Freed Salzburg Ministeriales

Medieval Academy of America
Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights in the Archdiocese of Salzburg Author(s): John B. Freed Source: Speculum, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Jul., 1987), pp. 575-611 Published by: Medieval Academy of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2846383 Accessed: 15/10/2009 07:03
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Medieval Academy of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Speculum.
http://www.jstor.org
SPECULUM 62/3 (1987)
Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights in the Archdiocese of Salzburg

By John B. Freed
The medieval conception of knighthood remains controversial because the word knight still has romantic connotations for us and, more important, because medieval writers and scribes employed miles and its vernacular equivalents in various, often contradictory ways. The relationship between literary works and social reality is far from clear. The problem is further complicated in Germany by the existence of the ministerials and the role that knighthood is alleged to have played in their ennoblement. One solution is situational analyses of the use of the word miles in specific regions, that is, examinations of who was called a miles by whom, when, and in what context in particular areas, in this case the archdiocese of Salzburg. The archdiocese stretched from the Inn River and its tributary the Isen in southeastern Bavaria across the modern Austrian provinces of Salzburg, Carinthia, and Styria as far south as the Drava, which formed the boundary with the patriarchate of Aquileia, in what is now northern Yugoslavia. Southeastern Bavaria and most of the medieval duchies of Carinthia and Styria were thus under the archbishops' spiritual jurisdiction. The ecclesiastical principality of Salzburg was largely the creation of Archbishop Eberhard II in the first half of the thirteenth century and consisted not only of the present-day province of Salzburg but also of the Rupertiwinkel, the area on the left bank of the Salzach between the Saalach and Tittmoning as far west as the Alz, which was assigned to Bavaria in 1816. It was the largest ecclesiastical principality south of the Main. In addition, the archbishops had extensive holdings throughout the archdiocese and were the temporal lords of Miihldorf in Bavaria, Friesach, the most important city in medieval Carinthia, and Pettau, now Ptuj, Yugoslavia, in what was until 1918 southern Styria. The archbishops' noble vassals, ministerials, and knights lived throughout this vast archdiocese in the eastern Alps. Studies of knighthood have long been dominated by the work of Paul Guilhiermoz and Marc Bloch, who contended that a true nobility, a herediI am grateful to my colleagues, Roy A. Austensen and Lawrence D. Walker, for their critical comments. This article is based on a paper delivered at The Twelfth New England Medieval Conference, Wesleyan University, October 20, 1985. The following abbreviations will be employed in the article: MGSL, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fur SalzburgerLandeskunde;Regesten, Die Regesten der Erzbischofeund des Domkapitelsvon Salzburg ed. 1247-1343, ed. Franz Martin, 3 vols. (Salzburg, 1926-34); and SUB, SalzburgerUrkundenbuch, Willibald Hauthaler and Franz Martin, 4 vols. (Salzburg, 1898-1933).
575
576
Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights
tary, legally privileged class, did not exist in France until the twelfth century, when the descendants of the Carolingian imperial aristocracy, their vassals, and local landowners coalesced with warriors of diverse social origins into a single class of knights. The major factors that prompted this change were the church's emphasis upon the knights' obligation to defend Christendom and the threat posed by the growing wealth and aspirations of the burghers.1 Bloch himself applied his thesis to Germany, but he conceded that the acceptance of the knights as nobles occurred somewhat later in Germany than in France because German law emphasized the concept of freedom, because Germans were too conscious of hierarchical distinctions, and because there were simply too many servile ministerials, the German counterpart of the French rear vassals, for all of them to be absorbed imperceptibly into the ranks of the nobility.2 An investigation of the applicability of the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model to Germany has become urgent since the publication of Maurice Keen's Chivalry (1984) and Benjamin Arnold's German Knighthood, 1050-1300 (1985), the books most likely to be read by English-speaking scholars and students. Keen defines a knight as "a man of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of a heavy cavalryman, and who has been through certain rituals that made him what he is. .. ." He admits, like Bloch, that the German nobility of the Hohenstaufen period was "peculiarly stratified," but adds: as in France,we find all alike, high and low, beginning from some time in the twelfth and their ilk should have century to call themselvesmilites.... That the ministeriales embracedenthusiastically the Frenchcult of chivalryshould ... occasionno wonder. ... For the ministeriales, their knighthood and their cult of knighthoodwas the sign that, free or unfree, their servitude was an ennobling servitude.3 Arnold's book should more properly be titled The GermanMinisterialage.He says that "the Latin word ministerialiswas a scribal experiment of the eleventh century which prevailed early in the twelfth as the label for 'unfree knight' everywhere in Germany."4 Scribes preferred the term ministerialisbecause it avoided confusing the servile knights with the much smaller group of free milites. Members of both groups were being called milites by the end of the thirteenth century because most of the free knights had died out and the few survivors had intermarried with the ministerials.5 Like Bloch, Arnold believes that Germany lacked a legally defined nobility before the twelfth century and that knighthood bridged the gap between the old nobility and the ministerials.
1Guilhiermoz, Essai sur l'origine de la noblesseen France au moyendge (Paris, 1902; repr. New York, 1960), and Bloch, Feudal Society,trans. L. A. Manyon (Chicago, 1964), pp. 283-331. 2 Bloch, Feudal Society, p. 344. 3 Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, 1984), pp. 1-2, 36-37. 4 Arnold, German Knighthood(Oxford, 1985), p. 20. 5 Ibid., p. 26.

Arnold writes:
577
were unfree persons, but during the twelfth century they came Legallyministeriales to be reckoned as noblemen, and began to be called nobles personally. This was possible because nobility was a social quality, not technicallya legal status like personal freedom and servitude.Since the knightlyfunction was so highly regarded in the twelfth century, it is not difficult to see why ministeriales gained acceptanceas
nobles.6
While most German scholars have never doubted the existence of a free nobility before the Hohenstaufen period,7 they too believe that the surviving members of the old nobility merged with the ministerials in the thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries to form a single estate of knights. The Guilhiermoz-Bloch model does fit some imperial territories, particularly in the Low Countries, western Germany, and east of the Elbe, reasonably well. For example, the division between liberi and ministerialesin the witness lists disappeared in the margraviate of Baden in the course of the thirteenth century, and members of both groups came to be identified as nobles or knights, apparently because membership in the margrave's vassalage was more important than the old legal distinctions. The last time anyone was called a ministerial in Baden was in 1289.8
