Stephan II (Bavaria)

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Seal of Stephen II

Stephan mit der Hafte (* 1319 ; † May 1375 in Landshut or Munich ) was Duke of Bavaria from 1347 until his death . He was the second son of Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria from his first marriage to Beatrix von Schlesien-Schweidnitz . The epithet probably comes from a striking hair or clothes clip that Stephan wore. In 1363 he united Upper Bavaria with Bavaria-Landshut , then waged two bitter wars of succession for Tyrol and the Mark Brandenburg and in the end was content with smaller assignments of territory, but with high financial compensation in favor of Bavaria.

Contemporary history background

With Stephen'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 V the Brandenburger , Stephan II., Ludwig VI. 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, the time in which Stephan was born is also referred to as the crisis of the late Middle Ages .

Life

Early years

During Emperor Ludwig's campaign in Italy, on June 27, 1328, Stephan married Elisabeth of Sicily, a daughter of King Frederick II of Sicily , in order to strengthen his father's bond with Sicily. In 1339 Stephan took action against the bishops of Strasbourg and Basel on behalf of his father. Under Ludwig the Bavarian Stephan was then from 1340 captain of the Swabian -bayerischen peace Federal and since 1341 also the owner of the Empire bailiwick in Alsace . Since Swabian imperial estates were pledged to him, the Wittelsbach party gained a lot in power in Swabia. Supported by the Swabian imperial cities , Stephan took action in September 1347 against the Swabian nobility, the majority of whom had defected into the camp of the opposing king, Charles IV , who was elected in 1346 .

Start of government

In October 1347 Stephan followed his late father with his five brothers as Duke of Bavaria, which was reunified in December 1340. In addition, the brothers held the Margraviate of Brandenburg , the County of Tyrol and the Dutch counties of Holland , Zeeland and Hainaut . Two years after the death of Ludwig of Bavaria, the Wittelsbach states were then divided up among his sons in the Landsberg Treaty . Stephan II first ruled Niederbayern-Landshut from 1349 to 1353 together with his two half-brothers Wilhelm I and Albrecht I , who also owned the Dutch counties , and since the Regensburg Treaty of 1353 only the southern part of Lower Bavaria-Landshut without Straubing .

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.

Initially, the brothers continued their 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 . After this temporary reconciliation with Charles IV, who had confirmed all imperial fiefs to the Wittelsbachers, Stephan took part in Charles' Italian campaign in 1354, but fell out with him again when Bavaria's rights to the cure were passed over with the Golden Bull in 1356 . The Golden Bull ignored the in- house regulations of the Wittelsbachers to participate in the royal election. The Count Palatinate near Rhine from the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbachers obtained the electoral vote and the office of the Archbishop , also because his territory was in the old Franconian settlement area. In addition, Stephan's younger half-brother Ludwig VI. the Brandenburg electoral dignity. Stephan II and his older brother Ludwig V , on the other hand, stayed away from the Nuremberg Court Days, where the Golden Bull was discussed and announced. In 1362, Stephan was the last of Ludwig's sons to be exempted from excommunication .

Battle for Tyrol

After the death of his brother Ludwig V, his dominions of Upper Bavaria and Tyrol fell to his son Meinhard . The youthful Meinhard soon came under the influence of a noble party with which Stephen's second son Friedrich was connected until Stephan vigorously intervened in May 1362.

When his nephew Meinhard died in January 1363, Stephan followed suit in the Duchy of Upper Bavaria, contrary to the Wittelsbach agreements, with the help of the estates. He allied himself with his brother Albrecht von Bayern-Holland, whom he had already supported against Charles IV in 1357, and marched into Tyrol in autumn 1363 . Stephan also took on the title of "Count of Tyrol and Gorizia, Vogt of the churches of Aquileia, Trient and Brixen". Stephan later concluded further alliances with King Ludwig of Hungary, Meinhard von Görz and the Milanese city lord Bernabò Visconti . Meinhard's mother Margarete von Tirol had transferred Tyrol to the Habsburg Rudolf IV of Austria , the brother of her daughter-in-law. The Habsburgs were in league with the Archdiocese of Salzburg and carried out several raids in the Inn Valley during the war. In the area of ​​Altötting there was another battle between the Bavarians and Austrians on November 23, 1363, during which 70 aristocratic Austrians were captured without a decision being reached.

After some hesitation, Rudolf IV was enfeoffed with Tyrol on February 10, 1364 in Brno by his father-in-law, Emperor Charles IV, despite the Wittelsbacher inheritance claims. But as early as May 1364, the fighting began again. During the siege of Salzburg's Mühldorf am Inn , Stephan used innovative fire guns for the first time. In 1365 his opponents Rudolf IV and the Salzburg Archbishop Ortolf von Weißeneck died , but their successors continued the fight. In 1366 Salzburg concluded an armistice with Bavaria, which was extended twice, but the alliance with Austria was renewed in 1367. In the late summer of 1368, Stephan once again led a successful but costly campaign into the Lower Inn Valley , conquered Landeck and crossed the Brenner Pass . Stephen's eldest son Stephan the Kneißel fought in Italy at the side of his father-in-law Bernabò Visconti against the anti-Milan league around Pope Urban V and Charles IV.

