Otto V. (Bavaria)

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Statue of Otto V in the former Siegesallee in Berlin by Adolf Brütt , 1899

Otto V. the Lazy (* 1346 ; † November 15, 1379 at Wolfstein Castle on the Isar , Bavaria) was Duke of (Upper) Bavaria from 1347 to 1351 , nominally co-regent from 1351 and, as Otto V, Margrave of Brandenburg from 1365 as well as arch chamberlain and elector of the Holy Roman Empire . With the end of his reign in 1373, the era of the Wittelsbachers in Brandenburg also ended. From 1373 until his death Otto was Duke of Bavaria-Landshut .

Otto V the Lazy should not be confused with Otto (V) the Tall (after 1244–1298), a son of the Ascanian Margrave Otto III.

Contemporary history background

With Otto's father Ludwig IV. The Bavarian , the Wittelsbachers established the Roman-German king for the first time in 1314 . Ludwig, who only prevailed after a long struggle against his competitor Friedrich the Beautiful from the House of Habsburg , systematically expanded his family's domestic power : In addition to the ancestral properties in Bavaria and the Palatinate , he acquired Brandenburg and Tyrol as well as Holland , Zealand and the Hainaut . After his death in 1347, these areas fell to his six sons Ludwig the Brandenburger , Stephan II , Ludwig the Römer , Wilhelm I , Albrecht I and Otto V.

The year of death of Ludwig IV, 1347, marks a turning point in the history of Europe. The Black Death , a plague epidemic of unimagined proportions, spread across the continent. In addition to the devastating economic and demographic effects of the plague, the Hundred Years War broke out between England and France in 1337 . The influence of the church, which split for four decades in the Avignon Schism in 1378 , also declined. Because of these developments, one speaks of the time in which Otto was born, also of the crisis of the late Middle Ages .

Initially, Otto's older brothers continued their late father's imperial policy. It was not until February 1350 that the Wittelsbach family recognized Charles IV as the new king and undertook to deliver the imperial regalia to him .

Life

Early years

Otto was a son of Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria with Margaret of Holland . A year after his birth, his father died, and Otto grew up in the Dutch home of his mother under the guardianship of his brother Louis V on. One reason for the serious conflict between his mother and his brother Wilhelm over the Netherlands from 1350 was the lack of funds that were intended for Otto's provision. She had already given her little son Otto the entitlement to the Burgraviate of Zealand with the rule of Voorne, from which she would earn income of 4000 pounds in Turnosen after the death of Mechtild, Mistress of Voorne († 1372)  .

In December 1351, Ludwig V gave the Mark Brandenburg to his brothers Ludwig VI with the Luckau Treaty . the Römer and Otto, in exchange for the rule in Upper Bavaria. In the battle for the Netherlands, Ludwig the Roman, who was on his mother's side, was ultimately able to secure Otto's claim to the rule of Voorne and the Burggfschaft Zealand, which was later replaced with money. From 1360 the grown-up Otto was nominally involved in the rule in Brandenburg.

Elector of Brandenburg

With the death of Ludwig the Roman in 1365 Otto took over the regency in Brandenburg. Already two years earlier, Emperor Charles IV had contractually agreed with the childless brothers that he would succeed his son Wenzel as elector in the event of their death without heirs. Ludwig and Otto got into an argument with their Bavarian brothers Stephan and Albrecht over the cure and the Bavarian succession after the death of their nephew Meinhard , which Karl IV used purposefully to increase his household power.

On March 19, 1366, Otto married Katharina von Luxemburg (1342–1395), the second daughter of Charles IV, who had been with Rudolf IV of Austria (1339–1365) since 1357 with the so-called “double wedding of Prague” . had been married. On the same day, the marriage between Katharina's sister Elisabeth, who was originally intended as a bride for Otto, and the Habsburg Albrecht III took place. , Duke of Austria, the younger brother of Rudolf IV, who on March 26, 1366 also confirmed a contract of inheritance with the House of Luxembourg. Otto's marriage, which was only concluded for political reasons in order to enforce Karl's ambitions for power in Brandenburg, remained childless. Katharina continued to live in Prague during the marriage, but Otto also often stayed there. After the wedding, Otto largely handed over the administration of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, impoverished by famine and feuds, to his father-in-law for six years.

Otherwise Otto neglected government affairs and preferred entertainment. In 1367 he gave the Mark Lausitz , which had previously been pledged to the Wettins , to Charles IV as a pledge. A year later he sold the city of Deutsch Krone to the Polish King Casimir the Great . In addition, Otto was in constant dispute with Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Saxony-Lauenburg over old feudal rights and possessions.

As a result, the relationship with Charles IV deteriorated. As early as 1370, during the wedding celebrations of Wenceslas and Otto's niece Johanna , Karl is said to have put pressure on the Brandenburg elector, who had increasingly emancipated himself from Karl since 1368 and found support from the local nobility. Otto had also removed the foreign Brandenburg councilors appointed by Karl during the Emperor's second Italian campaign in 1368-69. The conditions in the future electorate planned for his son Wenzel prompted Charles IV to march into Brandenburg in 1371.

Otto then defended himself against Karl, since he did not put up with being disinherited during his lifetime. Together with his Bavarian brother Stephan II , he now proceeded against Karl and had Stephen's second son, his nephew Friedrich , pay homage to Stephen's second son, his nephew Friedrich , in April 1371 through the traditional pro-Wittelsbach neumarkian estates and published a complaint against the Kaiser in June. Then there were armed conflicts in which Karl was allied with the Archdiocese of Magdeburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Saxony-Wittenberg, while the Wittelsbachers could count on the help of the Wettins in Meißen and on the Pilgrim of Salzburg and Ludwig I of Hungary . In October a truce was signed in Pirna that lasted until Whitsun 1373. During this time there were no significant movements of the Brandenburg nobility to withdraw from Otto.