6 Ibid., p. 69. 7 Leopold Genicot, "Les recherches relatives a la noblesse medievale," Academieroyale de Belgique. Bulletin de la classe des lettreset des sciencesmoraleset politiques,5th ser. 61 (1975), 59-63. This has been reprinted with the original pagination in Genicot, La noblessedans l'Occidentmedieval (London, 1982). 8 Werner R6sener, "Ministerialitat, Vasallitat und niederadelige Ritterschaft im Herrschaftsbereich der Markgrafen von Baden vom 11. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert," in Josef Fleckenstein, ed., in 13. Jahrhundert,Ver6ffentlichungen des Herrschaftund Stand: Untersuchungenzur Sozialgeschichte Max-Planck-Instituts fur Geschichte 51 (G6ttingen, 1977), pp. 60-61. The model applies reasonably well to most of the territories in the Low Countries, Alsace, and the dioceses of Cologne and Worms. See Paul Bonenfant and G. Despy, "La noblesse en Brabant au XIIe et XIII siecles: Quelques sondages," Le moyen dge 64 (1958), 27-66; Henri Dubled, "Noblesse et f6odalite en Alsace du XIe au XIIIe siecle," Tijdschriftvoor Rechtsgeschiedenis 28 (1960), 129-80; Francois-L. Ganshof, Etude sur les ministerialesen Flandre et en Lotharingie, Memoires, Acad6mie royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres, 2nd ser. 20 (Brussels, 1927), pp. 320-31, 373-75; Leopold Genicot, rurale namuroiseau bas moyen-dge,2: Les hommes,la noblesse,Recueil de travaux d'histoire L'economie et de philologie de l'Universit6 de Louvain, 4th ser. 20 (Louvain, 1960); Wilhelm Potter, Die Ministerialitit derErzbischifevon Kiln, Studien zur kolner Kirchengeschichte 9 (Diisseldorf, 1967), pp. 115-55; and Thomas Zotz, "Bisch6fliche Herrschaft, Adel, Ministerialitat und Burgertum in Stadt und Bistum Worms (11.-14. Jahrhundert)," in Fleckenstein, Herrschaftund Stand, pp. 92156. An estate of knights formed rather quickly also in such eastern colonial territories as Brandenburg and Meissen, but there were never many nobles of free ancestry in these principalities. See Hans K. Schulze, "Territorienbildung und soziale Strukturen in der Mark Brandenburg im hohen Mittelalter," in Fleckenstein, Herrschaftund Stand, pp. 254-76; and Harald Schiecund Ministerialiitt der Markgrafenvon Meissen: Untersuchungeniiber Stand und kel, Herrschaftsbereich der Zeugen markgraflicher Stammort Urkunden,Mitteldeutsche Forschungen 7 (Cologne, 1956). For more general applications of the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model, see Fleckenstein, "Die Entstehung des niederen Adels und das Rittertum," in Fleckenstein, Herrschaftund Stand, pp. 17-39; Alfred
578
There are, on the other hand, territories where the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model is inappropriate. For instance, documents drafted in the Dutch province of Gelderland distinguished carefully until the end of the fifteenth century between knights of noble and ministerial birth, and it was only in the seventeenth century that knights were generally accepted as nobles in Gelderland.9 Nobles, ministerials, and knights were still being listed separately in the diocese of Halberstadt at the end of the thirteenth century; militesreferred in this context to the ministerials of other lords who were also episcopal vassals.10 The rapidity with which the ministerials were accepted as nobles seems to have depended upon proximity to France, the power of the prince, and, in the case of the eastern colonial lands, the absence of the old free nobility. In general, there was a direct correlation between a prince's ability to eliminate rival nobles and to gain effective control of his territory and the speed with which his ministerials were ennobled. 1 Variations in the use of the word miles are thus symptomatic of fundamental differences in the political and social structures of the individual territories. The chief German critic of the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model has been Joachim Bumke, who challenged the widespread belief among Germanists that the knights of the Hohenstaufen period shared a common, lay chivalric culture which found its expression in poetry and that they belonged to a single class of heavily armed cavalrymen which embraced everyone from the emperor to a ministerial. By no stretch of the imagination was every knight a noble. It was the words miles and Ritter that rose in value as French chivalric customs were introduced into Germany, not the men who were described as knights.'2
Haverkamp, Aufbruch und Gestaltung:Deutschland, 1056-1273, Die neue deutsche Geschichte 2 (Munich, 1984), pp. 288-90; and Werner R6sener, "Bauer und Ritter im Hochmittelalter: Aspekte ihrer Lebensform, Standesbildung und sozialen Differenzierung im 12. and 13. Jahrhundert," in Lutz Fenske, Werner Rosener, and Thomas Zotz, eds., Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaftim Mittelalter: Festschriftfiir Josef Fleckensteinzu seinem 65. Geburtstag(Sigmaringen, 1984), pp. 665-92. 9 in Gelreen Zutphen,Bijdragen van het Johanna Maria van Winter, Ministerialiteiten Ridderschap Instituut voor middeleeuwse Geschiedenis der Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht 31 (Groningen, 1962), pp. 229-33. 10 Lutz Fenske, "Ministerialitit und Adel im Herrschaftsbereich der Bisch6fe von Halberstadt wahrend des 13. Jahrhunderts," in Fleckenstein, Herrschaftund Stand, pp. 157-206. Another area where the old nobility remained separate from the ministerials was Westphalia. See Otto ForstBattaglia, Vom Herrenstande:Rechts- und stindegeschichtlicheUntersuchungenals Erginzung zu den genealogischenTabellen zur Geschichtedes Mittelalters, 1 (Leipzig, 1916), pp. 67-101. 1 John B. Freed, "The Origins of the European Nobility: The Problem of the Ministerials," Viator 7 (1976), 228-37. 12 Studien zum Ritterbegriffim 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, Beihefte zum Euphorion: Zeitschrift fur Literaturgeschichte 1 (Heidelberg, 1964; revised ed. Heidelberg, 1977). I cite the English translation of the second edition: The Conceptof Knighthoodin the Middle Ages, trans. W. T. H. Jackson and Erika Jackson, AMS Studies in the Middle Ages 2 (New York, 1982). See my review in The AmericanHistorical Review 88 (1983), 1258. Fleckenstein argued that Frederick Barbarossa's marriage to Beatrice of Burgundy introduced French chivalric culture into Germany: "Friedrich
579
Bumke pointed out in passing that miles referred in southeastern Germany to the servile retainers of free lords or of ministerials,13 a phenomenon that was first studied by Otto von Zallinger more than a century ago.l4 Arnold is familiar with Zallinger's work, but dismisses it in a footnote: "Knights belonging to ministerialesmight indeed be called milites .. ., but this cannot have been systematically employed in Zallinger's sense to distinguish them from ministeriales,because the latter were very often called milites,as were free knights, in the llth-13th cc."15 This article will demonstrate that Zallinger was right and that Arnold is wrong because he failed to observe how the use of the word miles changed between the eleventh and early fourteenth centuries in the archdiocese of Salzburg. While miles was employed on rare occasions for a free vassal before the Investiture Contest, it actually declined in value during that conflict and became the standard term in the twelfth century for the servile retainers of free noblemen of noncomital rank and of the greater ministerials (ministeriales maiores),that is, ministerials who had their own vassals. The lesser ministerials (ministeriales minores),that is, ministerials who did not have their own vassals,16 to be began styled milites around 1180, probably because they had received fiefs from the greater ministerials. Not until the late thirteenth century, when chivalric ideals and customs, Christian and secular, had thoroughly penetrated the archdiocese, was the word miles - now clearly meaning knight in Keen's sense of the word, that is, "a man of aristocratic standing ... capable ... of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of a heavy cavalryman, and who has been through certain rituals" - applied to prominent archiepiscopal ministerials in documents originating within the archdiocese itself.
Barbarossa und das Rittertum: Zur Bedeutung der grossen Mainzer Hoftage von 1184 und am 19. September 1188," FestschriftfiirHermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag 1971, 2 vols., Veroffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts fur Geschichte 36 (Gottingen, 1972), 2:1023-41. This has been reprinted in Arno Borst, ed., Das Rittertumim Mittelalter,Wege der Forschung 349 (Darmstadt, 1976), pp. 392-418. Bumke thought that the princes rather than the Hohenstaufen were the chief promoters of courtly culture: Concept of Knighthood, pp. 143-44. More recently, C. Stephen Jaeger has contended that courtliness was a creation of the Ottonian court clergy: The Origins of Courtliness:Civilizing Trends and the Formationof CourtlyIdeals, 939-1210 (Philadelphia, 1985). Finally, Karl Schmid has portrayed Henry IV as promoting the cult of the imperial knight in opposition to the papacy: "Salische Gedenkstiftungen fur fideles, servientes und milites," in Fenske, R6sener, and Zotz, Institutionen,Kultur und Gesellschaft(see above, n. 8), pp. 245-64. 13 Conceptof Knighthood,pp. 61-62. 14 Ministeriales und Milites: Untersuchungenueber die ritterlichenUnfreien zunaechst in baierischen Rechtsquellendes XII. und XIII. Jahrhunderts (Innsbruck, 1878). See also the comments of Paul vom zehntenbis zum Ende des dreizehntenJahrhunKluckhohn, Die Ministerialitdtin Siidostdeutschland derts,Quellen and Studien zur Verfassungsgeschichte des Deutschen Reiches 4/1 (Weimar, 1910), pp. 129-32. 15 Arnold, German Knighthood,p. 33, n. 52. 16 On the distinction between greater and lesser ministerials, see Heinz Dopsch, Geschichte Altertum,Mittelalter,3 pts. (Salzburg, 1981-84), 1/1:370, Salzburgs:Stadt und Land, 1: Vorgeschichte, 399, 1/2:874.
