Johann III. by Eych

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Johann III. von Eych (also: von Aich; von Eich) (* 1404 in Eicha near Heldburg ; † January 1, 1464 in Eichstätt ) was the 50th diocesan and prince-bishop of Eichstätt and proved to be a humanistically educated reformer.

Parental home and education

After Wendehorst came Johann III. von Eych a knightly Franconian noble family . The headquarters in Eicha are near Heldburg , where the diocese was also wealthy. Assumptions that the headquarters was Eich Castle near Heilsbronn would have proven to be a mistake. Eich Castle is today's Hohenstein near Coburg, the nobility of Eich come from the Roman de Quercu families. This name appears in the annals of Tambach and Langheim and Bamberg. His parents were the knight Karl von Eych and his wife Margaretha, geb. von Heltpurg (Heldburg), who provided it for the Eichstätter cathedral chapter. Before he was accepted there, he went to Vienna to study in 1423 and to the University of Padua in 1429 , where he received his doctorate in both rights and was rector in 1433/34 and again in 1437/38.

The time until episcopal ordination

The lawyer entered the service of Duke Albrecht V and Albrecht VI. from Austria. In his office he became friends with Eneo Silvio Piccolomini, who later became Pope Pius II. As the Duke's envoy, he took part in the Council of Basel in 1433 and made a name for himself in the process, as well as the ambassador of King Albrecht II at the Mainz deliberations dated March 1439.

Around 1440 Johann von Eych became Eichstätter canon. Here he met his uncle, the Eichstätter cathedral scholastic Peter von Heltpurg , who died in 1441. In December of the same year Johann was ordained a deacon . On October 1, 1445, Eichstätt was elected bishop , whereupon he was confirmed by the Archbishop of Mainz , Dietrich Schenk von Erbach, on January 1, 1446 and ordained priest and bishop on March 13, 1446 by Peter von Schaumberg , Bishop of Augsburg .

The Eichstatt Prince-Bishop

Johann III. von Eych in the Pontifical Gundekarianum
Johann III. von Eych on his grave slab in St. Walburg

Positioning in matters of faith

Johann III. turned out to be a reform bishop. So he already called in the year after his election for the 11th / 12th. October 1447 a diocesan synod in Eichstätt, on which he issued new diocesan statutes based on the decrees of the Council of Basel (in which he had participated in Austrian service). Subsequently, as far as external circumstances permitted, he held a synod every other year in different places of the bishopric and the diocese, e.g. B. 1456 in Berching , probably 1455 in Spalt , 1460 in Monheim , which pushed the reforms among clergy and lay people. He also prescribed visitations of the parishes by the deans , who in turn were controlled by the bishop. The concubinage , cohabitation of clerics with a woman, he charged. He standardized the Mass rite with the text "Ordinarium missae practicum", which was written in 1461 on his behalf by Prior Bernhard von Tegernsee . He also taught the clergy about the administration of sacraments . In 1453 he issued the "Constitutio de communione paschali" as the order of the First Communion celebration .

Reformer of monastic life

At the same time he endeavored to improve monastic and charitable life in his diocese. In 1447 he replaced the prior of the Dominican monastery in Eichstätt with a reformist who drove out stupid monks. In the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt , the abbess Elisabeth von Seckendorf was forced to resign; the bishop replaced the escaped nuns with nuns from Marienberg near Boppard ; In 1461 the reform was completed in St. Walburg, the women's monastery and economic monastery had been transformed into a prayer monastery. During a visit to the Bergen monastery in 1453, jewelry and fashionable clothes were removed from the nuns and a new abbess and a confessor were placed in front of them. In the same year he had the Abbot of St. Aegidia in Nuremberg visit the Augustinian monastery Pillenreuth and amended the monastery statutes of 1422 there for reform. He gave 1454 reform statutes to the Herrieden monastery . The Augustinian Canons Rebdorf had adopted reform statutes in 1422, but it was not successful. In 1457–59, with the support of Nikolaus von Kues , with whom he was in contact and who was in Eichstätt on his legation trip through Germany in 1451/52, the bishop, against opposition, secured the connection of the monastery to the Windesheim congregation ( diocese of Utrecht ); the provost gave up and gave way to a man of reform. In 1457 Eych visited the margravial monastery of Heidenheim and in 1458 the monastery of Plankstetten . In the latter the abbot voluntarily resigned, and Johann pushed the reform that had begun with monks from the monastery of St. Cross in Donauwörth . The financially weak margravial Benedictine monastery of Wülzburg near Weißenburg , which was almost dying out in 1448 and was also partially destroyed by looting citizens in 1450, supported the bishop by having monks come from other monasteries. In the margravial Benedictine monastery of Auhausen an der Wörnitz , however, Eych's efforts to reform were unsuccessful.

Entanglement in conflicts between the neighboring princes

While Johann III. largely withdrawn from the popes' flaming crusade calls, beginning in 1453 with Pope Nicholas V , he became increasingly entangled in the conflicts between the neighboring margravate of Ansbach and the imperial city of Nuremberg and the duchy of Bavaria-Landshut . In the conflict between Duke Ludwig of Bavaria and Margrave Albrecht Achilles , Johann relied on strict neutrality. The ongoing conflicts between the neighbors culminated in the First Margrave War (1449–1450) and the Bavarian War (1459–1463). However, Ludwig evaluated the bishop's behavior as support for Albrecht and attacked Eichstätt in 1460 and burned down houses in two suburbs. The city itself could be held until a contractual agreement was reached. Other cities in the diocese, Monheim, Heidenheim , Gunzenhausen , Wemding and Heideck , were destroyed in the clashes that lasted until 1463.

