Richeza (Poland)

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Portrait of Richeza in the Johanneskapelle of Cologne Cathedral near the burial place

Richeza (partly also Rixa , Polish Rycheza ; * around 995; † March 21, 1063 in Saalfeld ) was the wife of Mieszkos II. Queen of Poland from 1025 , but after the death of her husband lived from 1036 on the property of her father's family, the Ezzone , in the Holy Roman Empire . Through her marriage to Mieszko II, the young Polish kingship gained in connection with the tradition of the older Frankish kingdoms. Through her descendants, Richeza became the ancestor of the Eastern European dynasties of the Piasts , Rurikids and the Arpads . Richeza, of whom there is no contemporary picture, worked as a pious donor after her return from Poland, so that she is venerated as a blessed to this day .

Life

Richeza descended from her mother Mathilde of the Liudolfingern , possibly from the Carolingians through the Ezzone's paternal family . Her father was the Count Palatine of Lorraine Ezzo , her mother Mathilde a daughter of the Roman-German Emperor Otto II. After the foundation of the Brauweiler monastery , the home monastery of the Ezzonen , Richeza was in any case the oldest daughter, possibly even the oldest child, of hers Parents.

Queen of Poland

Richeza married the Polish Duke Mieszko in 1013 . This marriage was probably already in Gnesen in 1000 between Mieszko's father Bolesław Chrobry and Emperor Otto III. It was agreed to bind the Polish ruling dynasty, which had just become a feudal man to the empire, more closely to the empire through family ties. Due to the childlessness of Otto III. the daughters of his sister Mathilde were the most closely related potential brides for Mieszko. After the early death of Otto III. In 1002 and the reorientation of the empire's Polish policy by Henry II , the wedding was delayed until Boleslaw demanded the wedding in 1012 and sent Mieszko to the empire with bridal gifts, where Richeza's family fought with Henry II over the Ottonian inheritance. Heinrich took the opportunity to achieve a compromise with the Ezzone and to negotiate a temporary peace with Poland in Merseburg . The wedding between Richeza and Mieszko took place in Merseburg at Whitsun 1013. Both Heinrich II and Boleslaw were present.

After the final peace between the empire and the Polish rulers, which was concluded in Bautzen in 1018 , Richeza and Mieszko maintained close contacts with the German royal court. In 1021 they took part in the consecration of the Bamberg Cathedral . After the death of Boleslaw, who after Henry's death in 1024 had risen to a Polish king of equal rank to the German king, Richeza became Queen of Poland at the side of Mieszko. Exact sources are lacking about the time of the turmoil between her husband and his brothers Bezprym and Otto . The Brauweiler Chronicle states that Richeza handed over the Polish royal crown to Conrad II in 1031 and played an important role in mediating peace between Poland and the Empire in 1033. Neither is credible. Mieszko died in 1034. Richeza fled, possibly after a brief attempt to keep her son Casimir on the throne, due to the neo-pagan opposition to the empire and returned to her family.

After returning to the Holy Roman Empire

Richeza's arrival made a redistribution of Ezzo's inheritance necessary, as it was not foreseeable during the distribution of the inheritance that Richeza would need a livelihood. Richeza received with Saalfeld a property that did not belong to the Lower Rhine area in which the Ezzonen tried to build a coherent domain. Richeza continued to call herself Queen of Poland, a privilege that Conrad II had granted her. In Saalfeld, Richeza gathered the Polish opposition, which supported their son Kasimir. In 1039 he was able to get back to the Polish throne with the help of Conrad II.

Richeza supported the St. Nikolaus Abbey in Brauweiler, among other things by building the new church

In 1047, together with Richeza's brother Otto , the last lay male descendant of Ezzo, the territorial political goals of the Ezzo zones died. Richeza now inherited large parts of the Ezzonian property. Otto's death seems to have touched Richeza very much. At his funeral in Brauweiler by Bruno von Toul , she put her secular jewelry on the altar and became Sanctimoniale , so that the rest of her life could be devoted to the memoria of the Ezzonen. Another goal was probably to secure the remaining rights of the Ezzone.