580
This last change in usage is crucial evidence that the few surviving lineages of greater ministerials in the ecclesiastical principality were combining with the lesser ministerials and their own servile retainers to form a single estate, the weak and politically insignificant Ritterstandof the later Middle Ages. The outcome was different in the duchy of Styria, itself part of the archdiocese. There two estates developed: the Herrenstand, the estate of the lords, composed of the few surviving noblemen and the greater ministerials; and the knights, consisting of the lesser ministerials and the ministerials' own vassals. Knighthood did not bridge the chasm between the old nobility and the ministerials in Salzburg or Styria for the simple reason that most of the old noble lineages either had died out by 1300 or had entered the princely ministerialages in a medieval form of mediatization. Only three of the twenty-five lineages who belonged to the Styrian Herrenstandin 1300 were still of noble status, and they belonged to the estate of lords, not the estate of knights, while the Walchens, the last noble family in the ecclesiastical principality of Salzburg, had been mediatized by 1250.17 The concept of knighthood did help the few surviving lineages of prominent ministerials in Salzburg to combine with their own retainers into a single estate of knights, but scholars like Keen and Arnold who have tried to apply the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model to Germany have been talking about the ennoblement of the ministerials, not about the union of the ministerials with their own servile vassals. We can examine now in greater detail the changing meaning of the word miles in the archdiocese between the tenth and fourteenth centuries and the relationship between nobles, ministerials, and knights. Lest our own assumptions about knighthood obscure the basic meaning of miles in the sources, I have deliberately chosen not to translate milesas knight unless it was employed as a mark of distinction or to designate a member of the Ritterstand.Since few charters were written in German before the fourteenth century, we need not be concerned here with the use of the word Ritter.
17 Heinz Dopsch, "Ministerialitat und Herrenstand in der Steiermark und in Salzburg," Zeitschriftdes Historischen Vereinesfiir Steiermark62 (1971), 3-31; idem, "Probleme standischer Wandlung beim Adel Osterreichs, der Steiermark und Salzburg vornehmlich im 13. Jahrhunund dert," in Fleckenstein, Herrschaftund Stand, pp. 207-53; Peter Feldbauer, Herrschaftsstruktur Linder aus ihren mittelalterlichen Standebildung:Beitrige zur Typologieder isterreichischen Grundlagen, 1: Herren und Ritter, Sozial- und wirtschaftshistorische Studien (Munich, 1973), pp. 62-119, 16896; and Herbert Klein, "Salzburg und seine Landstande von den Anfangen bis 1861," Beitrdgezur von Salzburg:Gesammelte Siedlungs-, Verfassungs-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Aufsdtzevon HerbertKlein. zum 65. Geburtstag von HerbertKlein, MGSL, 5th suppl. vol. (Salzburg, 1965), pp. 115-36. Festschrift On the Walchens, see Dopsch, GeschichteSalzburgs, 1/1:395-96. Although the division between ministerials and knights was most pronounced in the Austro-Bavarian area, it can be found also in Lower Saxony. See Lutz Fenske, "Soziale Genese und Aufstiegsformen kleiner niederadliger Geschlechter im suid6stlichen Niedersachsen," in Fenske, Rosener, and Zotz, Institutionen,Kultur und Gesellschaft(see above, n. 8), pp. 693-726.

1. 923-1077 The Miles as a Free Vassal and the Emergence of the Familia
581
In eleventh-century Salzburg miles meant a free vassal, as was the case elsewhere in medieval Germany.'8 But the word was rarely used in the Salzburg sources before the Investiture Contest, and the evidence is too limited to determine whether milites were considered to be nobles. The most important social development during the tenth and eleventh centuries was the emergence of servile vassals out of the ranks of the archiepiscopal familia. These servile vassals were the functional precursors and probably ancestors of the later ministerials. The militia (the free vassals) and the familia (the archbishops' servile retainers) were different social classes, and it is evident that scribes were careful to maintain the terminological distinction between them. Except for some papal and imperial charters, the chief sources for the history of the archdiocese before the Investiture Contest are the Traditionsbiicherof five archbishops, spanning the period between 923 and 1060, and the codex of traditions of the abbey of St. Peter in the city of Salzburg, which was started after the monastery received its own endowment in 987.19 These sources contain only three possible references to men who may have been milites. On March 5, 927, the deacon Erchanfred, his wife (?) Ellanhilt, and their son Alprih gave Archbishop Odalbert (923-35) the Upper Bavarian village of Lampolding with eight serfs and received in return as an alod the village of Thannhausen in Upper Bavaria and fifteen serfs, with which Erchanfred had previously been enfeoffed. They were to retain Thannhausen in their
Johann Johrendt, " 'Milites' und 'Militia' im 11. Jahrhundert in Deutschland," in Borst, Das Rittertumim Mittelalter(see above, n. 12), pp. 419-36. See also Arnold, GermanKnighthood,p. 31; Karl Bosl, "Das ius ministerialium: Dienstrecht und Lehnrecht im deutschen Mittelalter," Friihformen der Gesellschaftim mittelalterlichen der mitEuropa: AusgewdhlteBeitrdge zu einer Strukturanalyse telalterlichenWelt (Munich, 1964), p. 281; Bumke, Conceptof Knighthood,p. 36; Wilhelm Stormer, Friiher Adel: Studien zur politischenFiihrungsschichte im frdnkisch-deutschen Reich vom 8. bis 11. Jahrhundert, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 6 (Stuttgart, 1973), p. 162; and Zotz, "Bischofliche Herrschaft" (see above, n. 8), pp. 95-96. 19 For information about the Traditionsbiicher, see Wilhelm Erben, "Untersuchungen zu dem Codex traditionum Odalberti," MGSL 29 (1889), 454-80; Heinrich Fichtenau, Das Urkundenwesen in Osterreichvom 8. bis zum friihen 13. Jahrhundert, Mitteilungen des Instituts fur osterreichische Geschichtsforschung (hereafter, MIOG), suppl. vol. 23 (Vienna, 1971), pp. 73-87, 100-106, and 174-79; Willibald Hauthaler and Eduard Richter, "Die salzburgischen Traditionscodices des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts," MIOG 3 (1882), 63-95 and 369-85; Oswald Redlich, "Ueber bairische Traditionsbiicher und Traditionen," MIOG 5 (1884), 1-82; and Josef Widemann, "Die Traditionen der bayerischen Kloster," Zeitschriftfiir bayerischeLandesgeschichte1 (1928), 225-43.
18
582
lifetimes on the condition that Alprih, as long as he lived, "ad sedem Iuuauensem militet."20 This is the only one of the 102 entries in the Codex Odalberti that includes such a stipulation. It is thus not absolutely clear whether Alprih was expected to fight for the archbishop or, possibly, like his father, to embark on a clerical career, that is, whether militowas being employed in a secular or a religious sense. Perhaps the possible irregularities surrounding Alprih's birth inspired the agreement and the conditions about Alprih's service. In the second case, Countess Hemma endowed in 1043 the convent she had founded in Gurk. She stipulated that if Archbishop Baldwin (1041-60) or any of his successors enfeoffed their milites with any of the properties that belonged to the nuns, her kinsman Ascwin would have the right to redeem the properties for fifteen pennies. Among other things Hemma gave Gurk the market in Friesach, Carinthia, and her alods in the vicinity of Friesach, but she excluded the fief that her miles Engildeo held near Friesach.21 Miles is clearly employed in this context as a synonym for vassal, but the charter, though based on an authentic notice of tradition, was forged in 1170/71. Questions can thus be raised about the accuracy of its content, particularly its terminology. The only certain reference to a milesin the extant archiepiscopal sources for this period occurs in an addendum to the Codex Balduuini. Around 1050 Count Chadalhoh exchanged various properties with Archbishop Baldwin. Among other things the count gave the archbishop whatever his milesDietrich held in fief along the Geratskirchner Bach, a tributary of the Rott, on the condition that Dietrich retain the fief in his lifetime and that after his death the archbishop grant the fief to one of Dietrich's sons who was willing to become the archbishop's miles and to perform the required service, presumably of a military nature, for the fief.22 The notice provides no indication of Dietrich's legal status, but Count Chadalhoh also referred to unnamed ministri and their fiefs, men living on his domains whose status apparently differed from Dietrich's. Since ministeris used in the CodexBalduuini as a synonym for serviens,23we can conclude that Dietrich, unlike the ministri,was a free vassal. References to the militia as a group are nearly as rare as unambiguous references to individual milites.Somewhat more common are references to the familia, for which various terms are used. Their occurrence allows us to follow
SUB 1:94-95, no. 31. The entry does not specifically state that Ellanhilt was Erchanfred's wife, and Abbot Hauthaler, the editor, was not certain that she was (SUB 1:1002), but it is worth remembering that Archbishop Odalbert had been married. See Heinz Dopsch, "Der bayerische Adel und die Besetzung des Erzbistums Salzburg im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert," MGSL 110/11 (1970-71), 129-32. 21 SUB 2:141-44, nos. 82a, 82b. 22 SUB 1:245-46, Anhang: "Eidem etiam traditioni addiderunt, quicquid beneficii Dettricus miles suus iuxta Tiufstada fluviolum habet, ita ut quamdiu vivat Dietricus idem beneficium habeat, post vitam vero suam unus de filiis suis, quicunque de illis miles archiepiscopi fieri et debitam pro eodem beneficio agere velit servitutem." 23 SUB 1:239, no. 17.
