince Abbot of Fulda |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 14th Century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1440 |