A document dated July 17, 1051 shows that Richeza participated in the reorganization of the Ezzonian property on the Lower Rhine. She, her sister Theophanu , abbess in Essen , and her brother, the Cologne Archbishop Hermann , transferred the Brauweiler monastery to the Archdiocese of Cologne . This was preceded by a legal dispute before the emperor, as this transfer had already happened under Ezzo himself. Ezzo's three children who were still alive had successfully challenged this. The reason for the transfer was probably that the future of the Ezzo zones on the Lower Rhine was no longer secure: Of Ezzo's ten children, only Richeza, Adelheid and Otto had children. None of these were interested in or able to exercise a position of power in the Lower Rhine region. The transfer to the diocese, headed by Hermann one of the younger Ezzones, ensured the cohesion of the property. In 1054, Richeza's donations to the Brauweiler monastery were also recorded, which were connected with the wish to be buried next to her mother in the monastery church. This reorganization, which apparently assumed that Hermann would survive his siblings, failed when he died in 1056 and a new archbishop was installed in Anno II , who sought to increase the power of his diocese at the expense of the Ezzone.

Richeza reacted to Anno's survey by giving away her Moselle property to the Brauweiler monastery, but reserving the right to use it for life. Brauweiler as the center of the Ezzonian memoria should be economically secured regardless of the power position of the Ezzone. Then Richeza went to Saalfeld, where she made similar arrangements in favor of the diocese of Würzburg, whose bishop had to promise in return that he would bring Richeza himself or six impeccable priests and six deacons to her desired burial place after her death. Anno protested against these regulations. In the end, Richeza left him her property around Saalfeld and Coburg, but retained the right of use until death and additional income from seven places in the Rhineland as well as 100 pounds of silver annually from the Archdiocese of Cologne. Richeza died on March 21, 1063 in Saalfeld.

The dispute over Richeza's inheritance

Richeza was buried in the church of St. Maria ad Gradus, here on a drawing from the 17th century.

Richeza was buried in the Cologne church of St. Maria ad Gradus and not, as she had wished, in Brauweiler. This was initiated by the Archbishop Anno II of Cologne, who invoked an oral agreement with Richeza. He moved the Klotten estate on the Moselle, which Richeza had donated to her burial church, to St. Maria ad Gradus, whose relationship to Richeza, Hermann II and Anno II is unclear. It is possible that St. Maria ad Gradus was an unfinished foundation of Hermann, which Anno completed and expanded according to his plans at the expense of the Ezzone. The Brauweiler monastery relied on Richeza's written will and demanded that Klotten be handed over to itself. The following dispute was only in 1090 by Archbishop Hermann III. von Hochstaden decided in favor of Brauweiler. However, Richeza's grave remained in St. Maria ad Gradus until this church was demolished in 1817. Today Richeza's grave is in the Johannis Chapel in Cologne Cathedral , where her bones are stored in a simple, classical wooden sarcophagus. Next to the sarcophagus hang two medieval portraits of Richeza and Annos II, which come from the medieval tomb in St. Maria ad Gradus.

Foundation activity

In Poland, Richeza acted together with Mieszko as the builder for the construction of the Palatinate Ostrów Lednicki and Giecz (near Gnesen ).

A chapel of St. Nicholas in Klotten , which was built around 1040, is documented as the first Richeza foundation in the empire . Klotten was the administrative and rulership center of the Ezzone possessions on the Middle Rhine and one of Richeza's favorite places to stay. The building, which was probably built by her Ministerial Huso and not Richeza, was a simple, rectangular building connected to a residential building. After an expansion in the 16th century, the chapel served as a syringe house from 1802 and as a school from 1874. After being destroyed in World War II, the remains were demolished in 1951. At that time, a free-standing Nikolausbrunnen belonged to the estate, which has since been built over by a residential building.

In Saalfeld, the fact that there was a market right and a church of St. Gertrude there in 1074 and the so-called Rixa pfennigs were minted there led to the conclusion that the market right would be granted under Richeza, but possibly also under her father Ezzo. New establishment of markets with Gertrude's chapels also happened under Ezzonen in Bonn , Cologne and Essen .

The abbey church of Brauweiler

Richeza's most important foundation is the second building of the abbey church in Brauweiler , the foundations of which were bricked in 1048. Her parents had founded Brauweiler, albeit only modestly equipped, since the transfer of larger lands could not be reconciled with the territorial goals of the Ezzone. After the death of Richeza's brother Otto, the last lay male Ezzonen, these goals were obsolete, so that Richeza had Brauweiler designed as the center of the Ezzonian memoria. Ezzo and Mathilde's foundation building was not sufficient for this purpose, so Richeza had a new monastery church built, which is still largely preserved today. Richeza's building was a three-aisled pillar basilica with a sweeping transept in the east and an east apse over a hall crypt . The side aisles were groin vaulted, the central nave was flat covered. In the interior, the nave had five pillar bays, each half the size of the square crossing. Like the nave, the transept was basilical, so that the aisles continued like a walk into the transept. The groin vaulted ambulatory around the apse also continued into the transept. Overall, this resulted in an almost closed walkway, interrupted only at the front walls of the transept. The hall crypt was located under the east apse and about half the transept. This has three aisles in three bays, with four supporting columns, the main room closes with a polygonal east bay, to which three choir chapels adjoin. The side rooms have only one support, the inner yoke of the side rooms also has an apse. All groin vaults in the side aisles and crypt rested on half-column templates or columns with cube capitals without a collar, which can be found on many Ezzonian buildings. The crypt was consecrated on December 11, 1051. The building received its final consecration on October 30, 1063.