20
583
with considerable precision the emergence of the servile vassals from the ranks of the familia.24 Archbishop Odalbert was surrounded in the first half of the tenth century by an entourage of nobles and/or vassals,25 and he consulted with hisfideles.26 Archbishop Frederick I (958-91), on the other hand, traded property with his servi27and sought the advice in 976 of his clergy, militia, and familia.28 By the middle of the eleventh century, members of the familia had largely replaced nobles and/or free vassals as transactors, witnesses, and archiepiscopal advisers in the codices of traditions. The juxtapostion of militia and familia in the CodexFridarici requires closer of Archbishop Hartwig scrutiny. A similar phrase occurs in the Traditionsbuch (991-1023),29 and Bishop Ellenhard of Freising (1052-78) obtained the approval of his clergy, milites,and servienteswhen he reached an agreement with Archbishop Gebhard (1060-88) in 1072 about the tithes Freising owed Salzburg from its Carinthian properties.30 The phrase, "cum consilio ... miliciae familiaeque," was the equivalent of consent clauses that stated that the archbishop had consulted with both noble and ignoble laymen,31 with laymen of either condition,32 with the familia and the fideles,33 and with the fideles of either condition.34 Whilefidelis, the most frequently used word in the archdiocese for a vassal, could thus be employed for a servile retainer, milesand militia were seemingly reserved for the archbishop's free vassals and used in opposition to familia. Considering the relative abundance of the documentation, the really striking thing is how rarely the words miles and militia were employed at all in the period before the Investiture Contest. There is only one certain reference to a miles in any source. There are only two references to the militia in the 228 notices in the five archiepiscopal Traditionsbiicher and none in the 59 entries in the abbatial Traditionsbuch.Although free vassals (the milites) and servile vassals (members of thefamilia) alike owed military service to the archbishop, the two groups remained separate. What mattered was the legal distinction be24 John B. Freed, "The Formation of the Salzburg Ministerialage in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: An Example of Upward Social Mobility in the Early Middle Ages," Viator9 (1978), 67102. 25 The seven men who were identified as archiepiscopal vassi were all powerful noblemen. Freed, "Formation of the Salzburg Ministerialage," p. 76. 26 See, for instance, SUB 1:126, no. 65. 27 SUB 1:173-74, no. 8; 183-84, no. 19. 28 SUB 1:180-81, no. 15. The consent clause states: "cum consilio tocius cleri tociusque miliciae familiaeque omnis." 29 SUB 1:203-4, no. 28. The consent clause states: "consilio, consensu et petitione cleri, militie ac familie." 30 SUB 2:173-74, no. 104b. 31 SUB 1:168-70, no. 2; 177-78, no. 13. 32 SUB 1:173-74, no. 8. 33 SUB 1:215, no. 7; 222-23, no. 25. 34 SUB 1:219, no. 16.
584
tween a free man and a serf, and not the common military obligations of the archbishop's vassals. The best explanation for this is that the tenth and eleventh centuries were a relatively peaceful period for Bavaria, which has been called the Salian royal domain in the eleventh century. Even the Magyar incursions had lasted only half a century, and there were long truces between the raids.35 In Salzburg during this period an elite group, the precursors of the ministerials, began to develop within the familia, but there was no fundamental change in social structure. 2. 1077-1121 The Beginnings of the Miles as a Servile Warrior Salzburg became a major center of opposition to the Salians during the Investiture Contest, and the archbishops spent much of the time between 1077 and 1121 in exile.36 During this period the meaning of miles begins to shift. Sometimes milites are free vassals, as before - men whose status is distinct from that of servile members of the familia. But sometimes they are simply soldiers of unspecified rank, a change in usage that foreshadows later developments. If burghers of servile status who manned the castle of Hohensalzburg could be called milites,it is evident that the word had begun to decline in value. The extant sources from this period in Salzburg's history are not overly of St. Peter's; the codex of abundant. The major ones are the Traditionsbuch traditions of Admont, which was reworked in the twelfth century; and the lives of the archbishops, which were written for the most part in Admont during the Alexandrine Schism. The Admont sources not only are biased against the monarchy, but at times are also clearly anachronistic. For instance, et successorum the Vita Gebehardi eius, which was written after 1181,37 states that the clergy and ministerials elected Archbishop Gebhard in 1060.38 While the ministerials participated in the election of every archbishop between 1147 and 1256, except for Conrad III (1177-83),39 there is no reason to ascribe such a role to them before the Investiture Contest, particularly since the word ministerialis did not come into use until the twelfth century. Gebhard's reformminded biographer was simply trying to suggest that his hero had been se35 Max Spindler, ed., Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte,1 (Munich, 1967), pp. 204-21, 227, 235-36. 36 Dopsch, GeschichteSalzburgs, 1/1:232-61. 37 Walter Steinb6ck, Erzbischof Gebhard von Salzburg (1060-1088): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Salzburgs im Investiturstreit,Veroffentlichungen des Historischen Instituts der Universitat Salzburg (Vienna, 1972), pp. 3-5. 38MGHSS 11:35. 39John B. Freed, "Diemut von Hogl: Eine Salzburger Erbtochter und die erzbisch6fliche Ministerialitat im Hochmittelalter," MGSL 120/21 (1980-81), 589-90. I overlooked the reference in the Annales sancti RudbertiSalisburgenses,MGH SS 9:793, which described the participation of the ministerials in the election of Archbishop Ulrich in 1256.
585
lected in canonical fashion and not at the instigation of the imperial court.40 The late date of the Admont sources must always be taken into consideration in evaluating their terminology and information. A passage in the older Vita GebehardiarchiepiscopiSalisburgensis, written sometime after 1088,41 indicates that miles continued to be used to identify a free vassal, as opposed to a servile member of the familia. The author describes Archbishop Gebhard's return to Salzburg in 1086: "Post haec nono exulationis suae anno ab Engilberto comite et ab aliis quibusdam ecclesiae suae militibus,etiam a compluribus servitoribussuis reductus est in episcopium suum. ..."42 The author of the Annales Admuntenses,who incorporated this passage into his own work sometime after 1146,43 provided definitions of the words miles and servitor.He wrote: "anno exulationis suae nono ab Engilberto comite ab aliis fidelibus suis et ministerialibusecclesiae reductus est in sedem suam. ...."44 In the second author's view the militeswere free vassals, and the servitoreswere the later ministerials. The same usage can also be found in an entry in the Traditionsbuchof Admont. It tells how a Dietmar gave Archbishop Gebhard an alod, for which he received twelve pounds and was immediately made a miles - that is, a vassal - by the archbishop in the accustomed manner through the clasping of hands. The transaction was witnessed by men who were identified elsewhere as nobles, by their milites, and by various archiepiscopal ministeriales.45 The latter word is almost certainly an anachronistic reworking of the text. There is no contemporary evidence that the archbishop's servile retainers were called ministerials during Gebhard's archiepiscopate. The archiepiscopal lives also record a new meaning for miles, alongside the old: when describing military scenes, the authors sometimes use milites to designate soldiers of unspecified rank. A thousand milites are said to have accompanied Archbishop Conrad I (1106-47) when he entered Salzburg on January 25, 1106, along with his brothers, Count Otto and Count Wolfram. Conrad is also reported to have taken many outstanding and vigorous milites with him on Henry V's expedition to Rome in 1110-11.46 The tone of the references to these militesis often hostile. The Vita Chunradi archiepiscopi,written in the 1170s,47 portrays Conrad I as a man of peace. If
Steinbock, ErzbischofGebhard,pp. 40-42; and Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/3:1255, n. 42. Steinbock, ErzbischofGebhard,p. 3. 42 MGH SS 11:26 (italics added). 43 The annals made extensive use of Otto of Freising's Chronicasive historiade duabuscivitatibus, which was completed in 1146. Gebhardt: Handbuch der deutschenGeschichte,1, ed. Herbert Grundmann, 9th ed. (Stuttgart, 1970), p. 422. 44 MGH SS 9:576 (italics added). 45 SUB 2:174-175, no. 105. The description of Dietmar's enfeoffment reads: "et statim archiepiscopus decipiens eum per manus solito more militem sibi fecit." 46 Vita Chunradi archiepiscopi,MGH SS 11:66, 68. For another example see the Passio Thiemonis archiepiscopi,MGH SS 11:60.
