Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach

Family coat of arms of the prince

Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach (born August 1, 1443 , † October 4, 1486 in Jerusalem ) was a prince of the Wittelsbach family and provost of Augsburg and Regensburg .

ancestry

Johann was born as the youngest son of Count Palatine Otto I. von Pfalz-Mosbach and his wife Johanna von Bayern-Landshut , daughter of Duke Heinrich the Rich . He was thus a grandson of King Ruprecht and a nephew of Elector Ludwig III. from the Palatinate .

Life

The older brother Otto II succeeded his father in the government as Duke of Pfalz-Mosbach-Neumarkt . Like the other sons who were born later, Johann was destined for the clergy. Brother Albrecht (1440–1506) served as Bishop of Strasbourg , brother Ruprecht I (1437–1465) as Bishop of Regensburg . The sisters Dorothea von Pfalz-Mosbach (1439–1482), Anna von Pfalz-Mosbach (* 1441) and Barbara von Pfalz-Mosbach (1444–1486) lived as nuns in the monasteries Liebenau and Himmelskron zu Worms .

Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach enrolled on July 15, 1454 as Speyer canon at the University of Heidelberg , and in the summer of the next year at the University of Cologne ; In 1459 he studied in Pavia . By exchanging with Count Wilhelm von Nassau, the prince had held a canon at Mainz Cathedral since May 21, 1458 , and in 1460 he also appeared as a canon in Regensburg and Eichstätt . In the winter semester of 1466/67, Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach studied at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau , where he is also known as rector during this time. Johann Pfeffer , an experienced man and professor of theology at the university, supported him as Pro-Rector during his term of office. In 1468, Prince Johann became a cathedral canon in Augsburg as a result of his brother Albrecht's resignation. In the same year, Johann was elected provost there. On July 22, 1469, he gave up the office of Speyer canon and left it to his relative Friedrich von Bayern (1461–1474), the son of his cousin, Elector Friedrich I of the Palatinate . In 1472, Prince Johann became provost of the cathedral in Regensburg, as well as canon in Bamberg . He resigned the latter office to his brother Albrecht in 1474.

Epitaph in the Reichenbach monastery church

On February 23, 1486, the Augsburg bishop Johann II von Werdenberg died at the Reichstag in Frankfurt am Main . All lines of the House of Wittelsbach campaigned for Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach to be elected as his successor. They came to Augsburg with a large delegation and promoted their relatives to the cathedral chapter. However, on the advice of the emperor and various other princes, the latter elected the pious Strasbourg cathedral dean Friedrich von Zollern (1451–1505) as the new bishop on March 21 .

Disappointed and hurt because of his refusal, Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach left the city and immediately went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land , taking only his personal servant with him. He did not return from there, but died on October 4, 1486 in Jerusalem and was buried in the Franciscan monastery on Mount Sion . A memory epitaph with a representation of his skeletonized body, as a memento mori , is located in the church of the former Benedictine Abbey of Reichenbach . In front of it is the grave slab of his father Otto I.

His relative and contemporary (son of his cousin Katharina von Lorraine ) was Margrave Bernhard von Baden , who was venerated as a blessed .

The Augsburg merchant Martin Ketzel († 1507) dedicated his travel report "Ritterfart over mer gen Jerusalem and to the hayligen grave" to Johann von Pfalz-Mosbach, who died there.

literature

• Gerhard Fouquet: The Speyer Cathedral Chapter in the late Middle Ages (approx. 1350-1540) , Verlag der Gesellschaft für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, Mainz, 1987, p. 707
• Wilhelm Kisky: The cathedral chapters of the ecclesiastical electors in their personal composition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries , Böhlau Verlag, 1906, p. 117; (Detail scan)
• Annual report of the historical district association in the administrative districts of Schwaben and Neuburg , Volume 31, 1866, p. 85; (Digital scan)

Web links

• Genealogical page about the person

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gerhard Fouquet: The Speyer Cathedral Chapter in the Late Middle Ages (approx. 1350–1540) , Verlag der Gesellschaft für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, Mainz, 1987, p. 707
2. ↑ Website with a list of the rectors of the University of Freiburg: Listed as rector in the winter semester 1466/67 under the name Johannes Herzog in Bavaria
3. ↑ Website of the Reichenbach monastery church
4. ^ Georg Dehio: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler , 1908 (Reprint, London, 2013), p. 425; (Digitalscan) ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Website for Ketzel's travel report