Cologne, Electorate of

The German princes are not absolute rulers either.

They have made so many concessions to other secular and ecclesiastical powers in their struggle against the emperor that many smaller principalities, ecclesiastical states, and towns have retained a degree of independence.

Some of the smaller noble holdings are so poor that they have to resort to outright extortion of travelers and merchants to sustain themselves, with the result that journeying through Germany could be perilous in the late Middle Ages.

All of Germany is under the nominal control of the emperor, but because his power is so weak or uncertain, local authorities have to maintain order—yet another indication of Germany's political fragmentation.

The Golden Bull of 1356, an edict promulgated by Emperor Charles IV (r. 1355-78) of the Luxemburg family, provides the basic constitution of the empire up to its dissolution.

It formalizes the practice of having seven electors—the archbishops of the cities of Trier, Cologne, and Mainz, and the rulers of the Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Bohemia—choose the emperor, and it represents a further political consolidation of the principalities.

The Golden Bull ends the long-standing attempt of various emperors to unite Germany under a hereditary monarchy.

Henceforth, the emperor shares power with other great nobles like himself and is regarded as merely the first among equals.

Without the cooperation of the other princes, he cannot rule.

The death in 1280 of Waleran IV, Duke of Limburg, who had no sons, and the death in 1283 of his only daughter, Ermengarde of Limburg, who had no children, had been the cause of the War of the Limburg Succession.

Ermergarde had married Reginald I of Guelders, who now claims the Duchy of Limburg.

However, Waleran's nephew Adolf VIII of Berg, son of his elder brother Adolf VII of Berg, also claims the Duchy.

Unable to assert his claims, he had sold them in 1283 to the mighty John I, Duke of Brabant.

Several smaller confrontations have occurred from 1283 to 1288 between both sides, none of them decisive.

Most of the other local powers have meanwhile chosen sides.

Siegfried II of Westerburg, the Archbishop of Cologne and ruler of the Electorate of Cologne, traditional enemy of the Duke of Brabant, has forged an alliance with Reginald I, joined by Henry VI, Count of Luxembourg, and his brother Waleran I of Luxembourg, Lord of Ligny, as well as by Adolf of Nassau (later to be King of Germany).

On the other side, the Counts of Mark have taken the chance to affirm their independence from the Archbishop of Cologne and together with the Counts of Loon, Tecklenburg, and Waldeck allied with Brabant and Berg.

The citizens of the City of Cologne, eager to emancipate themselves from the Archbishop's rule, have also joined this alliance.

John I of Brabant defeats the duchy of Guelders in one of the largest battles in Europe of the Middle Ages, thus winning possession of the duchy of Limburg.

The number of deaths at the battle of Worringen is estimated at eleven hundred on the Guelders side and forty on the Brabant side.

The blood toll on the house of Luxembourg is particularly high: most of the male relatives of the later German emperor Henry VII perish here.

Archbishop Siegfried will be imprisoned for over a year at Schloss Burg, before he pays a ransom and agrees to Count Adolf's demands.

Worringen Castle and several other fortresses of the bishop are demolished.

Reinoud of Guelders is released after he renounces all claims to the Duchy of Limburg.

The Battle of Worringen means a rise in the power of Brabant, Berg and Mark, while the City of Cologne gains its independence from the Archbishopric and finally in 1475 the status of an Imperial city.

The Duchy of Limburg will be added to the Duchy of Brabant in 1289, an arrangement approved by King Rudolph and again by his former opponent Adolf of Nassau, after his election in 1292 King of the Romans.

In Luxembourg, Henry VI is followed by his nine-year-old son Henry VII, who in 1292 will settle the conflict with Brabant by marrying John's daughter Margaret.

The battle of Worringen also liberates the city of Cologne from rule by the Archbishopric of Cologne, from which point the city exercises jurisdiction over the Rhine River, requiring all passing ships to stop and offer their cargoes for sale.

The Archbishopric of Cologne will recover from the loss of the city of Cologne.

The expressionistic tendencies in Germany, as the decorative arts assume a more independent role, result in the creation of devotional works of extraordinary pathos.

Examples are found in the misnamed Plague Crosses of polychromed wood, in which Christ’s emaciated, broken body hangs from a forked cross, as in the “Forked Cross” produced in about 1304 for the “Santa Maria im Kapitol” in Köln (Cologne).

John Duns Scotus had studied at Oxford until 1302, when he had gone to Paris to repeat his lectures on the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard.

As he is among the theologians in 1303 who had objected to the appeal by King Philip IV to an ecumenical council opposing Pope Boniface VIII, he had been banished from France.

Allowed to return after Boniface’s death, he had become a master of theology in 1305 and lectured in Paris until his assignment in 1307 to Köln (Cologne), where he dies on November 8, 1308, at only forty-three.

