Rainald von Dassel

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Rainald von Dassel - Portrait on the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral

Rainald von Dassel (* between 1114 and 1120; † August 14, 1167 in Rome ) was Archbishop of Cologne from 1159 to 1167 and Arch Chancellor of Italy . He was the closest advisor to Frederick I and had a decisive influence on imperial politics, especially in Italy and in the dispute with the papacy. Although he only spent a little time in the Archdiocese of Cologne, he also had a lasting effect there. His transfer of the bones of the Magi from Milan to Cologne brought a strong flow of pilgrims to the city. This also strengthened Cologne's economic importance.

family

Rainald came from the family of the Counts of Dassel . The family was closely connected with the Archbishops of Mainz and after 1138 joined the Staufers . As the only one of his family, Rainald has achieved national importance. Rainald was the second son of Count Reinold I von Dassel . The mother was Mathilde von Schauenburg. His date of birth is not entirely clear, probably 1120. The older brother Ludolf I became heir to the county, while the sister Gepa became the abbess of St. Ursula in Cologne.

Advancement in church service

Statue of Rainald von Dassel (next to him Nikolaus von Verdun ) on the tower of Cologne City Hall
Rainald von Dassel reclining figure by Alexander Iven (1905)

He was trained in the cathedral school of Hildesheim , today's Episcopal Gymnasium Josephinum , and studied in Paris . There he heard from Adam Parvipontanus, among others .

Around 1146 he worked as a subdeacon and domcellarius in Hildesheim; so he was responsible for the economic affairs of the cathedral monastery. In the cathedral chapter he leaned closely on the provost and later bishop of Passau Konrad von Babenberg . He became his successor as Provost around 1148.

Rainald was entrusted with important duties. So he traveled to Rome with Wibald von Stablo in 1146 . This brought him into contact with one of the leading envoys and politicians in the area around the court. With this he stayed in letter contact later. In 1148 he represented Bishop Bernhard I of Hildesheim at the Council of Reims . There his utterances attracted general attention, so that he was mentioned by John of Salisbury in the Historia pontificalis . He then became provost of the St. Mauritius Monastery in Hildesheim, the St. Peter's Monastery in Goslar (1153), the Cathedral Chapter in Münster (1154), the St. Servatius Monastery in Maastricht (1156) and the St. Victorstift in Xanten (1159) . He was a friend of learned men and well versed in ancient scriptures. At his instigation, the first stone bridge was built over the Innerste in Hildesheim . When the election of a new bishop in Hildesheim was due in 1153, he renounced a candidacy in favor of Bruno von Hildesheim .

Imperial Chancellor

He had been in contact with the royal court for a long time. In May 1156 he was appointed to the Reich Chancellery by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa . There was a close, trusting relationship between the two of them. Rainald became the ruler's closest confidante and played a decisive role in his policy until his death. It is unclear whether he personally issued certificates. However, he created new terms that he had inserted into the documents. Among them was the expression of the sacrum imperium . He used this for the first time in 1157, also to emphasize the imperial position towards the Pope. Rainald translated the term Beneficium, used in a letter by Pope Hadrian IV, as a fief and not as a charity at the court assembly of Besançon in October 1157 . This led to violent arguments with the cardinal legate Rolando Bandinelli , who later became Pope Alexander III. has been.

Together with Otto von Wittelsbach , he prepared the Italian march in 1158 . He succeeded in persuading numerous cities and nobles of imperial Italy to support.

Archbishop of Cologne

After the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich II von Berg, died in Pavia in December 1158 , the emperor explicitly campaigned for Rainald von Dassel to be elected as his successor. While he was in the army camp outside Milan, he was elected Archbishop of Cologne in absentia in June 1159 . The emperor gave him the regalia and made him arch-chancellor for Italy. Because of this, he spent a lot of time in the imperial service and not in his archbishopric.

