Johann Wilhelm (Jülich-Kleve-Berg)

Johann Wilhelm, copper engraving by Dominicus Custos (1600–1602)

Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg (born May 29, 1562 ; † March 25, 1609 ) was bishop of the diocese of Münster from 1574 to 1585 and from 1592 until his death Duke of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and Count of Mark and Ravensberg .

Bishop of Münster at the age of eleven

Since Johann Wilhelm was the second son of Wilhelm V von Jülich-Kleve and the daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I , Maria von Habsburg , and the lands of his father were not allowed to be divided, he was designated for the clerical status and in the collegiate monastery of St. Viktor Xanten , where he later became provost , was educated at the age of nine.

On September 4, 1573 he received a canonical at Cologne Cathedral . Two years earlier, Johann von Hoya , Bishop of Osnabrück , Münster and Paderborn had accepted him as coadjutor for the Monastery of Münster by contract of December 23, 1571 . On the other hand, the efforts to secure him the right to the successor in the same way at Osnabrück and Paderborn had failed because of the reluctance of the cathedral chapters concerned . Bishop Johann died on April 5, 1574; On April 28, Johann Wilhelm was unanimously elected as his successor by the Münster chapter, with the proviso that the government of the monastery should be led by representatives of the chapter (in particular the cathedral scholaster Konrad von Westerholt ) and the secular estates until he came of age .

Brother's death, struggle for succession in Münster

In the following year, however, the death of his older brother Karl Friedrich opened the prince's entitlement to the United Duchies and Counties of Jülich, Kleve, Berg, Mark and Ravensberg and thus withdrew him from his spiritual career. Since the Münster chapter was not inclined to entrust the monastery to a secular, ruling prince, Wilhelm V proposed his cousin, Duke Ernst of Bavaria , who was already Bishop of Hildesheim , to succeed his son . The older canons were ready to comply with this request; preferably consisting of the younger canons minority but that the restoration feared seifer the Bavarian house, turned to the idea of the Protestant minded Archbishop of Bremen , Duke Heinrich of Saxony-Lauenburg , which in Osnabrück to the location of John of Hoya been chosen was to raise.

In order to prevent the realization of this plan and to enforce the election of Ernst of Bavaria, the abdication of Johann Wilhelm was now postponed with the consent of the minority, the House of Bavaria and the Pope and then immediately after the waiver was issued on February 23, 1577 revoked because the majority, contrary to the statements they had previously made, was preparing to vote for Lauenburger instead of Ernst.

The suggestion of the Jülich court that the Pope, in order to settle the dispute and gain time, should recognize Johann Wilhelm as administrator of the monastery for the time being, met with concerns in Rome, because there was suspicion there regarding the ecclesiastical sentiments of Wilhelm V. doubt therefore that, Johann Wilhelm will join the strictly ecclesiastical direction and feared in particular that Wilhelm, as he himself, the Lord's Supper received under both kinds, the same also his son will be granted in the same way, what if this the head of a diocese was , set an example that was detrimental to restoration efforts and had to cause great offense.

Gregory XIII. sent an envoy to Kleve in early March 1576 to get Johann Wilhelm to communicate under one figure. However, Wilhelm only gave an evasive answer and postponed his son's Lord's Supper because he still had too little understanding . Not until Christmas 1578 did he let him receive his first communion under one figure. Reassured by this, the Pope then appointed Johann Wilhelm by means of a brief as administrator at the end of 1579, since the dispute in the Münster chapter had intensified and the implementation of Ernst's election could hardly be hoped for .

It was a completely unauthorized interference, because since Johann Wilhelm was determined not to enter the clerical state, it was no longer a matter of provisional confirmation of his election as bishop, but of the order of the secular government of an imperial foundation , over which the Emperor had to determine the chapter and the estates.

Emperor Rudolf II therefore objected to the Pope's arrogance and tried, in agreement with the Archbishop of Bremen and his Münster supporters, to have one of his brothers elected. However, that failed just like the undertaking of the minority to win Duke Ernst by taking his opponents by surprise. Both parties agreed - disregarding the papal breve - under the influence of the secular estates, to accept Johann Wilhelm as administrator and governor of the secularity of the monastery under the authority of those previously in charge of the regency . On May 11, 1580, the corresponding document was issued; Johann Wilhelm, on the other hand, promised to abdicate without reservation as soon as he got married.

Administrator of the Münster Hochstift

Since then he has stayed in Horstmar near Munster . There is nothing to be emphasized about his government activity except that in May 1583 he asked the council of the city of Munster to approve the Jesuits .

