Friday, July 18, 2014

The German Bishop: Changing Models In Changing Times

Tradition maintained that the seat of the Church remained with the local bishop, wherever he was, all across Christendom. In German lands the reality of this worked itself out in as many ways as there were places. Every city-state, the local nobles, or kings, the urban towns or lands held by the protectorate of the Emperor, all had different relations with the local bishop, depending on local time-honored practice. Such is the view provided by Thomas A Brady Jr.[p. 54] Since the period of the Bubonic Plague, greater local selection of bishops can be seen, reversing the trend (before that cataclysm) of greater selection by popes or other 'clerical assemblies'.

The result of this shifting more and more, of power over time into such greater local selections, effectively weakened the power of a bishop, generally. There were exceptions to this of course, where for a number of reasons, some bishops could effectively hold both spiritual and temporal (secular) powers of the state. These, Brady tells us, had almost as much power as 'the greatest of lay princes'. Here, he mentions bishop Rudolf of Würzburg, as being one of these prince-bishops with Hochstift or, territory, but also mentions those of Banburg, Salzburg, Münster and Paderborn as having bishops with such holdings.[p.56] 

For those without such physical assurances, some had to remove themselves from the city or seat of the diocese they were assigned to, for security precautions. The
"... resistance to their temporal authority by burgers and cathedral canons convinced quite a number of prince-bishops to depart their cathedral cities for other, safer residences. By the late fifteenth century the bishop of Constance lived at Meersburg, Strasbourg at Saverne, Mainz at Aschaffenburg, Worms at Ladenburg, Speyer at Udenheim, Basel at Porrentruy... and Augsburg at Dillenburg. If the Church existed where the bishop was, it was very often found in a small country town or even a castle." [p.56]
This investiture of spiritual and temporal power into the hands of an imperial bishop could be traced directly back to privileges granted by Ottonian kings in German history. The selected individual would need to be approved by the pope but would act as a feudal vassal of the local emperor. But the number of these invested bishops waned over the centuries, Brady tell us, with merely 15% of imperial lands controlled by clerical servants by the fifteenth-century. These too, were spread out unevenly with more in the west and fewer in the east. The concordat of Vienna in 1448 ensured that 'cathedral chapters' would elect bishops, who then had to be approved by the pope and consecrated by other bishops. [p. 54]

Even what a bishop did was under metamorphosis. Again, traditionally, a bishop had certain functions and responsibilities. But, Brady stresses, the late middle ages produced far too many variable circumstances for these old rules to entirely dominate contemporary practice. While it was still true that they ordained parish priests, taught spiritual truths, made certain official confirmations and visited local parishes, the reality for them could fall far short of this mark.
"Nearly all of the fifteenth-century reform writings recommended an intensification of visitations as the best means for restoring clerical and lay discipline." [p. 55]
These visitations could be a procession during a festival sponsored by a church, it could involve any kind of inspection of church or abbey or their works. But very often these were handled instead by lower ranking church officials sent on these errands. Brady also notes that records in Imperial lands of such visitations remained 'scantier' than in other European countries until well into the sixteenth-century.

The bishop was also a judge over the clergy and laity. Here too, the perceived norm of the medieval bishop holding 'the two swords' of power, judging both the sinful and the devout, fell apart in practice more and more, as time went on. More often, local exceptions were made, or different authorities were sought to resolve issues. More sins were relegated to penance. More penances were worked out in fines rather than in public penalties. Marriage cases were more often litigated in courts. [p. 55]
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650;  University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009

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