41
40
47 MGH SS 11:62.
586
Conrad had trusted to arms, says the author, he had so many distinguished relatives that he could have disturbed the whole kingdom. He preferred instead to endure persecution, because he knew that friends are a greater burden than enemies in wartime.48 The obvious question is how much such comments reflect the clerical authors' bitter experiences during the Alexandrine Schism, when Salzburg became once again a major center of opposition to the monarchy. The author of the newer Vita Gebehardi,for example, describes how the antiarchbishop, Berthold of Moosburg (1085-1106), squandered the treasures of the church. Among other things Berthold gave his milites a loros, an ecclesiastical vestment of gold brocade, studded with jewels and worth nearly a thousand marks, that Gebhard had received from the Byzantine emperor. Twelve of the greedier militesstarted to fight for it, and eight of them were killed.49 The same author explains later on how Archbishop Conrad II (1164-68), who was outlawed by Frederick Barbarossa in 1166, was forced to obtain militesto defend the church, but without loss to its possessions.50 Milites meant in this context essentially mercenaries. The need for fighting men was obviously great during the Investiture Contest. Archbishop Gebhard began building in 1077 the castles of Hohensalzburg, Werfen, and Friesach, which Conrad I completed after his return in 1121.51 Men who were assigned to the garrisons of these castles can already be detected during the Investiture Contest. The nobleman Frederick of Haunsberg, who served as the burgrave of Hohensalzburg in 1111,52 appears as a witness with his miles Ozi in 1104/16.53 Frederick was apparently succeeded in office by another nobleman, Dietmar of the Lungau, who appears as a witness in 1121 with his milites:Gisilheri and his brothers Hartunch, Dietmar, Rupert, and Ozi.54 Ozi and his brothers seem thus to have belonged to the permanent garrison of Hohensalzburg. They were the sons of Dietmar, a bailiff of St. Peter's, and are identified as abbatial servitoresand as burghers of Salzburg.55 Similarly, a Timo was called in 1125/47 both a miles of the archiepiscopal ministerial who served as the vidame and burgrave of Salzburg56 and a merchant.57 Since Timo is mentioned only in the abbatial Traditionsbuch, he proba48 MGH SS 11:64. See a similar passage on p. 68. 49 MGH SS 11:39. On the loros, see Steinbock, ErzbischofGebhard, pp. 34-35. 50MGH SS 11:46. 51 MGH SS 11:39, 74-75. See Heinz Dopsch, "Burgenbau und Burgenpolitik des Erzstiftes Salzburg im Mittelalter," in Hans Patze, ed., Die Burgen im deutschenSprachraum:Ihre rechts-und verfassungsgeschichtliche Bedeutung, Vortrage und Forschungen 19/2 (Sigmaringen, 1976), pp. 390-94. 52MGH SS 11:69. 53 SUB 1:322, no. 149. 54 SUB 1:327-28, no. 156b. See Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," pp. 593-94, n. 63. 55 John B. Freed, "Die Dienstmannschaft von St. Peter," FestschriftSt. Peter zu Salzburg, 5821982, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige 93 (1982), pp. 75-78. 56 SUB 1:338, no. 168. See also pp. 418-19, no. 308. 57 SUB 1:337-44, nos. 166, 170, 176, 180.
587
bly belonged to the familia of St. Peter's. As was the case in other German cities in the twelfth century,58 the urban elite in Salzburg was recruited at least in part from among members of the familia who had been assigned garrison duties. Such men could be called, therefore, milites, a term that had been reserved hitherto for free vassals. It is quite probable that such servile warriors were among the milites who accompanied Conrad I in 1106 and 111011. One other use of the word miles during the Investiture Contest requires investigation. In 1104-16 Witilo, an archiepiscopal servitor- that is, a protoministerial - gave St. Peter's an alod through the hand of a fellow miles. Sometime before he became the duke of Carinthia in 1124, Margrave Engelbert claimed that he had enfeoffed Witilo with the property and had then conferred it on his own miles, Warmunt of Tettelham,59 who is subsequently identified as a ministerial of Engelbert's son.60 This is the first reference to a ministerial as a miles. However, it should be noted that two other prominent families of Kraiburg-Ortenburg ministerials, the Truchtlachings and Torrings, had originally been nobles.61 It is thus possible that Warmunt was a free vassal, the original meaning of miles, and that he entered the KraiburgOrtenburg ministerialage only as a result of his enfeoffment. This use of the word miles for a ministerial remained for a long time an isolated instance, but mileswas clearly being applied during the Investiture Contest to men of servile status, like Ozi and Witilo, as well as to free vassals. 3. 1121-1200 Miles as the Standard Designation for a Servile Vassal of a Count, Noble, or Ministerial The Investiture Contest caused fundamental changes in the social and political structure of the archdiocese. The ministerials, now clearly identified as such, belonged to a distinct order by the 1120s and became by 1200 the de facto nobility of Salzburg. Miles was after 1121 the standard designation for the servile vassal of a count, noble, or ministerial. These militeswere obscure men who were usually mentioned only in the company of their lord. No nobleman was ever identified in the twelfth century as a miles. Scribes began to refer around 1180 to the greater or better ministerials and to designate some of the other ministerials as milites,apparently because these lesser ministerials, like the servile milites, had entered the service of the greater ministerials. Chroniclers occasionally called one of the greater ministerials a miles in de58 See the literature cited by Arnold, GermanKnighthood,pp. 204-8, and Freed, "Origins of the European Nobility" (see above, n. 11), pp. 233-37. In addition, see Zotz, "Bischofliche Herrschaft" (see above, n. 8), pp. 118-36; and idem, "Stadtisches Rittertum und Burgertum in Koln um 1200," in Fenske, Rosener, and Zotz, Institutionen,Kultur und Gesellschaft (see above, n. 8), pp. 609-38. 59 SUB 1:316-17, no. 137. 60 Monumenta Boica, 3 (Munich, 1764), p. 53, no. 155. 61 Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:379-84.
588
scribing his military exploits, and distinguished outsiders like the emperor or pope sometimes addressed a greater ministerial as a miles. However, the greater ministerials were never identified in this fashion in charters originating in the archdiocese itself. Still, such designations of greater ministerials in external sources as militesare one indication that chivalric culture was gradually penetrating the archdiocese, and we are justified in translating milesin this context as knight. Such external identifications of greater ministerials as milites prepared the way for the acceptance of the designation within the archdiocese in the thirteenth century. The archiepiscopal servitorestook advantage of the chaos during the Investiture Contest to sell their loyalty to the highest bidder or simply seized church property. They even complained to the emperor about Archbishop Conrad's conduct.62 Around 1100 they assumed toponymic surnames, which were in some cases the names of castles they had presumably built in the archbishops' absence.63 The change in the social status of the servitoresis revealed by the adoption of the word ministerialis,which placed less emphasis on their servile legal status than servitordid, as the standard technical term to describe them. The first certain documentary use of ministerialis- as we have seen, the earlier appearances of the word in the Admont sources may be anachronistic - occurred in 1110.64 Count Manegold was already able to stipulate in 1125 that a serf whom he gave to the church of Salzburg was to enjoy the right and law of the ministerial dignity,65 and a Salzburg cathedral canon was identified in 1146 as belonging to the ordo ministerialium.66Archbishop Conrad explained at the end of his archiepiscopate that an exchange of property required the approval of his clergy and ministerials to be valid,67 and for a century after Conrad's death the cathedral canons and ministerials elected the archbishops. Miles retained its basic meaning of vassal, but, as an analysis of the notices in of St. Peter's indicates, the word was reserved almost excluthe Traditionsbuch for the servile retainers of the nobles and ministerials. The following sively table lists all the individuals who were identified as militesin the approximately 569 dated entries between 1125 and 1199. Although many of the notices can be dated more exactly, the entries have been divided according to the time periods in which the codex itself is divided.