Archbishop Heinrich died on May 2, 1585. Since this cleared the way for Ernst von Bayern, Johann Wilhelm abdicated on the spot.

Marriage with Jakobe von Baden, conflict with his father

Foot tournament on the market square in Düsseldorf on the occasion of the wedding of Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg with Margravine Jakobe von Baden

On September 14, 1584 he had already got engaged to the Margravine Jakobe von Baden ; On June 16, 1585, she was married in the palace chapel of the Düsseldorf Palace and celebrated with enormous splendor in the capital of the Triple Duchy, which was raged by the Truchsessian War . The marriage was brought about to secure the young duke of the Restoration Party.

Initially, however, he turned to his father's aversion to Spain and mediating in church matters. It was only when he was drawn into government affairs in 1586 at the request of Rudolf II that he changed his mind. He now proceeded on his own initiative against Protestantism in the Jülich lands. As a result, however, he became hostile to the councilors of his father and to himself, who, for many years falling more and more into insanity , tended to be suspicious of his violence.

Already the fact that Johann Wilhelm had been made administrator of Munster at such a young age had filled him with a little aversion to him . The point now was that the father would leave the council if he met his son there. As a result of the restoration attempts by the young duke, violent disputes also ease with the predominantly Protestant estates.

Mental illness

Johann Wilhelm at the age of 43, Johan Malthain , 1605

These conditions had a detrimental effect on Johann Wilhelm's mental state. According to a report by Reiner Solenander , the ducal personal physician, he was naturally weak in body and mind and had inherited his father's pathological disposition. It developed more and more under the excitement of the Handel into which he fell. On the one hand, with confused ambition, he forged all sorts of plans to eradicate the " heresy ", i.e. Protestantism, in the United Duchies and wrest rule from his father, on the other hand he was increasingly fearful that he was being conspired and attacked on his life is threatened.

The fact that the estates, in spite of his contradiction, were made concessions, which a government formed by them opposed to the princely, that he was completely excluded from state affairs and that the councils kept him and his wife in dire financial straits, increased the young duke's suffering. In addition there was the grief over the childlessness of his marriage and the devastation of the Jülich lands by Spanish and Dutch soldiers.

In March and violent in summer 1589 it seized fearful gloom . On January 1, 1590, the disease came to full on; a few weeks later he fell into a rage . Since then he has remained insane , but as a result of the treatment of an English doctor appointed from Holland, his condition improved so much from 1597 that he was released from prison and on June 20, 1599, after Jakobe von Baden , his first wife, was released on June 3. September 1597 was murdered, was able to marry Duchess Antonie von Lothringen in order to prevent the extinction of the Jülich male tribe.

This marriage, too, remained childless, although Antonie and her husband were repeatedly subjected to lengthy exorcisms in order to remedy their sterility and what appears to be his catatonic mental illness. At the suggestion of the father-in-law, Duke Karl III. of Lorraine and with the consent of Emperor Rudolf II, such an exorcism was carried out in 1605 under the direction of the provost and doctor Johannes Pistorius Niddanus at Hambach Castle .

On March 25, 1609, Johann Wilhelm died without an heir, leaving his lands to the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute between his uncles and their sons. The unclear situation after his death became clear in the fact that the body of the deceased was laid out in a lead coffin in the chapel of the Düsseldorf Palace built by Alessandro Pasqualini and remained unburied for almost two decades . It was not until October 30, 1628 that a state funeral took place with the participation of Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm , the entire court of Jülich-Berg and numerous other dignitaries, which included the remains of the last Duke of Jülich-Kleve-Berg in a solemn procession from the courtyard to the final resting place led to the collegiate church of St. Lambertus .

swell

• on the 20th anniversary of his death: Adolph vom Kamp : Description of the Begrebnus residing The lucid high-born princes & gentlemen Lords Iohan-Wilhelm moved to Gulich Cleve and Berg Graue to the Marck Rauensberg and Moers lord zu Rauenstein Cristseliger Gedechtnus the last of this princely family which held before den zu Düsseldorf the 30 Octobris 1628 after the her prince grace corpse Bey de 20 years after Dero blessed withering in the Hoff Capellen Alda above the earth stood unburied. sn, sl 1628, ( digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf ).
• Hermann Kock: Series episcoporum Monasteriensium, eorundemque vitæ ac gesta in ecclesia. Volume 3: À Francisco I. de Waldeck usque ad Chrph. Bern. de Galen exclus. Köerdinck Erben, Münster 1802, p. 143 ff.
• Joseph Niesert : Munster collection of documents. Volume 7. In Commission of the Rieseschen Buchhandlung, Coesfeld 1837, 225 ff.
• Johannes Janssen (Hrsg.): The Münster Chronicles by Röchell, Stevermann and Corfey (= The historical sources of the Diocese of Münster. Vol. 3). Theissing, Münster 1856, p. 49 ff.
• Augustin Theiner : Annales ecclesiastici post Caesarem Baronium, Odoricum Raynaldum, ac Jacobum Laderchium from an. 1572 ad nostra eesque tempora continuati. Volume 2-3. Typographia Tiberina, Rome 1856, ( digitized volume 2 , digitized volume 3 ).
• Messages from unprinted files from Max Lossen

