Hildesheim

Who holds it

Name

Hartbert (of Dahlum)

Title

Bishop-elect of Hildesheim

Since

elected 1199 (month not pinned); consecrated only in August 1201

Confidence

medium

Chosen after Innocent III ordered the Hildesheim chapter on 6 May 1199 to elect a new bishop in place of Conrad of Querfurt, who had kept Hildesheim after his election to Würzburg in 1198. On 1 January 1200 Hartbert is an elect, not yet consecrated. He was consecrated in August 1201 at Corvey by Bernhard of Paderborn, a Welf partisan, which hints that he leaned to Otto; his stance on 1 January is not pinned. He coined bracteates as bishop (1199-1216) and died on 21 March 1216.

The family name 'of Dahlum' is the campaign notes' form; the sources consulted call him only Hartbert.

What it holds

• Hildesheim: the bishop's city, with market and mint
• Winzenburg: castle and county that came to the church after the Winzenburg counts' fall in 1152, lost to Henry the Lion and recovered after 1180; later the centre of one of the bishopric's chief districts
• Church fiefs taken back from the Welfs after 1180
• Diocesan authority over the abbey of Gandersheim, which disputes it at Rome
• Estates far afield (on the Moselle, in the Odenwald, in the Harzgau), as the German Wikipedia notes

How it was acquired

Founded by Louis the Pious in 815 in the Saxon district of Astfala. Comital rights and castles gathered under the Salian and Staufen kings; Winzenburg from 1152 and again after 1180. Peine came only in the 1260s.

How things stand that morning

The chapter has obeyed the pope and elected Hartbert; Conrad, Philip's chancellor, sits in Würzburg under the ban and has not yet submitted. The see is in transition and its loyalty is in play between the two kings.

Wealth

City market and mint; the grain and wood of the Leine hills; the Winzenburg county revenues.

Threats

• Conrad of Querfurt's partisans
• The Welf neighbours, if Hartbert does not lean their way
• Gandersheim's appeal to Rome

Advocates and rivals

Conrad of Querfurt, bishop since 1194, excommunicated for keeping both sees; whether men loyal to him still hold any Hildesheim castles on 1 January is not pinned. The Welfs at Brunswick, next door, are Otto IV's family. Gandersheim abbey is suing for exemption.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1200-1201 (not pinned)Conrad of Querfurt goes to Rome, submits and is absolved; he gives up Hildesheim for good and is confirmed in Würzburg in summer 1201.Depends on: Conrad choosing submission over defiance, and Innocent's terms. Stopped by: Conrad defying the pope, or Philip forbidding the journey.

Places of note

• Winzenburg: Castle of the former counts of Winzenburg

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The Conrad-Hartbert sequence is firm (NDB, Catholic-Hierarchy). The temporal holdings in 1200 are thinly documented online; only the city and Winzenburg are drawn.

On the map: Only the city and Winzenburg are drawn; the many lesser castles and comital rights of 1200 are not pinned. The closed Hochstift of the later Middle Ages did not yet exist (recognised as a principality only in 1235).