Wilhelm von Gennep - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Life

Wilhelm was a member of a minor comital

Count

A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

family from the region of the Maas. He was active in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

as the archbishop's secretary under his predecessor Walram von Jülich and was one of his most important advisers.

After Walram's death, Wilhelm was elected archbishop. The King and Emperor Charles IV

Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....

was opposed to his nomination, but Wilhelm had the support and protection of Brabant

Duchy of Brabant

The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...

and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, and was duly appointed by Pope Clement VI

Pope Clement VI

Pope Clement VI , bornPierre Roger, the fourth of the Avignon Popes, was pope from May 1342 until his death in December of 1352...

.

Wilhelm was an unusually efficient ruler, and soon managed to stabilise the archbishopric's financial position, which was the prerequisite for the effective exercise of its territorial powers. His energetic internal politics formed the basis for (by and large) unwarlike and successful foreign politics, which culminated in an intensive engagement in imperial politics. He not only established political relations with France, England and north-west Europe, but was apparently involved in the formulation of the Golden Bull

Golden Bull of 1356

The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by the Reichstag assembly in Nuremberg headed by the Luxembourg Emperor Charles IV that fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire...

of Charles IV in 1356.

His unceasing activity quickly exhausted Wilhelm and he died on 15 September 1362 in Cologne, where he was buried in a monumental tomb which he had prepared for himself in the Chapel of the Cross (Kreuzkapelle) in Cologne Cathedral

Cologne Cathedral

Cologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...

.

Wilhelm promoted the construction of the cathedral, and supported the cathedral building guild of the time. He boosted the financing of the building works by obtaining reliefs for the archbishopric from the pope. He also showed a certain respect, not universally shared, towards his predecessor in that he had an equally magnificent tomb built for him too.

Sources and external links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.