Nikolaus von Frauenfeld

Nikolaus von Frauenfeld , also Nikolaus von Kenzingen , (* before 1288 ; † July 25, 1344 at Kastell Castle near Tägerwilen ) was Bishop of Constance from 1334 to 1344 .

family

Nikolaus von Frauenfeld was the son of the knight Jacob, an Austrian servant and bailiff in Kiburg (? Kyburg), who was court master in Frauenfeld .

Life

Nikolaus studied at the University of Bologna from 1305 and was church lord in Kenzingen im Breisgau and Windisch in Aargau as well as in Pfyn in Thurgau . In 1311 he became canon in the Embrach monastery , from 1324 its provost . In 1312 he was canon at the Constance Minster .

From 1324 to 1330 he was envoy of the Austrian dukes to the Curia in Avignon and papal chaplain . In the papal appointment as bishop of Augsburg in 1331 he could not prevail against Ulrich von Schönegg, who was supported by the emperor .

In 1334 he was elected Bishop of Constance by the cathedral chapter and Pope Johannes XXII. supported. The election was not without difficulties, because the opposing candidate Albert II von Hohenberg was supported by his father, Count Robert von Hohenberg , related to the ruling Habsburgs and partisans of Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian . A siege of the bishop's residence in Meersburg from mid-May to late August 1334 was unsuccessful. With the help of Duke Otto of Austria , the situation was calmed down. He was ordained bishop in 1335.

From 1336 Nikolaus was also deployed as an Austrian "captain in their lands in Swabia and Alsace" and was committed to the conclusion of peace between Habsburg Austria and the Lucerne Confederation .

With the loss of the authority of the papacy as a non-partisan power in the conflict with the French King Philip IV at the beginning of the 14th century and the fleeing relocation of Pope Clement V from Rome to Avignon , the church “began to decline morally” For decades it also led to angry rebellion among the population of Central Europe. There were many attacks on church representatives, including in Constance: “In 1338 two 'church rectors' with two knights and 'a large number of rural people' joined forces to attack the bishop of Constance. They seriously wounded some of his entourage and threw him into prison. "

Nikolaus von Frauenfeld was buried in the Konstanz Minster in the grave of his predecessor Heinrich von Klingenberg .

literature

Georg von Wyß : Nikolaus von Frauenfeld . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1886, pp. 613-615.
Brigitte Degler-Spengler : Nikolaus von Frauenfeld. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 266 ( digitized version ).
Veronika Feller-Vest: Frauenfeld, Nikolaus von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Dirk Multrus, “The charitable work of Bishop Nikolaus von Frauenfeld (1334–1344) from Constance. How a characteristic image of life takes on super-individual traits ”in Raphael, Lutz / Uerlings, Herbert (ed.), Between Exclusion and Solidarity. Modes of inclusion / exclusion of strangers and poor in Europe since late antiquity (Frankfurt am Main et al., Peter Lang, 2008) (inclusion / exclusion, studies on foreignness and poverty from antiquity to the present, 6),

Individual evidence

↑ Barbara Tuchman : The distant mirror. The dramatic 14th century , quoted from: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv), 6th edition, Munich 1986, p. 47.

predecessor	Office	successor
Rudolf III. from Montfort	Bishop of Constance 1334–1344	Ulrich Pfefferhard

personal data
SURNAME	Frauenfeld, Nikolaus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Nikolaus von Kenzingen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Bishop of Constance
DATE OF BIRTH	before 1288
DATE OF DEATH	July 25, 1344
Place of death	Castle Kastell near Tägerwilen

[1] Barbara Tuchman : The distant mirror. The dramatic 14th century , quoted from: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv), 6th edition, Munich 1986, p. 47.