Margaret of Bavaria (1480–1531)

Margarethe of Bavaria-Landshut

Margarete von Bayern (also Margarete von Landshut ; * 1480 in Burghausen , † 1531 in Neuburg an der Donau ) was an abbess from the House of Wittelsbach . From 1509 to 1521 she presided over the Benedictine convent in Neuburg an der Donau .

Margarete was born in Burghausen in 1480 as the second daughter of Duke Georg of Bavaria-Landshut and his wife Hedwig . Marriage plans among others with the later Landgrave Wilhelm III. von Hessen were not realized, instead she entered the Dominican convent in Altenhohenau at the age of thirteen and made profession on July 14, 1495 after the trial year had expired . She received dispensations and numerous perks in relation to monastic life and was even allowed to live in her own house. Entry into the monastery was supposed to secure the inheritance of her older sister Elisabeth and her husband Ruprecht , she was paid 16,000 guilders from her potential inheritance claims.

After the Landshut War of Succession , as a result of which Altenhohenau fell to Bavaria-Munich , Margarete fled to Wasserburg . After Wasserburg was evacuated - this was only given to the Palatinate Line as a deposit - she went to the Benedictine convent of Neuburg in 1506, as Neuburg had become the residence of her two nephews Ottheinrich and Philipp . Margarete had a close relationship with these two. Margarete was supposed to return to the Altenhohenau monastery, but this was out of the question for her, as this monastery now belonged to the territory of Bavaria-Munich.

Margarete was excommunicated because of her stubborn behavior; a petition to Pope Julius II resulted in a papal bull to the bishop of Augsburg, in which she was promised the solution of the ban and entry into the Neuburg monastery. On May 15, 1508, the cardinal Bernadin granted the Augsburg canon Vitus Meler the right to release her from all church sentences. A year later the Neuburg abbess Anna Gurrin resigned her office at the instigation of the Freising Bishop Philipp (Margaret's uncle) and Margarete was elected as the new abbess on May 2, 1509 by the 25 convent sisters . On March 4, 1510, she renounced her inheritance share in favor of her nephews in exchange for an annuity of 500 guilders. After twelve years in office, she resigned in 1521, but stayed in Neuburg. She died in 1531 as the last member of the Wittelsbach line from Bavaria to Landshut and is buried in the monastery church.

literature

• Tobias Appl: The young Philipp. On the way to coming of age . In: Tobias Appl, Margit Berwing-Wittl, Bernhard Lübbers (eds.): Philipp der Streitbare. A prince of the early modern age . Pustet, Regensburg 2003, ISBN 3-7917-1862-2 , p. 46-86 .

Web links

• Portrait of Margarete
• PDF document about the history of Pfalz-Neuburg (about Margarete on page 3, note 1)