MGH SS 11:66-67, 69, 73. Freed, "Diemut von Higl," pp. 636-37. 64 SUB 2:184-85, no. 117. See Freed, "Formation of the Salzburg Ministerialage" (see above, n. 24), pp. 90-93. 65 SUB 1:591-92, no. 12. 66 SUB 1:609, no. 5 la. The Traditionsbuch of Admont referred to a court that had been held in Salzburg before April 9, 1147, where members of the ordo of the nobles and the ministerials had been present: SUB 2:385-86, no. 271a. 67 SUB 2:357-59, no. 248.
63
62

of Milites in the Traditionsbuch
St. Peter's, 1125-9968 Miles of Count 1125-47 1147-67 1167-88 1188-93 1193-99 4 8 0 0 0 Miles of Noble 11 7 26 1 0 Miles of Ministerial 17 17 22 8 1 Ministerial as Miles 0 0 0 2 0
589
Contrary to what Keen has said - namely, that knight "denotes a man of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry" - no noble was identified in the abbatial Traditionsbuchas a miles between 1125 and 1199. While it is true that two ministerials were described as milites in the period 1188-93, they were not, as we shall see, prominent ministerials. The evidence shows that miles was reserved almost exclusively for the servile retainers of counts, nobles, and ministerials.69 Counts had ministerials as well as milites.70For instance, Henry of Stefling, a ministerial of Count Gebhard of Burghausen, was not identified as a miles in entries where some of the count's other men were so designated, and Henry in fact was listed ahead of these milites in the witness lists.71 Although the comital ministerialages require additional investigation, the difference seems to be that comital ministerials, including the Steflings, had their own milites and were thus assigned a higher place than the milites in the Heerschildordor military order of precedence, was a theoretinung.72 The Heerschildordnung, cal legal construct that prohibited a man from being enfeoffed by an inferior A miles in this context was a without losing his place in the Heerschildordnung.
68 The entries that contain references to militesare: 1125/47: counts, SUB 1:335-568, nos. 245, 264a, 267b, 488; nobles, nos. 162, 163, 176, 183a, 201, 228, 269, 277, 484; ministerials, nos. 166, 204, 220b, 231, 271, 280, 290a, 487, 493; 1147/67: counts, nos. 313a, 316a, 319, 367a; nobles, nos. 300, 314, 317, 325, 527; ministerials, nos. 299, 308, 313b, 346, 538, 551, 555, 568, 598; 1167/ 88: nobles, nos. 383, 387, 401, 403; ministerials, nos. 372, 374c, 378, 380b, 384, 387, 392, 396a, 400, 404, 405, 587, 599; 1188/93: nobles, no. 622; ministerials, nos. 407, 409, 426, 436, 608, 611, 620, 621, 626, 632, 644, 645; ministerials as milites,nos. 414, 426; 1193/99: ministerials, no. 657. 69 There is one reference to a miles of Duke Engelbert of Carinthia in 1125/35: SUB 1:520, no.
487.
70 See, for instance, SUB 1:394 444, nos. 270a, 276, 283a, 288b, 309, 312, 348, 350, 355. 71 SUB 1:381-82, no. 245; 388-89, no. 261a; 391-92, no. 267b. On the Steflings, see Dopsch,
Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:384-85. 72 SUB 1:464, no. 387. Other examples are: Henry of Albenau, a Kraiburg-Ortenburg ministerial (p. 545, no. 585), and his miles Conrad (p. 538, no. 555); Gerbirgis of Roding, a Lebenau ministerial (pp. 811-12, no. 84), and her militesAlbrecht (p. 473, no. 404) and Frederick (p. 546, no. 587); and Conrad of H6gl, a Plain ministerial (p. 724, no. 291), and his miles Everhard (pp. 689-90, no. 221b).
590
man at the bottom of the Heerschildordnung who did not have his own vassals. As the example of the Steflings shows, its prescriptions were often observed in practice. This was the rigid system of social stratification to which both Bloch and Keen allude.73 Placement in the Heerschildordnungprobably explains why the vassals of nobles of noncomital rank were called militesrather than ministerials. Untitled noblemen and ministerials, both of whom could be the vassals of counts, occupied the same position in the military order of precedence. Vassals of both nobles and ministerials were described in turn, therefore, as milites,men who did not have vassals of their own, the lowest rank in the Heerschildordnung. This concern with rank order also explains why the archbishops were willing to grant retainers of a count the status of archiepiscopal ministerials,74 but were apparently unwilling to confer the same rights on the milites of a nobleman.75 A noble could, however, have many such retainers. For instance, twenty proprii milites (twenty of the twenty-six men listed in the table under nobles in the period 1167-88) witnessed the donation of their lord, Conrad of Puchheim, to St. Peter's.76 The first reference I have found to milites of an archiepiscopal ministerial occurs in 1122, when Henry and Conrad of Seekirchen witnessed a notice in the abbatial Traditionsbuch along with two of their milites.77In 1131 Henry of Seekirchen became the burgrave of Hohensalzburg, the first ministerial to hold this important office.8 While serving in this capacity, Henry was identified in the abbey's codex of traditions as the lord of eight milites.79They included the brothers Hartunch, Gisilheri, and Rupert, who had previously been identified as the milites of Henry's noble predecessor, Dietmar of the Lungau,80 and who were also called the militesof Henry's successor Liutwin.81 As has already been indicated, these men formed part of the permanent garrison of Hohensalzburg and were under the command of the burgrave. A good many of the milites of ministerials who appear in the abbatial Traditionsbuchwere the vassals of the castellans of the major archiepiscopal fortresses.82 No fewer than twenty-eight men were specifically identified in
73 See Julius Ficker, Vom Heerschilde: Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte (Innsbruck, 1862). 74 SUB 2:303-5, no. 207; 3:310-12, no. 783; 3:639-40, no. 1095. 75 SUB 3:149-50, no. 646. 76 SUB 1:472, no. 403. 77 SUB 1:511, no. 476. The first reference to a miles of a ministerial of the bishop of Freising occurs already in 1098/1104: Giinther Flohrschiitz, "Die freisinger Dienstmannen im 12. JahrArchiv 97 (1973), 49. hundert," Oberbayerisches 78 Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," pp. 593-94. 79 SUB 1:359-60, no. 204; 522, no. 493. 80 SUB 1:327-28, no. 156b. 81 SUB 1:337, no. 166. Another example is Meginhart, who was a retainer both of Henry of Seekirchen (p. 522, no. 493) and of Liutwin (p. 409, no. 290a). 82 The burgraves and their milites were: During of Werfen (SUB 1:533, no. 538); Engelschalk of Friesach (pp. 400-401, no. 280); Kuno of Werfen (p. 557, no. 632); Liutwin of Hohensalzburg
591
various sources as militesof Megingod II of Surberg (burgrave of Hohensalzburg from 1166/67 to 1193 and the dominant figure in the archdiocese during the 1170s), his wife, and/or his brother; another twenty-one individuals who bore the same surnames as Megingod's known retainers and who usually appeared in the Surbergs' entourage can probably also be classified as Megingod's milites.83Megingod's position was undoubtedly exceptional, but it should be stressed that ministerials who were not known as archiepiscopal officeholders also had milites of their own. For example, six of Liutpold of Wald's militeswere present in 1167/88 when he executed the deathbed bequest of his maternal uncle to St. Peter's.84 That the basic meaning of miles in twelfth-century Salzburg was vassal is shown by the facts that the militeswere almost always identified in conjunction with their lord and that the word was employed as a synonym for homoand vir. For instance, Volcholt of Hogl was identified as both a homo85and a miles86of Megingod II of Surberg, and a Berthold was called the vir of the archiepiscopal ministerial Liutold of Siegsdorf87 and the milesof Liutold's son Henry.88 This explains how a man could be identified simultaneously in the abbatial Traditionsbuch as a servitor, presumably a ministerial, of the church of Passau and as a miles, presumably a vassal, of the nobleman Hartwig of Hagenau.89 Some documents emphasized the servile character of the militesby referring to them as proprii milites.90Karl, who was identified in the abbatial Traditionsbuch as the homo and miles of Burgrave Hartnid of Hohensalzburg and his brother Markwart of Itzling, prominent archiepiscopal ministerials,91 was called in the codex of traditions of Herrenchiemsee simply the propriusof the archbishop.92 Some milites were even called servi. Dietrich and Baldwin, who as the milites of Henry of Siegswere described in the abbatial Traditionsbuch of Berchtesgaden merely as Hendorf,93 were identified in the Schenkungsbuch ry's servi.94The latter source also identified the witnesses in one entry as the
(pp. 337-520, nos. 166, 231, 290a, 308, 487); and Megingod of Surberg (pp. 456-554, nos. 374c, 396a, 400, 407, 620, 621). 83 Freed, "Diemut von H6gl," pp. 609-10. 84 SUB 1:459-60, no. 378. 85 SUB 1:446-47, no. 359. 86 SUB 1:456-58, no. 374c. 87 SUB 1:528, no. 521. 88 SUB 1:462-63, no. 384. 89 SUB 1:423, no. 314. On Hartwig's status, see SUB 1:802-3, no. 68. 90 SUB 1:472, no. 403; 546, no. 587; 2:294-96, no. 202; 336-37, no. 234; 694-96, no. 515. 91 SUB 1:442-43, no. 352; 467, no. 392. 92 SUB 2:514, no. 366. Karl was an unusual name in the archdiocese, and he followed Markwart of Itzlingen as a witness. 93 SUB 1:462-63, no. 384. 94 Schenkungsbuch ed. Karl August Muffat, Quelder ehemaligengefirsteten ProbsteiBerchtesgaden, len und Erirterungen zur bayerischen und deutschen Geschichte 1 (Munich, 1856), pp. 333-34, no. 159.
