Bishopric of Verdun
| Bishopric of Verdun | ||||||||||
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Fürstbistum Wirten (de) Principauté épiscopale de Verdun (fr) |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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 The Three Bishoprics of Verdun, Metz and Toul in the upper half of this map, coloured green and outlined in pink.
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| Capital | Verdun | |||||||||
| Government | Theocracy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | County established | 10th century | ||||||||
| • | County ceded to the bishopric |
997 | ||||||||
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Three Bishoprics annexed by France |
1552 | ||||||||
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Peace of Westphalia recognises annexation |
1648 |
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Coat of arms
The Bishopric of Verdun was also a state of the Holy Roman Empire; it was located at the western edge of the Empire and was bordered by France, the Duchy of Luxembourg, and the Duchy of Bar.
This fief also included the advowson of the church of Verdun over its possessions along the river Moselle. According to a chronist’s report, written around the year 900, the Merovingian king Childebert II (575–596) came to visit Verdun. There was not enough wine to serve the monarch and the Bishop Agericus was very embarrassed. However God rewarded him for his good deeds and miraculously increased the amount of wine. The king presented Agericus of Verdun with the Schloss Veldenz as a fief of Verdun "because of the wine". Around 1156 Frederick Barbarossa confirmed the holding by Bishop Albert I of Verdun of the castle together with the surrounding land.
A story that Peter (774-798), successor of Madalvaeus, was granted temporal lordship of the Diocese by Charlemagne, but this is no longer accepted.
Because of the destruction of the archives in a fire Bishop Dadon (880-923) commissioned the Gesta episcoporum Virodunensium (Chronicle of the Bishops of Verdun) from Bertharius, a Benedictine monk. This was continued to 1250 by a second monk, Lawrence, and later by an anonymous writer.
A key element of Emperor Otto I's domestic policy was to strengthen ecclesiastical authorities at the expense of the nobility who threatened his power. To this end he filled the ranks of the episcopate with his own relatives and with loyal chancery clerks. As protector of the Church he invested them with the symbols of their offices, both spiritual and secular, so the clerics were appointed as his vassals through a commendation ceremony. Historian Norman Cantor concludes: "Under these conditions clerical election became a mere formality in the Ottonian empire ..." The Bishop of Verdun, appointed by Otto, was totally faithful to the emperor.
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Wikipedia