Circle of humanistic reformers

Under Eych, a circle of friends was formed in Eichstätt around the episcopal chancellor Johann Mendel († 1484) and the canon Albrecht von Eyb (1420-1475), who is attributed to early humanism. They were closely related to the Heidelberg court chaplain Matthias von Kemnat and the Nuremberg doctors Hermann Schedel and Hartmann Schedel , who, like Eych, had studied in Padua. The bishop himself owned several works by the Italian humanist Petrarch ; Overall, Eych's church reform was based on a humanistic education with an Italian character.

Development of the Hochstift

The prince-bishop increased the bishopric by purchasing Obereichstätt in 1447 and the Marien pilgrimage site Buchenhüll , which he donated to the cathedral chapter . The veneration of Mary was close to his heart; So he promoted the Marian pilgrimage Großlellenfeld , where a Gothic parish church was built from 1446–68 . When the Counts of Oettingen built a pilgrimage church on their Kappelbuck near Hechlingen , the bishop supported this measure by issuing a foundation letter "in praise of God, the Virgin Mary and Saint Catherine and all saints". Under Bishop von Eych, Jews were forbidden to stay in the bishopric for the first time, and in 1445 he expelled them from his royal seat. In view of the spread of firearms, he reinforced Willibaldsburg , where the prince-bishop's court was located, around an elongated outwork with a round tower. In 1460, the battery tower of the city wall in the west of Eichstatt was built as a further artillery plant. He built a new palace at Mörnsheim Castle . The "tire tower" was built in Spalt in 1446 under Bishop Johann.

End of life and tomb

On May 31, 1462, Eych was elected cardinal priest in Viterbo . He has been ailing for the last four years of his life. The prince-bishop was buried in the St. Alexius chapel he founded at St. Walburg's monastery. Today his bones are kept in the chapter house of the abbey, his tombstone, perhaps the work of the Straubing sculptor Erhart, can be seen next to the entrance to the monastery and parish church. In the Pontifical Gundekarianum , Pope Pius allegedly said that the Church had lost a golden column in him (Bishop Johann) and that Germany had lost a remarkable prelate.

Letters

Letters Eych to the Benedictine Bernhard von Waging († August 10, 1472), the most important representative of the Tegernsee Reform , on the controversy "vita activa - vita contemplativa" of priestly existence and to the Carthusian Jakob von Tückelhausen are available in print from JH v. Falckenstein, Codes Diplomaticus Antiquitatum Nordgaviensium, Frankfurt / Leipzig 1773. Letters to Nikolaus von Kues can be found in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek under clm 19697.

literature

  • Mag. Hermann Schedel from Nuremberg for his employer, Bishop Johann von Aich zu Eichstädt, 1453. In: Karl Sudhoff (Hrsg.): Archive for the History of Medicine 14 (1923), p. 95
  • Theodor Neuhofer: The older Pirckheimers and Eichstätt. In: Collective sheet of the historical association Eichstätt 64 (1971), Eichstätt 1972, especially p. 85
  • Ernst Reiter: Reception and observance of Basel decrees in the diocese of Eichstätt under Bishop Johann von Eych (1445–1464). In: From Constance to Trento. Festgabe für August Franzen, 1972, pp. 215–232
  • Ernst Reiter:  Johannes III. by Eych. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 483 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Monika Fink-Lang: Eichstätter Spiritual Life in the Age of Humanism. In: Collective sheet of the historical association Eichstätt 77/78 (1984/85), Eichstätt 1986, pp. 30–45
  • Alois Schmid: Eych, Johann von. In: Erwin Gatz (ed.), With the assistance of Clemens Brodkorb: The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1448 to 1648. A biographical encyclopedia. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-428-08422-5 , p. 173 f.
  • Alfred Wendehorst : The diocese of Eichstätt. Volume 1: The Bishop's Series up to 1535. Series: Germania Sacra - New Series 45. Berlin 2006. ISBN 978-3-11-018971-1 . Pp. 202-220.
  • Heide Dorothea Riemann: The correspondence of Bernhard von Waging and Johannes von Eych (1461) –1463. On the controversy over the rank and merit of active and contemplative life. [Cologne] [1985].
  • Jürgen Dendorfer (Ed.): Reform and early humanism in Eichstätt. Bishop Johann von Eych (1445–1464) (= Eichstätter Studies. Vol. 69). Pustet, Regensburg 2015, ISBN 3-7917-2494-0 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Alfred Wendehorst: The diocese of Eichstätt. Volume 1: The Bishop's Series up to 1535. Series: Germania Sacra - New Series 45. Berlin 2006. ISBN 978-3-11-018971-1 . P. 203.
predecessor Office successor
Albrecht II of Hohenrechberg Bishop of Eichstätt
1445 - 1464 		Wilhelm von Reichenau
personal data
SURNAME Johann III. by Eych
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johann von Eych; Johann von Aich; Johann von Eich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt
DATE OF BIRTH 1404
PLACE OF BIRTH Eicha at Heldburg
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1464
Place of death Eichstatt