592
militeset servi of Megingod of Surberg.95 Two of the militesare known to have been the illegitimate sons of the archiepiscopal ministerials Liutold of Siegsdorf and Megingod II of Surberg96 (the bastards of noblemen became ministerials).97 Illegitimate birth thus lowered a man's position in the Heerschildordnung by one rank. References to the militesin several twelfth-century charters provide a good indication about their place in Salzburg society. A forged charter from Seckau, purportedly drafted in 1141, stated that its founder, Adalram of Waldeck, had granted that collegiate church all of his possessions south of the Semmering except for "proprii sui milites" and their fiefs.98 In 1152 the Styrian noblewoman Juta and her son Liutold of St. Dionysen gave the church of Salzburg two castles, the church of St. Dionys, and all her possessions and serfs in the Empire except for the "militari familia" if Liutold died without an heir.99 Megingod II of Surberg and his wife, Diemut of Hogl, conditionally conferred on the cathedral canons in 1170 the castle of Hogl with all its appurtenances, including all the proprii homines, except the milites.'00 These charters indicate that the milites were considered to be members of the familia,l0 but that they formed a separate elite group among the unfree
population.102
The change that occurred in the twelfth century in the meaning of the word miles is graphically illustrated by the passage in the newer Vita Gebehardi, written sometime after 1181, describing Gebhard's return to Salzburg in 1086. It says: "anno exulationis suae nono, prefatus noster domnus Gebehardus ab Engilberto comite et ab aliis quibusdam ecclesiae ministerialibus et con95 Ibid., pp. 326-27, no. 150. A garbled version of the text is published in the Salzburger Urkundenbuch as SUB 2:552-53, no. 402. 96 Dietrich, who was called a miles and servus of Henry of Siegsdorf, was identified as the son of Henry's father, Liutold: SUB 1:444-45, no. 356b. About Megingod's illegitimate son Hermann, see Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," p. 615, n. 175. In both cases, the disposition of the family property makes it clear that Dietrich and Hermann were illegitimate: ibid., pp. 604-5, 613-15. The use of miles for the illegitimate son of a ministerial persisted in the thirteenth century. For instance, in 1280 Viktring granted the knight Lord Frederick, the brother of the archiepiscopal ministerial Frederick V of Pettau, the lifelong use of four hides. MonumentahistoricaducatusCarinthiae,5, ed. Hermann Wiessner (Klagenfurt, 1956), pp. 274-75, no. 428. 97 Arnold, GermanKnighthood, p. 46; and John B. Freed, The Counts of Falkenstein:Noble SelfConsciousness in Twelfth-Century Germany,Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 74/6 (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 20-21, 30, 51-52. 98 SUB 2:294-96, no. 202. 99 SUB 2:409-11, no. 294. 100SUB 2:546-48, no. 397. 101The miles Wipoto was listed around 1185 as a witness among the members of the familia of Admont: SUB 2:605-6, no. 443. The miles Perenger was included around 1190 among the members of the familia of Raitenhaslach: SUB 2:638, no. 470. 102 Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:416, says that the knights were separated from the remainder of the servile population only in the thirteenth century and cites a document of 1278 (SUB 4:107, no. 100) as proof. The documents cited above suggest that the distinction was already being made in the twelfth century.
593
pluribus militibusreductus est in episcopium suum .. ."103The Admont monk turned the servitoresof the older vita into ministeriales,but he could not conceive of free milites, the word used in the older vita, or fideles, the word the author of the Annales Admuntenseshad employed, because the nobility had virtually disappeared from the archdiocese by 1200. For instance, the charter in which Archbishop Adalbert II (1168-77, 1183-1200) confirmed Admont's possessions in 1195 was witnessed by seventeen prelates, twenty-six archiepiscopal ministerials but only two noblemen.104 Since the only militesin the archdiocese were the servile vassals of the nobles and ministerials, the Admont monk listed the milites after the ministeriales.Medieval plagiarism is of some value to the social historian. In short, miles, which had meant a free vassal in the eleventh century, referred to a servile retainer after the Investiture Contest. Not surprisingly, such lowly men are rarely mentioned in the documents. The number of milites listed in the table is deceiving, because thousands of individuals were named in the abbatial Traditionsbuch as transactors or witnesses. Most of the militesincluded in the table appeared in the witness lists in the retinue of their lords. In only six of the approximately 569 entries dated between 1125 and 1199 did a man identified as a miles serve as a transactor. Two of them were archiepiscopal ministerials who were called milites, and a third involved the Passau servitorwho was identified as a milesof the nobleman Hartwig of Hagenau. In the other three cases, Frederick, a retainer of the nobleman Kuno of Modling, sold an alod to the monks for half a pound;105 Diethart, a vassal of the nobleman Gottschalk of Haunsberg, gave the abbey half a hide with the consent of Gottschalk's wife and daughter;106 and Albno of Plosau, a milesof Megingod of Surberg, gave the monastery an alod he had purchased from a neighbor before leaving with the burgrave's nephew on the Third Crusade.'07 These are the petty transactions of obscure men. The militesare even more inconspicuous in the approximately 292 notices in the Traditionsbuchof the cathedral chapter dated between 1122 and 1196. Only fourteen individuals are specifically identified in it as milites, though individuals who were identified elsewhere as militesdo appear in the chapter's codex of traditions.108 The first man who is called a milesin the canons' codex is Azeli, who served in 1151/67 as the proctor for Sigiboto of Thann, a vassal
MGH SS 11:39 (italics added). SUB 2:670-75, no. 497. On the extinction of the nobility, see Freed, The Counts of Falkenstein, pp. 62-67. 105 SUB 1:393, no. 269. 106 SUB 1:415-16, no. 300. 107 SUB 1:471, no. 400. See Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," pp. 613-14. 108 For instance, Wezil of Pfongau, who was called a milesof Liutpold of Wald (SUB 1:459-60, no. 378), witnessed a donation of Wernhard of Wald to the cathedral chapter (p. 638, no. 106); Baldwin of Siegsdorf, who was called a miles of Henry of Siegsdorf (pp. 462-63, no. 384), appeared in 1151/67 (p. 641, no. 112); and Karl, who was called a miles of Burgrave Hartnid (p. 467, no. 392), followed him as a witness (p. 642, no. 115).