He leaves a definitive version of his various commentaries on the “Sentences” in his “Ordinatio” or “Opus Oxoniense.” Theologically a staunch theological champion of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, his philosophy, which relies heavily on Plato and Avicenna, is notable for its subtlety and multiplicity of formalities and distinctions.

Scotus has also developed a complex argument for the existence of God.

Departing from Avicenna’s postulation of the necessary emanation of all things from God, Scotus, taking a position called voluntarism, posits the absolute primacy of God's free will.

One of the most important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages, Scotus was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought.

Scotus is to have considerable influence on Roman Catholic thought.

The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being", that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; the formal distinction, a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing; and the idea of haecceity, the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual.

The city of Bochum dates from the ninth century, when Charlemagne set up a royal court at the junction of two important trade routes.

It was first officially mentioned in 1041 as Cofbuokheim in a document of the archbishops of Cologne.

Count Engelbert II von der Marck grants Bochum a town charter in 1321, but the town will remain insignificant until the nineteenth century, when the coal mining and steel industries emerge in the Ruhr area, leading to the growth of the entire region.

With a population of nearly three hundred and sixty-five thousand, it is today the sixteenth most populous city in Germany.

Most of the German princes had come to back Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV against increasingly fierce papal denunciations by Pope John XXII.

Louis, consistently opposed by the papacy, rallies their support.

In view of the denied recognition by the pope, the prince-electors see the necessity to affirm their franchise.

Six electors from Cologne, Mainz and Trier, Saxe-Wittenberg, Brandenburg, and the Electorate of the Palatinate meet on July 16, 1338, at the Nussbaumgarten in Rhens to support Emperor Louis IV.

The practice of election of the Holy Roman Emperor had finally prevailed since the fall of the House of Hohenstaufen, but it is now fixed that the election by all or the majority of the electors automatically confers the royal title and rule over the empire, without papal confirmation.

The convened prince-electors decide that "Louis is the rightfully elected King of the Romans, and his legitimate power (in the German kingdom) is not dependent upon the pope's will".

In coincidence with the Emperor's loss of power over Italy, the decree means a decisive step beyond the universal claim of the translatio imperii derived from the Roman Empire and conveyed by the pope.

Louis reacts with two mandates of August 6, 1338, stating that the Emperor-elect is vested with complete Imperial rights and all estates are obliged to ignore dissenting papal decretals.

Louis will continue to negotiate, fruitlessly, with Pope John's successors, Benedict XII and Clement VI.

The Persecution of Jews During the Black Death (1348–1351)

As the Black Death ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, it was accompanied by a wave of violent persecution against Jewish communities, fueled by false accusations that Jews had deliberately spread the plague. These attacks occurred throughout Spain, Italy, France, the Low Countries, and the Germanic lands, leading to massacres, forced conversions, and expulsions.

Scale of the Persecution

• Of the approximately 363 Jewish communities in Europe at the time, Jews faced violent attacks in nearly half.
• Many Jews lived in overcrowded, walled Jewish quarters, where they suffered from the plague at similar rates as their Christian neighbors.
• Nevertheless, conspiracy theories spread rapidly, blaming Jews for poisoning wells, contaminating the air, or plotting against Christians.

Massacres and Expulsions

• In 1348–1349, massacres of Jews took place across Western and Central Europe, including:
  • Barcelona and other Spanish cities
  • Toulouse, Avignon, and other French towns
  • Brussels and various towns in the Low Countries
  • Cologne, Frankfurt, Mainz, and other German cities
  • Basel and Strasbourg (where entire Jewish communities were burned alive).
• Some rulers, such as Pope Clement VI, attempted to protect Jewish communities, issuing a papal bull condemning the accusations as false, but local authorities and mobs often ignored or defied his orders.

Heinrich Graetz’s Historical Perspective

• The 19th-century Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz, in History of the Jews (1894), described the widespread belief that Jews had poisoned wells to spread the plague, stating:
  • “The suspicion arose that the Jews had poisoned the brooks and wells, and even the air, in order to annihilate the Christians of every country at one blow.”
• This false accusation, combined with existing antisemitic prejudice and economic tensions, led to one of the most devastating waves of persecution in Jewish medieval history.

Long-Term Consequences

• Many Jewish communities were annihilated, and survivors fled to Eastern Europe, particularly to Poland and Lithuania, where they were granted relative protection under more tolerant rulers.
• The massacres further entrenched antisemitic policies in many European states, reinforcing Jewish segregation, economic restrictions, and future expulsions.
• The social and economic losses caused by these persecutions weakened urban economies, as Jews had played key roles in finance, trade, and medicine.

The persecution of Jews during the Black Death remains one of the darkest episodes of medieval Europe, showcasing how fear, ignorance, and long-standing prejudices fueled mass violence and scapegoating in times of crisis.