Imperial politics

After the death of Hadrian IV there was a double election and thus a schism . Rainald von Dassel was instrumental in gaining recognition for the candidates who were friendly to the emperor. He took part in the Council of Pavia in 1160, which he himself and the Archbishop of Milan led, and spoke out in favor of the imperial candidate Octaviano de Montecello and against Rolando Bandinelli as the new Pope, who was in Rome just a few days after his death the last Pope Hadrian IV was elected as the new Pope on September 7, 1159 amid tumult. Octaviano de Montecello was after the election of Rolando Bandinelli, who was named Alexander III. accepted, appointed as antipope Viktor IV . In 1164 the Arch Chancellor was on a diplomatic mission in England and tried to win the support of Henry II against the Pope. His efforts at the court of Louis VII of France were unsuccessful . At the Synod of St. Jean-de-Losne, Rainald von Dassel tried to make the election of the Pope a matter for the Empire. Ultimately, he did not succeed in gaining general recognition for Viktor IV.

Rainald von Dassel created an administration to strengthen the imperial power in imperial Italy. He was successful in the conflict with Milan . The city was captured in 1162; then it was destroyed. Therefore Rainald von Dassel was in 1163 by Pope Alexander III. the spell is. When Viktor IV died, Rainald von Dassel contributed to the fact that with Paschalis III. a successor was elected.

After another trip to England in 1165, an alliance was formed and marriage relationships were agreed. Among them was that of Mathilde of England with Henry the Lion . With reference to the English support, Rainald von Dassel managed at the court conference in Würzburg , emperors and princes who were inclined to end the schism, to the support of Paschal III. to commit.

Politics in the archbishopric

Front of the Epiphany Shrine

At the pressure of the other bishops, Rainald was ordained a priest on May 29, 1165, a quarter Saturday , in Würzburg and on October 2, 1165 in Cologne by Philipp von Katzenelnbogen as bishop. In the same year Rainald successfully campaigned for the canonization of Charlemagne , which was carried out by the antipope Paschal III. , but not from Pope Alexander III. was recognized.

Apart from the summer of 1166, Rainald von Dassel spent little time in his archbishopric, but was also effective there. After conquering Milan in 1164, he brought the bones of the Three Kings , which Barbarossa had given him as a thank you, to Cologne and the bones of the two saints Gervasius and Protasius to Breisach , where they are kept in a reliquary in the Stephansmünster there . The relics of Cassius and Florentius have been venerated in Bonn Minster since his time . He made an outstanding contribution to literature as a patron of the vagabond poet Archipoeta . In Soest , Cologne , he founded the St. Walburgis Abbey .

He remained connected to Hildesheim. So he had the Johannishof Foundation and the St. Johanneshospital built. He was also responsible for building the first stone bridge over the Innerste in Hildesheim.

He decorated the previous building of the Cologne Cathedral with silk tapestries from the conquered Milan, had two towers and the new Archbishop's Palace built on the south side. He could no longer realize the plan to build a stone bridge over the Rhine . Rainald handed over the archbishop's farms to the Cistercian monasteries of Kamp and Altenberg and thus contributed to their increase in income.

He also contributed to the secular increase in power of the Cologne Church. In the Arnsberg feud, the archbishop's troops took action against Heinrich I in 1164 . Due to the success of the campaign, the county of Arnsberg came at least formally into feudal dependence of the archbishopric. Menden in particular became a fiefdom of the archbishopric. Also in the Saxon uprising of 1166/1167 against Henry the Lion he managed to improve the Cologne positions. The Rheineck Castle was purchased. The Cologne Lehnshof and the service team were expanded.

Last successes and death

Rainald returned to Italy in October 1166. It was his task to secure the advance of the imperial army with some troops. At Tusculum Rainald and Archbishop Christian von Mainz defeated a superior Roman army on May 29, 1167. They then besieged Rome. After the arrival of the emperor, the city of Leo was conquered. In gratitude, the Emperor gave him the Andernach Imperial Court and the Eckenhagen court with its silver mines.