The building shows clear references to the church of St. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne, a foundation of Richeza's sister Ida . Both crypts are laid out identically, but the one in Brauweiler was two yokes shorter. There are also clear references to the Upper Church. The distinctive three-icon complex of St. Maria in the Capitol was reduced to an east apse in Brauweiler, but the use of the gallery is similar. The structure of the buildings in squares and the template system are identical. Total Brauweiler is regarded as a reduced copy of the Cologne church, but can also be an influence of the 1040 consecrated by Richezas brother Hermann monastery church of Stavelot , especially Stablo mother monastery had been for Brauweiler.

Richeza planned Brauweiler as a family grave, so in 1054 she had her father buried in Augsburg reburied in the crypt and in 1051 her sister Adelheid from Nivelles.

The Richeza Gospels

Mark the Evangelist from the Richeza Gospels

The Richeza Gospel, today as Hs. 544 in the possession of the University and State Library in Darmstadt , comes from the Cologne Church of St. Maria ad Gradus, in whose memorial book Richeza was recorded due to large donations from lands and in which her grave is usually given to the donors reserved central space in the nave. Whether this happened at the instigation of Annos II or whether Richeza made his own donations to the church cannot be clarified. However, the Gospels provide an indication of the latter thesis. The 18 × 13.5 cm manuscript consists of 153 parchment leaves. On pages 150v to 152r there is a prayer that suggests a noble owner. The following pages contain memorial entries. Among these are Richeza and Anno II and his parents. The entries indicate that the Mariagradenstift was in possession of the Codex around 1100. The codex itself was created around 1040, presumably in the Maasland, and its pictorial decorations are incomplete: The evangelists Markus and Lukas are complete as brown pen drawings, while John is only a preliminary drawing. The Evangelist Matthew has not yet started. It is possible that the state of the codex can be dated more precisely: After 1047, when Richeza made her spiritual vows, she no longer needed a personal, representative manuscript. Whether this remained in her possession and was used together with other relics from Anno from her estate for St. Maria ad Gradus or was already donated by Richeza for this founding of her brother cannot be clarified.

Adoration

Memorial plaques for Richeza in Klotten

Because of her foundations and pious life, even in the Middle Ages , Richeza was occasionally regarded as a saint , but in the Cologne area as well as in Klotten , Richeza enjoyed veneration as a blessed. After it was moved to Cologne Cathedral, her grave was opened several times to remove relics. When it was last opened in 1959, the bones were found in good condition. Richeza was of small, graceful stature, the spine showed signs of age wear, one collarbone showed traces of a healed fracture. The skull was discolored brownish and skinless, the head was wrapped in fabric except for the face, the skull also wore a gold reticulated hood with a cross pattern. Since the skull was bedded on a red pillow, an exhibition of the blessed Queen was concluded. Richeza's relics (atlas vertebrae) have been in St. Nikolaus in Brauweiler since 1959 and in the Klotten parish church since 2002 and in the Tyniec Abbey near Krakow (Poland) since 1975 (one rib).

progeny

Richeza had three proven children from her marriage to Mieszko:

  • Casimir (* around 1016), Duke of Poland (Piast)
  • Gertrud (* around 1020), married Grand Duke Isjaslav of Kiev (Rurikids)
  • Richeza (* 1018; † after 1059), married the later Hungarian King Béla (Arpaden)

Trivia

The Polish-language primary school Königin-Richeza-Schule (Polish: Szkoła im. Królowej Rychezy ), founded in 1973 and supported by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Cologne, has been named after her since 1998.

literature

Web links

Commons : Richeza (Poland)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Gereon Beuckers: The Ezzonen and their foundations, an investigation into foundation activity in the 11th century . LIT Verlag, Münster 1993, ISBN 3-89473-953-3 , p. 79-80 .
predecessor Office successor
Queen of Poland
1025-1034
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 9, 2007 .
personal data
SURNAME Richeza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rixa; Rycheza
BRIEF DESCRIPTION by marriage Queen of Poland
DATE OF BIRTH around 995
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1063
Place of death Saalfeld / Saale