The Holy Roman Empire in the mid-14th century. In 1363/1369 Tyrol fell to the Habsburgs, in 1373 Brandenburg was also lost to the Wittelsbachers. The Dutch counties acquired Burgundy in 1433.

However, in 1372 Karl managed to arrange the engagement of his son Sigismund to the heiress of King Ludwig of Hungary. Only after Louis of Hungary, who was also King of Poland as the successor of Kasimir, changed sides, with the sale of the Kurmark for 500,000 guilders to Charles IV, sealed in August 1373 by the Treaty of Fürstenwalde ,  the Mark Brandenburg finally also went to de jure the Luxembourgers over. However, according to the contract, Otto retained the electoral dignity until the end of his life and the office of treasurer. Otto was even able to keep the title of Margrave of Brandenburg. In addition, Otto was compensated with possessions in the north of the Gauze by Charles IV, who largely gave up his project to expand Bohemia to the west . Charles IV gave his son-in-law "castles, cities and lands Flozz, Hirsaw, Sultzpach, Rosenberg, ... Neitstein, Harsprugk and Lauffen ... Holenstain, ... Hochenfels ... for a deposit of 100,000 florins", but kept the strategically important base in Rothenberg and the Rednitz crossing in Erlangen. Through this measure by Karl, the land in the Upper Palatinate , later called New Bohemia by historians , which Otto's cousin Elector Ruprecht had once given to Bohemia, was divided: The southern part with the previous capital Sulzbach came back to the Wittelsbach family, the remaining northern territory remained Bohemia, until Karl's son Wenzel later also lost it, this time to the Palatinate Wittelsbach king Ruprecht .

Otto then actually led the Brandenburg electoral vote in 1376 when Wenceslas was elected king , which was still in Karl's lifetime, albeit at a later date.

Later years as Duke of Bavaria

After his disempowerment in Brandenburg, Otto lived in Bavaria, where his brother Stephan II recognized him as co-regent. Otto brought his new possessions in northern Gau to the common rule. Due to the high compensation sums for Tyrol and Brandenburg, the dukes later acquired further acquisitions to round off their territory, for example in Lower Bavaria areas around the lordships of Julbach and Erneck near Simbach (1377), Ratzenhofen near Abensberg (1377), Baumgarten (1379) and afterwards acquired other former aristocratic rule within Bavaria.

Katharina lived temporarily with her husband in Munich, but soon more and more often with her father in Prague. The marriage between Katharina and Otto was unhappy, mainly because of the couple's childlessness. The Wittelsbacher accused Charles IV of having knowingly married him to a sterile woman in order to accelerate the inheritance of the Mark Brandenburg to Bohemia, which was regulated in the inheritance contract of 1363. So it happened that Otto entered into an inappropriate love affair with a miller and Katharina later had herself buried next to her first husband in Vienna.

Stephen and Otto's rulership in 1375

After Stephen's death in 1375, Otto shared control of Bavaria with his three sons, who later inherited him. Otto managed together with Friedrich the rich Lower Bavaria with its capital Landshut . With the division of the country in 1376 , the four dukes had agreed that Stephan III would initially take Upper Bavaria . and Johann II. and Lower Bavaria was administered by Friedrich and Otto. So that neither party was disadvantaged, the government areas should change every two years. However, this unusual arrangement was not implemented and compensation payments were made instead.

Otto took part in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1377 and received the knighthood at the Holy Grave. He did not participate in the incipient conflict with the Swabian Association of Cities , which was also triggered by Otto's Brandenburg compensation payments.

At the end of 1379 Otto died in Wolfstein Castle near Landshut. His remains were buried in the Seligenthal monastery near Landshut.

iconography

Statue by Adolf Brütt for Siegesallee with the two portraits Thilo von Bruges and Thilo von Wardenberg , unveiled on March 22, 1899 as monument group 12 .

Lyonel Feininger drew a caricature of the statue .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Heinz Thomas, in: Women of the Middle Ages in Life Pictures , ed. by Karl Rudolf Schnith, Styria Graz, Vienna, Cologne 1997 pp. 289–292; Alphonse Wauters : Marguerite de Hainaut . In: Biographie Nationale de Belgique , Vol. 13 (1894-95), Col. 637-640.
  2. ^ Jan Winkelmann: The Mark Brandenburg of the 14th Century, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-112-9 , p. 81.
  3. ^ Jan Winkelmann: The Mark Brandenburg of the 14th Century, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-112-9 , p. 81.
  4. ↑ Valmar Cramer: The order of knights of the Holy Grave from the Crusades to the present. , JP Bachem, Cologne 1952, p. 19
  5. ↑ On Otto's death and burial place of Helga Czerny: The death of the Bavarian dukes in the late Middle Ages and in the early modern period 1347–1579. Preparations - dying - funeral ceremonies - burial - memoria (=  series of publications on Bavarian national history . Volume 146 ). CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-10742-7 , p. 95–96 (also dissertation, University of Munich 2004).
predecessor Office successor
Ludwig IV. The Bavarian Duke of (Upper) Bavaria
1347–1351 		Ludwig V the Brandenburger
Ludwig I the Brandenburger (until 1351)
and
Ludwig II the Romans (until 1364/1365)		 Margrave or Elector of Brandenburg
1351–1373 (de jure)
1364 / 1365–1371 (de facto) 		Wenceslaus
Stephan II Duke of Bavaria-Landshut
1373–1379 		Johann II. , Stephan III. and Friedrich
personal data
SURNAME Otto V.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Otto the Lazy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elector of Brandenburg
DATE OF BIRTH 1346
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1379
Place of death Wolfstein castle ruins (Isar)