Michael Czacheritz

Michael Czacheritz (* 1420 in Neisse , Duchy of Nysa , † 2. June 1489 in Glatz , Glatz ) was Augustinian canon and from 1456 until his death in 1489 provost of the Archdiocese of Prague belonging Augustinian Canons in Glatz. The pen chronicle Cronica Monasterii Canonicorum Regularium (S. Augustini) written by him in Glacz is an important document on the history of the Glatzer country in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Life

Michael Czacheritz was the son of a German middle-class family from Neisse. Since he did not have to pay an admission fee when he enrolled at the Artistic Faculty of the University of Vienna in 1441, it can be assumed that his family was not very wealthy. In 1448 he obtained a “magister artium liberalium” . The “magistri regentes” directory of the university shows that he himself gave lectures at the artist faculty this year. He continued the previously started study of canon law and graduated with a baccalaureate.

It is not known when Czacheritz turned to the clerical career and joined the order of the Augustinian Canons. On August 15, 1452, he took his religious vows at the Vienna Monastery of St. Dorothea , which at that time was an important reform monastery of the Augustinian canons and was supported by the ruling house. In 1456 he was appointed the successor of the late Glatzer Provost James by the superior of the Dorothee monastery, who had been given the right to appoint the provost ("potestas eligendi praepositi") for the Glatzer Augustinian monastery. Although he had tried to reintroduce the monastic order that had been neglected during the Hussite Wars , it was unsuccessful. That is why he, like his predecessor Heinrich Foytisdorf, turned to the Viennese monastery head with a request for support.

Michael Czacheritz brought three other monks with him from Vienna: Magister Johannes von Rosenberg, Nikolaus von Zittau and Baccalaureus Wenzel. Although he endeavored to carry out the necessary reforms in Glatz, he met with rejection from the local monks. In addition, he soon had to deal with the political situation that had arisen through the election of George of Podebrady as King of Bohemia and which also impaired the spiritual life. King George was rejected mainly by the Breslauers , while the Glatzer clergy and the people of Glatz recognized him. Since he tried to keep the Glatzer clergy out of the Utraquist quarrel with the Old Church , Provost Michael read a mass for him on the occasion of the king's visit in July 1458 and did not refuse him the kiss of peace. Since the Governor of Glatz, Hans von Warnsdorf, also represented the position of the Old Church, provost Michael accepted him into the community of the Augustinian Canons. In 1462 Michael sent two monks to the Raudnitz mother monastery in Glatz , which had largely perished during the Hussite Wars.

Because of the adherence of the Glatzer to their sovereign Georg von Podiebrad, who raised the Glatzer Land to a county in 1459 and appointed his sons to Counts of Glatz, the county of Glatz was on June 4, 1467 by the papal legate and then Bishop of Lavant , Rudolf von Rüdesheim , occupied with the interdict . When the land of Glatzer was badly affected due to the armed conflict between Matthias Corvinus and Georg von Podiebrad and the monastery property in Schwedeldorf was devastated, Provost Michael allowed his monks to seek refuge in other monasteries on June 29, 1467. Together with the pastor of Wünschelburg, he went to see the papal legate in Breslau on behalf of the Glatzer clergy in order to have the interdict lifted. After days of negotiations in which he promised the legates obedience and the support of the clergy and people, he achieved the repeal, which the legate revoked a short time later. Therefore, Provost Michael undertook in November d. J. together with the Glatzer Johanniter-Komtur Johannes von Troppau and the Grafschafter dean Johann Rasor another trip to the legate in Breslau. On the way there, on November 29th, in the Neissen bishop's residence, they contacted Bishop Jodok von Rosenberg from Wroclaw to ask for his support. Although he could not prevent the ban from being imposed, he managed to have the proclamation withheld for the time being. The interdict, issued on November 14, 1467, was imposed on all places that adhered to George of Podebrady. When Georg's Podiebrad son, Duke Heinrich d. Ä. , who resided in Glatz with his wife Ursula von Brandenburg , demanded at Christmas 1467 that the clergy should hold services for the faithful despite the interdict, the Augustinians who adhered to the interdict had to leave Glatz temporarily.

