Conrad of Thuringia

Conrad of Thuringia burial place in Marburg

Konrad von Thuringia , also known as Konrad Raspe , (* around 1206; † July 24, 1240 in Rome ) was a brother-in-law of Saint Elisabeth and Grand Master of the Teutonic Order from 1239 to 1240 .

Count of Gudensberg (Hesse)

Konrad was the youngest son of Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia and the Bavarian duke's daughter Sophia . His older brother Ludwig IV was married to Elisabeth, who was later canonized. When Ludwig died in 1227 on a crusade in Otranto , Italy , the second brother Heinrich Raspe initially took over the reign of Ludwig's still underage son Hermann II. Konrad was, as is usual in the Ludowing family , as the younger brother of the regent Count von Gudensberg , d H. the Hessian possessions of the Ludowingers, and ruled this part of the Landgraviate of Thuringia from 1231 to 1234, mostly staying in Marburg . Until 1233 he led various campaigns against Archbishop Siegfried III. from Mainz . At the same time, he tried to narrow Mainz through alliances with other Hessian counts by entering into a protection and defensive alliance in 1233 with Counts Berthold I von Ziegenhain and Gottfried IV von Ziegenhain-Nidda , as already existed with the Counts of Battenberg .

Shield of Konrad; exhibited in Marburg Castle

When Konrad's sister-in-law Elisabeth died on November 17, 1231, she left the hospital she had founded in Marburg to the Order of St. John , who maintained a commander in Wiesenfeld (Burgwald) . Elisabeth's confessor Konrad von Marburg contradicted this decree, which was filed during his lifetime, and made the hospital subordinate to the Thuringian landgrave. Heinrich (as sovereign) and Konrad (in his capacity as its governor in Hesse) secured sovereignty over the Marburg hospital, because the Johanniter complaining against this measure were supported by Konrad's bitter opponent Archbishop Siegfried III. In the same year the landgraves of Thuringia asked Pope Gregory IX. to confirm their meanwhile well-formulated claims. The of Gregory IX. On August 2, 1232, the arbitration commission convened declared the Johanniter claims null and void on the basis of Konrad von Marburg's grounds.

On September 15, 1232, Konrad conquered the Mainz city of Fritzlar in a new campaign against Kurmainz after three months of siege , had it completely destroyed and a large part of the population slaughtered. The collegiate church of St. Peter remained standing, but was plundered and set on fire. Conrad was therefore put under the papal ban , from which he was only released after a pilgrimage to Rome in the summer of 1234. During his stay in Rome he obtained from the curia that the hospital and the parish church of Marburg were transferred to the Teutonic Order , which had founded a house in the city in 1233. At the same time, he pushed efforts to canonize his sister-in-law Elisabeth (among other things through further generous donations to the Teutonic Order).

After his return to Hesse, he traveled to Fritzlar, probably on papal orders, to pay a public church penance there on June 29, 1238 and to support the reconstruction of the devastated collegiate church and city with his own funds and funds acquired through indulgences . For this purpose he renounced his tithe rights in Hesse in favor of the Fritzlarer Petersstift. He also vigorously built the Elisabeth Church in Marburg.

Knight and Grand Master of the Teutonic Order

Grand Master's coat of arms of Konrad of Thuringia

Konrad's sword in the German Historical Museum , Berlin

In November 1234, Konrad resigned his landgrave and joined the Teutonic Order. With him a number of other nobles entered the order, including the later German master Dietrich von Grüningen and the later Grand Master Hartmann von Heldrungen . As early as the following year he accompanied the embassy, ​​which brought the minutes of the canonization process of his late sister-in-law to the Curia , and he apparently remained in the immediate vicinity of the Pope until her canonization on Pentecost in 1235.

In the spring of 1239, Konrad followed the late Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Hermann von Salza , in office , presumably as a result of the proximity of the Ludowingian house to the Kuria and Crown . As a Teutonic Knight, Konrad also pursued imperial policy in the interests of the Ludowingers and to strengthen the Landgraviate of Thuringia. On the Prince's Day in Eger (June 1, 1239) he joined a group that his brother Heinrich Raspe, together with King Conrad IV , Archbishop Siegfried III. of Mainz and Margrave Heinrich III. von Meissen had formed to mediate between Emperor Friedrich II and the Pope. Conrad's contacts in the Roman Curia might have helped. But Konrad, who had traveled to Italy again, fell ill in the early summer of 1240 and died on July 24 of the same year in Rome. His body was transferred to Marburg and buried in the Elisabeth Church there.

literature

• Kurt Forstreuter:  Konrad Landgrave of Thuringia. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 515 ( digitized version ).
• Theodor Ilgen:  Konrad of Thuringia . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 625-627.
• Werner Mägdefrau: Thuringia and the Thuringian Landgraviate of the Ludowingers from the accession of Hermann I (1190) to the death of Heinrich Raspe (1247). In: Werner Mägdefrau among other things: Schmalkalden and Thuringia in German history: Contributions to medieval and modern history and cultural history. Wilhelmsburg Castle Museum 1990.
• Hans Patze : The emergence of sovereignty in Thuringia, Part I. In: Central German Research. Vol. 22, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Graz 1962
• Hans Patze, Walther Schlesinger: History of Thuringia. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Graz 1967
• Hilmar Schwarz: The Ludowingers. The rise and fall of the first Thuringian landgrave family. Wartburg Foundation, Eisenach 1993
• Matthias Werner (ed.): Heinrich Raspe - Landgrave of Thuringia and Roman King (1227–1247). Princes, kings and empires in the late Staufer period. In: Jena Contributions to History. Vol. 3, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-631-37684-7
• Marcus Wüst: Konrad of Thuringia. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon. Vol. 31, ed. v. Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2010, Sp. 745-747, ISBN 978-3-88309-544-8

Web links

Commons : Konrad von Thüringen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dobencker, Reg. Thuringia III, No. 735.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ludwig IV.	Count of Hessen-Gudensberg 1227–1234	Hermann II.