Walter of Pagliara

Walter von Pagliara (also called Walter von Palearia in older literature , † probably 1230 ) was Bishop of Troia and Catania and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily . He played a prominent role during the youth of the Sicilian King and Roman-German Emperor Frederick II.

He came from a noble family living in Abruzzo. His brother was Count Gentilis von Manoppello and his brother-in-law was Count Peter von Celano .

Life

As Bishop of Troy, Pagliara was an avowed enemy of the Norman ruling dynasty of Sicily and therefore supported Emperor Henry VI. during his first campaign in Sicily in 1191. Through his marriage to Constance of Sicily after the death of King Wilhelm II in 1189, the emperor regarded himself as heir to the Norman Empire. But when the emperor retired to his German homeland after illness, Pagliara followed him there. In 1192 he can be traced back to the emperor's entourage in February in the Palatinate Hagenau and during Christmas in Eger . When King Tankred died in 1194, the emperor undertook a second campaign in which he finally succeeded in conquering Sicily. Pagliara was rewarded for his loyalty and was made Chancellor of the Kingdom. He was probably an opponent of the appointment of Hugo, the dean of Troy, as archbishop of Siponto .

The emperor died in 1197, after which he was succeeded as King of Sicily by the three-year-old Friedrich II, for whom his mother Konstanze took over the government. Apparently Pagliara had abused his political office for personal gain, which is why Queen Konstanze removed him from his office in 1198 and had him thrown in a dungeon. Thanks to the influence of Pope Innocent III. Pagliara was released that same year shortly before the queen's death.

Shortly before her death in November 1198, she had reappointed Pagliara as chancellor and in a will, along with some other church superiors in the empire, appointed him to the family circle for her son, to whom government duties were to fall. She made the Pope the guardian and protector of Friedrich. But despite these regulations, a time of anarchy broke out after her death in which the German followers of Henry VI who had moved into the country. vied for power with the native Norman nobility. Pagliara used the time to be elected archbishop by the cathedral chapter of Palermo in March 1200 . Although he had the election confirmed by the apostolic legate , who was appearing in Messina at the same time , it was rejected by the Pope, since he alone deserved the right of appointment. Meanwhile, the rule of the family was threatened by the German ministerial Markward von Annweiler , who had succeeded in enclosing Palermo, but which was defended by Pagliara's brother. At the same time, the French Count Walter III appeared in southern Italy . of Brienne , who wanted to fight for the inheritance of his wife, a daughter of King Tankred, with papal support. The Pope urged the families to support the Count, but this particularly caused displeasure at Pagliara, which he publicly announced in Messina. Because he saw the count as heir to the Normans he hated and as a possible competitor for power.

First, however, a papal relief army triumphed on July 21, 1200 at Monreale and then at Taormina over Markward, thus ending the siege of Palermo. Due to lack of money and the lack of support from the family, the papal marshal had to withdraw from Sicily, whereupon Pagliara worked towards a break with the Pope. He resigned his church offices and took on a few shop stewards in the family council. He finally allied himself with Markward von Annweiler in November 1200, completing his apostasy from the Pope. He then went to the mainland to campaign for his cause against Walter von Brienne, but he was excommunicated by the Pope . Pagliara then allied itself with Diepold von Schweinspeunt , but lost with him in October 1201 a battle on the historic field of Cannae against Brienne. Markward von Annweiler immediately took advantage of this defeat to break his alliance with Pagliara and to occupy Palermo in a coup. On November 1, 1201 he also took the Castello a Mare, with which the child king Friedrich II fell into his hands. Markward thus became the sole ruler of Sicily, but in September 1202 he died after an illness. Another German warlord, Wilhelm Capparone , laid his hand on Friedrich II .

In view of these rapidly changing constellations, Pagliara again submitted to the Pope, from whom he received absolution in May 1203. Nevertheless, Capparone was able to keep himself in Sicily for the time being by clever tactics with the Pope. In June 1205 the Count of Brienne near Sarno was killed in the battle of Diepold von Schweinspeunt. Together with Diepold, Pagliara traveled to Palermo in November 1206 to obtain the surrender of King Frederick on behalf of the Pope, to which Capparone raised no objections. No sooner had this succeeded than Pagliara accused Diepold of treason and locked him in a dungeon. Thus Pagliara was again the sole guardian of the king, which he remained until his adulthood in 1208. His government, on the other hand, was limited to Palermo, as the Capparone and Diepold, who had been enraged by this prank, and who had freed himself from his prison, covered the whole kingdom with raids and lawless anarchy.

On December 26, 1208, King Frederick came of age and took over the government of the Kingdom of Sicily. At the same time, Pagliara's decline from power began, even though he was appointed Bishop of Catania in mid-1208. The young king now called personal opponents of his chancellor into the family circle and reversed the awarding of crown property to strangers for which he was responsible. In February 1210, Pagliara was completely removed from the court and dismissed from his offices, which annoyed the king and the Pope. But when Frederick went to Germany in March 1212, Pagliara was appointed to the council of the remaining Queen Constance of Aragón , which meant that he again had a share in the government for the next few years. In March 1213 he received Calatabiano Castle from the Queen for his services.

In 1220 Friedrich was crowned emperor in Rome. After his return to Sicily, Pagliara was entrusted with the supreme command of a crusader fleet together with Admiral Heinrich von Malta , with which they should support the Damiette crusade in 1221 . The emperor used Pagliara's absence to make a few revocations on crown property that the chancellor had previously granted without authorization. After his return from the crusade Pagliara was banished from the Kingdom of Sicily because of his abuse of office, the office of Chancellor was not reassigned by Friedrich.

In the following years Pagliara stayed in Venice and Rome. In the meantime the Pope had got into a conflict with Emperor Frederick, in which the emperor's church policy also played a decisive role. Only after the emperor returned from his own crusade in 1229 did he forgive his enemies in the course of a compromise with the Pope and allow them to return to the kingdom. Pagliara did not return to his diocese in Catania, but was able to draw his income from it again. He died a little later.

literature

• Norbert Kamp : Church and monarchy in the Staufer Kingdom of Sicily. I: Prosopographical foundation: dioceses and bishops of the kingdom 1194–1266 (= Münstersche Medieval Writings, 10.I, 2 and 10.I, 3). Munich 1975. Part II, pp. 509-514; Part III pp. 1210-1215.
• Wolfgang Stürner : Friedrich II. 1194-1250 . 3rd edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-534-23040-2 .