Bishopric of Minden

Who rules

Name

Thietmar

Title

Bishop of Minden

Since

1185

Born

not pinned

Family

not pinned

Confidence

medium

One of Otto's electors at Cologne on 9 June 1198 and present at his coronation at Aachen on 12 July 1198; in the electors' letter to Innocent III he wrote that he had chosen Otto and helped to consecrate him. He holds the see until his death in 1206.

Overlord

The king (regalia); Cologne is his metropolitan. Since 1180 the bishops of Minden hold ducal-style rights in their own territory after the break-up of Saxony.

What the realm holds

• The city of Minden: cathedral, market, mint and toll (977), the Weser crossing and its trade in grain; the bishop's Wichgraf heads the town
• The church's manors and villages north of the Wiehen hills (Lübbecke, Hille, Petershagen's later district), extent in 1200 rough
• Overlordship of his advocates, the lords vom Berge at the Schalksburg

How it was acquired

The see dates from about 800; the grant of 977; the advocacy hereditary in the vom Berge family since 1096.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Otto and his brothers, whose lands lie east of the Weser; Paderborn and Cologne in Otto's party. Neighbours to watch: Count Adolf III of Schauenburg-Holstein's ancestral county of Schaumburg across the Weser (nsw), the counts of Hoya and Diepholz (nsw), Ravensberg (the one firmly Staufen count of Westphalia) to the south-west.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 Thietmar holds Minden and backs Otto IV firmly. Across his borders: east over the Weser, Schaumburg (nsw) and the Welf lands (nse); north, Hoya and Diepholz (nsw); west, Osnabrück; south-west, Ravensberg; south, the vom Berge lordship at the Porta and Lippe beyond it.

Wealth

The Weser crossing, the Minden market, mint and toll, the grain trade, the church's manors and tithes. No figures.

Military

The bishop's ministeriales; the lords vom Berge as advocates lead the see's men; Minden's position at the Weser crossing. No numbers.

Threats

• Ravensberg, Staufen in the throne war, on his south-western flank
• War between Welf and Staufen east of the Weser
• The hereditary advocates' grip on the see's justice

Court in 1200

Minden (not pinned).

Officers

The lords vom Berge as hereditary advocates of the see; the Wichgraf as the bishop's head of the city.

Relations with rome

Signer of the 1198 electors' letter to Innocent III ('we chose him and helped to consecrate him'); so among those to whom the pope wrote on 20 May 1199. Like every prelate he must levy the fortieth for the crusade, ordered by Innocent III at the end of December 1199 (campaign notes Part 8.4), which will set him against his own clergy during 1200.

Coinage

The Minden mint (granted 977).

The host

Led in the field by his advocates vom Berge; no figures.

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. during 1200 (nothing pinned)No act of Bishop Thietmar is pinned to 1200; he stays Otto's man (the Westphalian bishops leave Otto only in autumn 1205).Depends on: The Welf hold on the lands east of the Weser. Stopped by: A Staufen campaign into the Weser lands.

Places of note

• Minden cathedral: Seat of the bishop at the Weser crossing.
• Schalksburg above Hausberge: Castle of the lords vom Berge, the see's advocates.

Where the sources disagree

• campaign notes Part 6 D: Thietmar voted for Otto at Cologne in 1198, Welf: confirmed (NDB on Otto IV; electors' letter, Registrum de negotio imperii no. 10, as quoted in the study of Archbishop Adolf).

Evidence: His vote and presence at Aachen are well attested; his family and his lands in 1200 are not.

On the map: Rough: the later Hochstift of about 1,100 square km, cut back to the lands round the city and north of the hills.