Rainald died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, probably of malaria (common fever) or dysentery . His bones were brought teutonico to Cologne and buried in the old cathedral . The reclining figure of his tomb in the Marienkapelle of the cathedral in front of the three-part winged altar of the city patron was designed by Alexander Iven in 1905 based on medieval models.

literature

  • Stefan Burkhardt: With staff and sword. Images, bearers and functions of archbishop rule at the time of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. The archbishopric of Cologne and Mainz in comparison (= Medieval research. Volume 22). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 3-7995-4273-6 .
  • Rainald Dubski: The hermeneutical differences in the consideration of Rainald v. Dassel and his political appearance in the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Thesis. Faculty of History and Cultural Studies. University of Vienna. Vienna 2007.
  • Julius Ficker : Reinald von Dassel. Imperial Chancellor and Archbishop of Cologne 1156–1167. Cologne 1850. (Reprint: Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1966)
  • Eugen Grambach: Imperial Chancellor and Archbishop of Cologne. Reinald von Dassel (1120–1167). In: Badische Heimat . Volume 4, 2000, p. 723 ff.
  • Eduard Hegel : History of the Archdiocese of Cologne. 1st volume, Cologne 1972.
  • Rainer M. Herkenrath: Reinald von Dassel. Imperial Chancellor and Archbishop of Cologne. Dissertation at the University of Graz 1962.
  • Richard Knipping: The regests of the Archbishops of Cologne in the Middle Ages. Volume 2: 1100-1205. Hanstein, Bonn 1901.
  • Johannes Köhler: Rainald von Dassel. Traces in Hildesheim (= publications of the Hildesheim Museum Association, Volume 2) Lax, Hildesheim 2002, ISBN 3-8269-6002-5 .
  • Wilhelm Martens:  Rainald von Dassel . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 728-735.
  • Hubertus Seibert:  Rainald v. The same. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , pp. 119-121 ( digitized version ).
  • Gertrud Thoma:  Rainald von Dassel. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1289-1291.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Hubertus Zummach: Ruina Mundi Rainald von Dassel, Arch and Imperial Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Verlag Jörg Mitzkat, Holzminden 2007, ISBN 978-3-940751-00-3 .

Web links

Commons : Rainald von Dassel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Petersen: Bishop and City in Hildesheim. In: Bishop and Citizen. Göttingen, 2004 p. 153
  2. ^ Edeltraud Klueting: The monastery landscape of the Duchy of Westphalia in the High Middle Ages. In: Harm Klueting (Ed.): The Duchy of Westphalia. Volume 1: The Electoral Cologne Duchy of Westphalia from the beginnings of Cologne rule in southern Westphalia to secularization in 1803. Münster 2009 p. 76
  3. ^ Herbert Reyer: Reich Chancellor Rainald von Dassel as the founder of the Johannishospital. The deed of foundation dated 1161 (PDF; 17 kB)
  4. ^ Stefan Petersen: Bishop and City in Hildesheim. In: Bishop and Citizen. Göttingen, 2004 p. 154
  5. ↑ Cornelia Kneppe: Castles and cities as crystallization points. In: Harm Klueting (Ed.): The Duchy of Westphalia. Vol. 1: The Cologne Duchy of Westphalia from the beginnings of Cologne's rule in southern Westphalia to secularization in 1803. Münster, 2009 p. 230
  6. ↑ Peter Herde : The catastrophe in front of Rome in August 1167, a historical epidemiological study of Friedrich I. Barbarossa's fourth move to Italy . In: Meeting reports of the scientific society at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1991.
predecessor Office successor
Friedrich II. Von Berg Archbishop of Cologne
1159–1167 		Philip I of Heinsberg
personal data
SURNAME Rainald von Dassel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reinald von Dassel; Rainald of Cologne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Archbishop of Cologne and Arch Chancellor of Italy
DATE OF BIRTH around 1120
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1167
Place of death near Rome