The pope's power demonstrated with the interdict, however, did not meet with the approval of the Prague administrators , who now elevated the Glatzer dean's office, which was one of the few that supported the Old Church, to an archdeaconate . This gave it greater rights in the church administration. Provost Michael, who was still in Breslau, emphasized in a letter written in German to the town council of Glatz that one had to obey church authorities. It was not until two years after the death of Georg von Podiebrad that the interdict was lifted through the efforts of the duke couple and provost Michael in 1473.

In 1475 Provost Michael succeeded in regaining the Kostomlath monastery, which had been confiscated during the Hussite Wars . In the same year, Duke Heinrich d. Ä. the previous privileges and rights to the pen. In 1482 the monastery was able to acquire a piece of land in Oberschwedeldorf , where a year later it was also a piece of land belonging to Duke Heinrich d. Ä. who got one in exchange for it in Niederhennigsdorf . The tensions with the Glatzer Johannitern, which had existed since 1365, also existed during the tenure of Provost Michael. The reason for this was that the Augustinians had set up a Latin school with the consent of the Prague bishop Johann Očko von Wlašim , although this had been expressly forbidden by their founder Ernst von Pardubitz . He had attended the Johanniter Latin School himself and wanted to prevent its existence from being endangered by another teaching institution.

During the tenure of Provost Michael, the monastery and the collegiate church, which had been devastated during the war, were repaired. In 1466 the organ was painted by the Breslau master Wilhelm Kalteysen. In 1477 the monastery was renovated and a refectory was rebuilt. Below the refectory was a church dedicated to St. Chapel dedicated to Augustine and his mother Monika von Tagaste . The number of monks rose to 13 during the tenure of Provost Michael.

As Glatzer provost, Michael Czacheritz wrote a chronicle of the Augustinian Canons, which was founded in 1349 by the first Prague Archbishop Ernst von Pardubitz and his brothers. Using older documents and records, Czacheritz also recorded the years before his term of office from 1349 to 1456. Parts of this chronicle were used by the Breslau canon Valentin Krautwald in 1516 for the vita of Ernst von Pardubitz, with which his canonization was to be achieved.

Michael Czacheritz, who was probably the most important Glatzer personality of his time and who, because of his zeal for reform, was called in for visitations by the papal legate Nikolaus von Kues , died on June 2, 1489 in Glatz. Benedikt Polkenhayn, from Breslau, succeeded him in the post of provost.

literature

• Arno Herzig , Małgorzata Ruchniewicz : History of the Glatzer Land. DOBU-Verlag et al., Hamburg et al. 2006, ISBN 3-934632-12-2 , pp. 10, 54, 76-85 and 87.
• Joseph Kögler : The chronicles of the county Glatz. Revised and edited by Dieter Pohl . Volume 2: The parish and town chronicles of Glatz - Habelschwerdt - Reinerz with the associated villages. Pohl, Modautal 1993, ISBN 3-927830-09-7 , pp. 89-103 ( historical sources of the county of Glatz. Series A: Ortsgeschichte NF 2).
• Wojciech Mrozowicz: Michael Czacheritz from Neisse and his chronicle of the Glatzer Augustinian canons . In: Gerhard Kosellek (ed.): The beginnings of literature in Upper Silesia up to early humanism , Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 193–210.
• Wojciech Mrozowicz (Ed.): Cronica monasterii canonicorum regularium (see Augustini) in Glacz . Wratislaviae MMIII, ISBN 83-909164-8-7 (German summary pp. XXVII – XXXVI).

Web links

• Michael Czacheritz in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dispatch of two monks to the mother monastery in Raudnitz
2. ↑ indication “Schlesien, dioec. Breslau “incorrect. Glatz and the County of Glatz did not belong to either Silesia or the Diocese of Wroclaw . Belonging to Silesia only after the Hubertusburg Peace in 1763 and until 1972 to the diocese of Prague .