Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Map Medieval Cologne
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: Historic Preservation and European Urban History
- Prologue: Natural History and Prehistoric Human Habitation
- 1 Romano-Germanic Cologne (58 B.C.-A.D. 456)
- 2 Rupture or Continuity?: Merovingian Cologne (A.D. 456-686)
- 3 The Imperial Project Redux: Carolingian Cologne (686-925)
- 4 The Age of Imperial Bishops I: Ottonian Ducal Archbishops and Imperial Kin (925-1024)
- 5 The Age of Imperial Bishops II: Early Salian Archchancellors and Urban Patrons (1024-1056)
- 6 The Great Pivot: Herrschaft meets Gemeinde in the Pontificate of Anno II (1056-1075)
- 7 The Rhineland Metropolis Emerges: Herrschaft and Gemeinde during the Investiture Controversy (1075-1125)
- 8 From Roman Colony to Medieval Metropolis: The Urban History of Cologne in European Context
- Select Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Age of Imperial Bishops I: Ottonian Ducal Archbishops and Imperial Kin (925-1024)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Map Medieval Cologne
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: Historic Preservation and European Urban History
- Prologue: Natural History and Prehistoric Human Habitation
- 1 Romano-Germanic Cologne (58 B.C.-A.D. 456)
- 2 Rupture or Continuity?: Merovingian Cologne (A.D. 456-686)
- 3 The Imperial Project Redux: Carolingian Cologne (686-925)
- 4 The Age of Imperial Bishops I: Ottonian Ducal Archbishops and Imperial Kin (925-1024)
- 5 The Age of Imperial Bishops II: Early Salian Archchancellors and Urban Patrons (1024-1056)
- 6 The Great Pivot: Herrschaft meets Gemeinde in the Pontificate of Anno II (1056-1075)
- 7 The Rhineland Metropolis Emerges: Herrschaft and Gemeinde during the Investiture Controversy (1075-1125)
- 8 From Roman Colony to Medieval Metropolis: The Urban History of Cologne in European Context
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Transition from Carolingian to Ottonian Rule
The hybrid role of the episcopacy in medieval Germany has long puzzled those from regions further west. As the Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180-1240) makes clear in his treatise of edification for his community's novices, the Dialogue of Miracles, medieval observers no less than modern Western scholars found it difficult to imagine a bishop as a military leader (Dux) and urban lord (Stadtherr) in addition to his ministry as a spiritual shepherd.
Monk: A few years ago this terrible saying was uttered against bishops by a clerk in Paris: “I can believe a great deal,” he said, “but there is one thing I can never believe, namely, that any bishop in Germany can ever be saved!” Novice: Why should he condemn the bishops of Germany rather than those of France, England, Lombardy or Tuscany?
Monk: Because all the bishops of Germany have both swords committed to them; I mean the temporal power as well as the spiritual; and since they hold the power of life and death, and make wars, they are compelled to be more anxious about the pay of their soldiers than the welfare of the souls committed to their charge. Nevertheless we find among the bishops of Cologne, who were both pontiffs and temporal princes, some who were also saints; for instance, the blessed Bruno, St. Heribert and St. Anno.
Caesarius’ supply of only three bishops who had successfully combined piety, priesthood, and princely rule suggests an awareness of the rarity with which this ideal was ever achieved. And the point is especially poignant when one notes that Caesarius nestled this passage as a chapter (27) within a Distinctio on repentance, which he earlier (in Chapter 1) celebrates with the aphorism: “The least contrition obliterates the greatest guilt, and perfect contrition certainly removes guilt and punishment simultaneously.” The monks of Heisterbach surely recognized the risks their bishops took in assuming temporal power, with most of the pontiffs hoping at best for divine forgiveness of their guilt with expiation still to come in the next life and at worst risking the loss of salvation for failing to even repent.
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- The Imperial City of CologneFrom Roman Colony to Medieval Metropolis (19 B.C.–1125 A.D.), pp. 95 - 126Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018