Walram von Jülich

Walram of Jülich (c. 1304 – 14 August 1349) was Archbishop of Cologne from 1332 to his death in 1349.

Walram was one of the younger sons of Count Gerhard V of Jülich and his wife Elisabeth of Brabant-Aarschot. From 1316 to 1330 he studied in Orléans and Paris. From 1327 he was a canon in Cologne, as well as a provost in Maastricht.

In 1332 the Archbishopric of Cologne fell vacant. The cathedral chapter had requested the appointment of the Francophile Bishop of Liège, Adolf II of the Mark. However, Walram's brother, Count William V of Jülich, spent enormous sums of money on procuring Walram's election as archbishop (sums which Walram by the time of his death had still not been able to repay completely), in which he was successful. Walram thus became Archbishop of Cologne on 27 January 1331/32, with the support of Pope John XXII.

At this time Walram was still living in France. His appointment clearly rested on his high birth and the wealth and political will of his brother rather than on his own ability. At the beginning of his time in office the tensions which had been building up over the previous decade between the Archbishopric of Cologne and the County of Jülich were dispersed and a formal accord set in place between the two states, in which the dominant partner was Count William V of Jülich. Peace was thus established on the lower Rhine early in the new archbishop's reign. This enabled him to concentrate his forces on the ongoing feud between the Archbishopric and the County of the Mark in Westphalia and in 1345 to neutralise the County temporarily as a political power. The rulers of southern Westphalia had far-reaching connections however, particularly through their family relationships, and were soon able to escalate the conflict into a full-scale local war, to which in 1347 and 1349 it was eventually possible to negotiate a peace treaty.

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