Roger de Vico Pisano

Roger de Vico Pisano (* around 1140 at Vico Pisano Castle near Pisa ; † March 5, 1220 ) was Bishop of Lausanne from 1178 to 1212 .

Live and act

Roger was born around 1140 as the son of a country nobleman at Vico Pisano Castle near Pisa. He was a confidante of Pope Alexander III. and active as a diplomat. By order of the Pope, the Lausanne cathedral chapter elected Roger as bishop in 1178. He took part in the Third Lateran Council in 1179 and is occupied several times as an apostolic legate in the following years. In his diocese, which he took possession of in 1179, conflicts arose with the cathedral chapter over the construction of the cathedral . In the dispute over market rights with the Counts of Gruyère , the bishop was able to assert himself, but when he gave the right to mint to Count Ulrich III. von Neuchâtel sold to finance his disputes, he turned the Lausanne citizens against him. The lawsuits brought against Roger led to papal investigations in 1198. The dukes of Zähringen threatened the independence of the diocese. When the situation worsened, Roger allied himself with the Count of Geneva and the Vaud nobility, but was defeated in 1190 in the battle between Avenches and Payerne . Duke Berthold V. von Zähringen founded Bern in 1191 as an outpost against Lausanne. In the west the bishopric was besieged by the Counts of Savoy , Count Thomas I conquered Moudon in 1207 . Even when war broke out between Savoy and Zähringen in 1211, Roger did not succeed in consolidating the position of the diocese. On January 9, 1218, he resigned from his office. He died in 1220 and his grave in Lausanne Cathedral was rediscovered in 1880.

literature

• Markus Ries: Roger from Vico Pisano . In: Erwin Gatz (Ed.): The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1198 to 1448. A biographical lexicon . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10303-3 , pp. 323 f .
• Maxime Reymond, "Un conflit ecclésiastique à Lausanne à la fin du XIIe siècle", in Journal of Swiss Church History , 1, 1907, p. 98-111.

predecessor	Office	successor
Landri de Durnes	Bishop of Lausanne 1178–1212	Berthold of Neuchâtel