Willigis

Willigis, rarely Willing or Willegis (c. 940 allegedly in Schoningen, † February 23, 1011 in Mainz ) was Archbishop of Mainz. Willigis is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Memorial Day is a day of his death.

Life

Willigis was born around 940 in Schoningen in today's Lower Saxony, the son free, but nichtadeliger parents. He came by his mentor, Bishop of Meissen Volkold probably 969 to the court of Emperor Otto I. From 971 Willigis had held the office of Chancellor, which he kept under Otto II. In January 975 he was charged by Otto II to the Archbishop of Mainz.

Willigis considered a key figure in the history of the Archbishopric of Mainz. The few he knew how to control the fate of the Church and Empire in the Early Middle Ages and expand the meaning of his ecclesiastical province. Under his aegis, the Erzkanzlerwürde was permanently connected to the Archbishopric of Mainz. To his election as Archbishop 975 Willigis received by Pope Benedict VII supremacy over all other bishops in ecclesiastical matters, which Willigis made ​​the second man after the Pope.

983 took Willigis the Reichstag Otto II in Verona part where him this on June 13, 983 presented the so-called Veronese donation to the Archdiocese areas of Ingelheim up to Heimbach and to Kaub and the area on either side of the lower Nahe and the Rheingau right the Rhine zusprach. The donation established a large part of the later Electorate ( Kurmainz ), over the ruled, the Archbishop as sovereign.

After the death of Otto II on December 7, 983 whose three year old son Otto III was. new king. Until he came of age his mother, the Empress Theophano, should act as Reichsverweserin. After the early death 991 Willigis was factually Regent of the kingdom until Otto III. 994 was declared of age. This was followed by paying tribute to him, which made the archbishopric of one of the richest churches in the West.

996 accompanied Willigis Otto III. to Rome, where the Pope John XV. wanted to stand against the Roman noble family of the Crescentii. After the sudden death of John Otto proclaimed his cousin Brun as the new Pope Gregory V. Gregory was composed Willigis ' ordained a new bishop of Rome. After the early death of Otto III. on January 24, 1002 was chosen at the behest Willigis ' Henry II as the new king and crowned on June 7, 1002 by him in the Mainz Cathedral. The highly Viewed throughout the empire Willigis was described by contemporaries as " the Emperor and the Empire Father." On February 23, 1011 Willigis died in Mainz and was buried in the church of St. Stephen in Mainz.

The builder

Willigis is the builder of the Mainz Cathedral, the (albeit with some modifications ) still exists today. In most cases, it is assumed that Willigis already started the construction of the cathedral in office 975. The dome should clarify meaning and position archbishopric of Mainz in Germany and the universal Church, to be equally Staatsdom the Holy Roman Empire. Pastoral reasons were not based on his conception. The cathedral was so big that at that time all the citizens of the city would have found place in it. He was the first building of this size north of the Alps.

According to another view of the construction is dated to about 998. 997, Emperor Otto III. , Who had quarreled with his impetuous style with Willigis, obtained a indult with the Pope. This made ​​it impossible to the Archbishop of Mainz, in the coronation church of the German kings in Aachen, which belonged to the diocese of Liege, and thus to the Cologne church province to celebrate the mass. As a result, it is the chance of the coronation would have been taken. Willigis could have therefore planned to circumvent this Pope decision by stating that a new coronation church for the German kings: the new Mainz Cathedral flat. In fact, the next two later kings Henry II and Conrad II ( 1024) were crowned in Mainz Cathedral.

What is certain is that the cathedral was completed in 1009. On the day of the planned consecration ( or the day before ), the cathedral burned down (probably due to the hard Illumination ) diverges. Unbroken which began the already 69 -year-old Willigis to rebuild. Willigis built from about 990, the Abbey Church of St. Stephan in Mainz. There Willigis was buried because his bishop's church, the cathedral, was not recovered far enough. The Abbey of St. Victor in front of Mainz was founded in the year 994 or 995 and in the presence of Otto III. inaugurated by Archbishop Willigis. In addition Willigis gave the Binger Basilica of St. Martin the rank of a collegiate church and headed for possibly a construction; also he was in Bingen Drususbrücke, built a stone bridge over the Nahe.

Commemoration

Around 1150, a collection of hymns, antiphons and Responsories, Hartmann, provost and dean at St. Stephen's is the time of Archbishop Henry Felix von Harburg was assigned. Whether this collection was ever used in the Middle Ages as a basis for Willigisfeiern, is not detectable, the Latin texts of the manuscript were later, in 1675 and 1869, reprinted in full twice in books. After the dissolution of St. Stephen's congregation at the beginning of the 19th century, the manuscripts came first to St. Petersburg and later in the Russian State Library in Moscow.

According to him, the Willigisplatz front of the Catholic Church of St. Stephan was named. The Episcopal Willigis -Gymnasium and the Willigis secondary school bear his name.

Swell

• Thietmar of Merseburg Chronicle. Translated by Werner Trillmich. Darmstadt 1957 ( Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Issue 9 ). Latin Text in Robert Holtzmann (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Nova series 9: The Chronicle of the Bishop of Merseburg Thietmar and their Korveier revision ( Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi Chronicon ) Berlin 1935 ( Monumenta Historica Germaniae, digitized )