literature

• Peter Philipp Wolf : History of Maximilian I and his time. Volume 2. Lindauer, Munich 1807, p. 514 note .
• Beer von Lahr: Original memorabilia of a contemporary at the court of Johann Wilhelm III., Duke of Jülich, Cleve, Berg. In addition to an appendix of original letters and negotiations regarding the Duchess Jakobe's trial. Schreiner, Düsseldorf 1834, ( digitized version ).
• Max Goebel: Exorcization of Duke Johann Wilhelm von Cleve in August 1605. (Simultaneous handwritten report by an eyewitness). In: Monthly for the Protestant Church of the Rhine Province and Westphalia. Issue 1, 1853, ZDB -ID 520148-2 , 20–34 ff.
• Anton Mörath: Contributions to the history of the Rhenish line of the Princely House of Schwarzenberg. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. Vol. 12 = NF Vol. 2, 1876, pp. 201-235 .
• Karl Wilhelm Bouterwek : Exorcizatio, practiced on Duke Johann Wilhelm. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. Vol. 13 = NF Vol. 3, 1877, pp. 201-211 .
• Felix Stieve : On the story of Duchess Jakobe von Jülich. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. Vol. 13 = NF Vol. 3, 1877, pp. 1-197 .
• Felix Stieve: Acts and registers on the history of the Jülich country in the years 1597–1608. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. Vol. 16 = NF Vol. 6, 1880, pp. 1-72 .
• Felix Stieve:  Johann Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich-Cleve . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, pp. 228-230.
• Manfred Wolf:  Johann Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 491 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Sabine Graumann: "So the utter stupidity is not better". Medical consilia for Duke Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg (1562–1609). In: City of Hilden: Lectures '93 (= Hildener Museumhefte. 5). Rhein-Eifel-Mosel-Verlag, Pulheim 1993, pp. 83-107.
• HC Erik Midelfort: Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville VA 1994, ISBN 0-8139-1501-5 (German translation by Peter E. Mayer under the title: Crazy Highness. Wahn und Kummer in German ruling houses. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-608 -91236-3 , pp. 138-170).
• Rolf-Achim Mostert: Wirich von Daun Graf zu Falkenstein (1542–1598). An imperial count and the Bergisch state in the tension between power politics and denomination. Düsseldorf 1997 (Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University, dissertation, 1997).
• Rolf-Achim Mostert: The Jülich-Klevian regimental and succession dispute - a prelude to the Thirty Years War. In: Stefan Ehrenpreis (ed.): The Thirty Years War in the Duchy of Berg and its neighboring regions (= Bergische Forschungen. Vol. 28). Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2002, ISBN 3-87707-581-9 , pp. 26-64.
• Olaf Richter: The Jülich-Bergischen councils and the succession dispute. In: Manfred Groten, Clemens von Looz-Corswarem, Wilfried Reininghaus (eds.): The Jülich-Klevische inheritance dispute 1609. Its requirements and consequences. (= Publications of the Society for Rheinische Geschichtskunde. Lectures. 36 = Publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia. NF 1). Lecture volume. Droste, Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-7700-7636-9 , pp. 111-136.

Web links

Commons : Johann Wilhelm (Jülich-Kleve-Berg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Johann Wilhelm  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Antiquariat Tobias Müller: Münster bishop's election. In: Catalog 10. Antiquariat Müller, Würzburg 2014, p. 33 f .; P. 34.
2. ↑ Cf. Emil Pauls: The Exorcism to Duke Johann Wilhelm von Jülich 1604 and 1605 . In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine in particular the Old Archdiocese of Cologne 63 (1897), pp. 27–53 ( digitized version of the University and State Library in Düsseldorf).

predecessor	Office	successor
Johann II of Hoya	Bishop of Münster 1574–1585	Ernst of Bavaria
Wilhelm V.	Duke of Kleve-Mark Graf von Ravensberg Lord of Ravenstein 1592–1609	Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg
Wilhelm V.	Duke of Jülich-Berg 1592–1609	Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg