Wernhard von Marsbach

Half-length portrait of Bishop Wernhard von Marsbach, Seckau basilica , bishop's chapel (depiction around 1595)

Wernhard von Marsbach († January 19 or 20, 1283 ) was Bishop of Seckau .

Wernhard von Marsbach was born the son of a feudal man of the Passau monastery . He studied in Padua, was canon from 1264 from 1264 and from 1267 to 1268 canon dean of Passau and teacher of canon law .

After the death of Bishop Ulrich in 1268 he was appointed as the candidate of the Bohemian King Ottokar II by the Salzburg Archbishop Wladislaw von Schlesien as his successor. As a partisan of Ottokar, Wernhard was able to put his good relationships at the service of the diocese. In 1269, Ottokar placed Seckau under his special protection.

In 1270 Wernhard was with the new Archbishop Friedrich von Walchen at the conclusion of the truce between King Ottokar and the Hungarian King Stephen V involved. He has been appointed as an arbitrator in disputed questions several times. In 1273 he was present as Ottokar's ambassador at the election of the German king in Frankfurt, but at the Council of Lyon he was commissioned to persuade Ottokar to recognize Rudolf von Habsburg . In 1275 Wernhard gave a speech against Rudolf and his constituents in Augsburg, which aroused great indignation. The imperial ban was imposed on Ottokar and Wernhard had to flee Augsburg. It was only when Ottokar's rule collapsed in 1276 that Wernhard turned to Rudolf von Habsburg, but his previously anti-Habsburg stance was damaging to his diocese. In 1277 he sealed the friendship treaty between Rudolf and the Hungarian king Ladislaus IV , in 1282 he testified in Augsburg that Rudolf's sons Albrecht I and Rudolf II were enfeoffed with Austria and Styria.

Bishop Wernhard died on the way back from the Reichstag in Augsburg and was probably buried in the Seckau basilica . His tomb has not been preserved.

literature

• Erwin Gatz : The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10303-3 , pp. 715ff.
• Fritz Posch: Wernhard von Marsbach (1268–1283). In: Karl Amon (Ed.): The Bishops of Graz-Seckau, 1218–1968 (= publications of the Styrian State Archives. Volume 7). Styria, Graz a. a. 1969, pp. 717f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ulrich I.	Bishop of Seckau 1268–1283	Leopold I.