Stephan finally gave Tyrol to the Habsburgs in the Treaty of Schärding at the end of September 1369 in return for high compensation of 116,000 guilders. The courts of Kufstein , Kitzbühel and Rattenberg , which Ludwig V had once ceded to Tyrol on the occasion of his wedding with Margarete, now reverted to Bavaria and were taken over by Stephan. The Schärding itself, which had previously been pledged to the Habsburgs, also came back to Bavaria through the contract and fell to Stephen's brother Albrecht.

Battle for the Mark Brandenburg

The dispute with his half-brother Ludwig VI. to the Bavarian legacy of Meinhard, which Stephan had usurped in 1363 contrary to the Landsberg Treaty, ultimately also led to the loss of the Mark Brandenburg for the Wittelsbachers, since Ludwig VI. then disinherited his Bavarian brothers Stephan and Albrecht and concluded a hereditary brotherhood with Emperor Karl IV. Although the youngest brother Otto remained elector after Ludwig's death , from 1371 Charles IV no longer wanted to wait to take possession of the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

Otto defended himself against Karl because he did not accept being "disinherited" during his lifetime. Together with his brother Stephan he took action against Karl and had Stephen's second son Friedrich pay homage to Stephen's second son Friedrich in April 1371 by the New Marks and published a complaint against the emperor in June. Then there were armed conflicts in which Karl was allied with Magdeburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Saxony-Wittenberg, while the Wittelsbachers could count on the help of the Wettins in Meißen and, after a temporary reconciliation, on the Pilgrim of Salzburg . The existing alliance between Stephen and Ludwig of Hungary from the Tyrolean years also supported the position of the Wittelsbachers, especially since Ludwig had also worn the Polish crown since 1370. In October 1371 a truce was signed in Pirna that lasted until Whitsun 1373.

In 1372, however, Karl managed to arrange the engagement of his son Sigismund to the heiress of King Ludwig of Hungary. Only after Louis of Hungary changed sides, with the sale of the Kurmark for 500,000 guilders to Charles IV, sealed in the Fürstenwalde Treaty in August 1373, the Mark Brandenburg finally passed de jure to the Luxembourgers. Stephan recognized his brother Otto V, who had returned from Brandenburg, as co-regent in Bavaria. Otto was in possession of the electoral dignity until the end of his life and had been compensated by Charles IV with possessions in the north of Gau , which he now brought into the joint government. Karl had to give up his project to expand Bohemia to the west . Part of the territories that Stephan's Palatine cousin Ruprecht had once given to Bohemia fell back to the Wittelsbach family. Stephan himself was pledged to Donauwörth, Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl, among others, for his renunciation of Brandenburg.

Stephen's territory when he died in 1375

Later years in government

For the cession of Tyrol (1369) and Brandenburg (1373) Bavaria had received the enormous sum of around half a million guilders in cash and in bonds. With the privileges that Stephan granted the Upper and Lower Bavarian estates to cover his war-related financial needs, he also strengthened their influence and self-confidence. In 1368, Stephan regulated the salt system in Reichenhall, which is important for Bavaria . To safeguard on the streets and in the country, Stefan II issued the Great Fire Letter in 1374 and committed knights and cities, which he feuded several times.

His sons Stephan III. and Friedrich and his grandson Ernst married the daughters of the Milanese city lord Bernabò Visconti, with whom Stephan had already allied himself in the conflict over Tyrol. In the course of the later reconciliation between the House of Luxemburg and the Wittelsbachers, Charles IV appointed Stephen's two older sons, Stephan III. and Friedrich, in 1374 as imperial governor in Upper Swabia and Alsace, the imperial office that her father had held himself in his youth.

Stephan died in mid-May 1375 and, according to Johannes Aventinus , was buried in the Frauenkirche in Munich . After his death, his sons Stephan, Friedrich and Johann ruled together with Otto, but later divided their father's territory into the lines Bayern-Munich , Bayern-Landshut and Bayern-Ingolstadt . Their later attempts to regain Tyrol for the Wittelsbachers failed. The ownership of the mines in the lordships around Kitzbühel, however, contributed significantly to the wealth of the Landshut dukes in the 15th century. After his brother Albrecht's line of Bavaria-Straubing died out in the male line in 1425, the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach family consisted only of the descendants of Stephen.

Marriages and offspring

Duke Stephan II married Elisabeth of Sicily (around 1310-1349), a daughter of King Frederick II of Sicily, in Munich on June 27, 1328 . The marriage had four children:

His second marriage was on February 14, 1359, in Landshut, with Countess Margarete (1333-1377), daughter of the Burgrave Johann II of Nuremberg . The marriage remained childless.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Jan Winkelmann: The Mark Brandenburg of the 14th Century, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-112-9 , p. 81.
  2. ↑ Zander, Florian. Life and political work of Duke Stefan III., Seminar paper, 2000
  3. ^ Aventine, Bayerische Chronik 514. Discussion on the date of death and burial place with 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. 94–95 (also dissertation, University of Munich 2004).
predecessor Office successor
Ludwig IV. The Bavarian Duke of Bavaria
1347-1375 		Johann II. , Stephan III. and Friedrich
personal data
SURNAME Stephan II
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stephan with the prisoner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Bavaria
DATE OF BIRTH 1319
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1375 or May 19, 1375
Place of death Landshut or Munich