104 103
594
of the lords of M6dling.109 The other milites who appear between 1167 and nine retainers of 1196 include one vassal of a count,110 two militesof nobles, the same identified as a miles"1 who was and one ministerial ministerials,112 use of the word miles that we find in the abbatial Traditionsbuch. The archiepiscopal charters paint a similar picture of men at the fringes of feudal society. Milites appear as witnesses for the first time in an archiepiscopal charter in 1159, but it involves a gift of a burgher of Bad Reichenhall to the collegiate church of St. Zeno in the same town,114 where militeswere clearly men of some distinction. A document of 1160 listed as witnesses the count of the Tyrol and those of his unnamed militeswho had been present; in contrast, the ministerials of the archbishop of Salzburg and of the bishop of Freising and even the young sons of prominent archiepiscopal ministerials were named individually. The document was, admittedly, of no great interest to the count, but it did not concern the bishop of Freising either.115 Men identified as milites witnessed only five other archiepiscopal charters before 1200.116 As has already been indicated, two ministerials are identified as militesin the in the twelfth century, both in the period 1188-93. In abbatial Traditionsbuch the first case, the miles Otto of Engolding gave Engolding to St. Peter's on his deathbed. Otto's maternal uncle, the prominent archiepiscopal ministerial Otto of Goldegg, executed the bequest.117 Although the Engoldings are never specifically identified as archiepiscopal ministerials, Otto's father Kuno118 is listed on several occasions in groups of known archiepiscopal ministerials.119 In the second instance, the miles Burchard, who is identified in the entry as an archiepiscopal ministerial, conferred an alod on the monks but retained the lifelong use. He was to pay the monks five pennies a year as a token of their proprietary rights, while they were to give him annually eight pecks of rye and involved sixty pennies.120 The comparable case in the chapter's Traditionsbuch the miles Pabo of Englham, who gave the canons in 1183/96 a serf as an altar
109SUB 1:666, no. 174. On Sigiboto of Thann, see Gunther Flohrschiitz, "Die V6gte von 38 (1975), 86-89. Modling und ihr Gefolge," Zeitschriftfiir bayerische Landesgeschichte l0 SUB 1:715-16, no. 276. 1" SUB 1:687-88, no. 217; 715-16, no. 276. 112 SUB 1:667-68, no. 217; 689-90, no. 221b; 710-11, no. 268; 720-21, no. 285; 721-22, no. 287. 113 SUB 1:706, no. 258. 114 SUB 2:478-79, no. 342. 115 SUB 2:483-84, no. 347. The archbishop's pueri, Riidiger, Rudolph, and Gerhoch, were undoubtedly the nephews of Burgrave Hartnid who witnessed the charter and often appeared with him as witnesses. For further information about them, see Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," pp. 638-40. 116 SUB 2:530-626, nos. 382, 432, 438, 445, 461. 117 SUB 1:478, no. 414. Otto of Goldegg was called Otto of the Pongau in the entry. On Otto's identity, see Dopsch, GeschichteSalzburgs, 1/1:387. 118 SUB 2:476-78, no. 341. 119SUB 1:647-48, no. 128; 653, no. 142; 2:317, no. 217; 428-29, no. 306. 120 SUB 1:484, no. 426.
595
dependent (censualis) in the presence of his sons Henry and Pabo.121 This is the only reference to Pabo and his sons. An archiepiscopal ministerial'22 named Megingod of Englham appears between ca. 1140123 and 1180,124 and he had two sons, Gerhard and Kuno.125 It is thus not certain whether Pabo was a member of the ministerial lineage or simply one of its milites. Clearly, we are not dealing here with prominent ministerials who adopted the designation miles to conceal their servile origins, but rather with the first evidence for the existence of the group who would be called in 1262 lesser ministerials and squires (ministerialeset militares minores).126The Wiesbachs, archiepiscopal ministerials who are identified in this fashion in 1262, were mentioned for the first time in 1170,127 about seventy years after the ancestors of the prominent ministerials appeared; in the late thirteenth century they are usually described as milites rather than as ministerials.l28 The division between greater and lesser ministerials can be traced to the first half of the twelfth century. Archbishop Conrad I is alleged to have uncovered upon his return from Rome in 1111 a conspiracy led by one of the less noble ministerials,'29 but the passage in the Vita Chunradi, written in the 1170s, may be anachronistic and deliberately derogatory. The same cannot be said of a description of a benefactor of the cathedral canons in 1122/47 as one of the nobler ministerials'30 and of references in the 1130s to honorable'31 and illustrious'32 ministerials who served as witnesses. It was, however, in the 1180s and 1190s - that is, precisely at the moment that the entries in the Traditionsbiicher began to identify minor ministerials as milites- that the documents started to stress that Archbishops Conrad III and Adalbert II had consulted with the greater (maiores) and better (meliores)ministerials.133
SUB 1:706, no. 258. SUB 1:413-14, no. 296. 123 SUB 1:601-2, no. 35. 124 SUB 2:584-85, no. 424a. 125 SUB 1:672, no. 188. 126 MGH SS 9:796. 127 SUB 2:546-48, no. 397. 128 Necrologias. RudbertiSalisburgensis,ed. Sigismund Herzberg-Frankel, MGH Necrologia Germaniae 2 (Berlin, 1894), p. 111; Regesten 1:123, no. 959; 133-34, nos. 1041 and 1042; and Die Urkundendes KlostersRaitenhaslach, 1034-1350, ed. Edgar Krausen, Quellen und Erorterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.s. 17, 2 pts. (Munich, 1959-60), 1:242-43, no. 301. On the Wiesbachs, see Helga Reindel-Schedl, "Die Herren von Wispeck," MGSL 122 (1982), 253-86. 129 MGH SS 11:69: "quidam ex ministris, non tamen nobilioribus, Albwinus nomine." The only ministerial family to employ the name Albwin in the twelfth century was the Gomings, who lived north of the city and who were classified in the thirteenth century as knights rather than ministerials. See Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:401. I suspect, therefore, that the leader of the conspiracy was a Goming. 130 SUB 1:620-21, no. 77. The donor was described as "quedam e nobilioribus beati Rvdberti ministerialibus." 131 SUB 2:229-30, no. 153. The document is dated 1132-42, but Henry of Seekirchen, who died in 1139, was among the witnesses. 132 SUB 2:236-37, no. 159. 133 SUB 1:693-94, no. 226; 2:690-91, no. 512; 706-7, no. 520.
122 121
596
It is easy to find an explanation for the sharpening of the division among the ministerials in the late twelfth century. Archiepiscopal authority collapsed during the Alexandrine Schism,134 and the ensuing chaos revealed the difference between powerful ministerials, like Megingod II of Surberg, who had their own armed retainers, and petty ministerials who did not and who joined the retinue of their more powerful coministerials to survive. For instance, the Voggenbergs, who had been called archiepiscopal ministerials in the 1130s,135 were listed in 1171 among Megingod's "milites et servi,"136 and the Wiesbachs usually appeared in the entourage of Megingod or his successor, Burgrave Conrad of Hohensalzburg.137 Miles, the standard designation for a servile vassal of a noble or ministerial, could thus easily be applied to a minor ministerial who served a more powerful ministerial. Prominent ministerials like Megingod could, however, be described as milites under certain circumstances, but these uses of the word said nothing about their legal status or place in the Heerschildordnung. First of all, chronicles in of Reichersberg the word Provost Gerhoch scenes. employed military in describes the how Annales milites, particularly (1132-69) Reicherspergenses Megingod II of Surberg, bravely and courageously defended the archbishopric after Barbarossa outlawed Archbishop Conrad II and the clergy of Salzburg at Laufen on March 29, 1166.138 Needless to say, Megingod, who had dozens of milites at his command, is never described as a miles in the documents. Similarly, the Vita Chunradirecounts how a certain miles who was noted for his wealth and physical strength, namely, the archiepiscopal butler Megingod, prompted by a youthful ardor for combat, broke the command of Archbishop Conrad I not to fight during Henry V's Roman expedition in 1110-11.139 This bold miles was undoubtedly the father of Megingod II, who served in the 1140s as the archiepiscopal butler.140 It is quite possible that the author, writing in the 1170s, had Megingod II in mind when penning these words and that miles meant knight in this context. This seems almost certainly to have been the case in other references to prominent ministerials as milites. Emperor Henry VI ordered Archbishop Adalbert II in 1193/94 to defend St. Peter's against the milites of Voitsch.'41
Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:284-96. SUB 1:589-90, no. 7a. 136 Schenkungsbuch Berchtesgaden(see above, n. 94), pp. 333-34, no. 159. 137 Reindel-Schedl, "Die Herren von Wispeck," p. 257. 138 MGH SS 17:473: "... militibus tamen archiepiscopi, precipueque Megingozo de Surberc, se contra violencias iniquorum hominum fortiter et viriliter opponentibus." 139 MGH SS 11:68: "Unde et contigit militem quendam opibus et viribus insignem, Megingodum nomine, pincernam videlicet suum, iuvenili ardore pugnandi egressum, vulnus accepisse in crure." 140 SUB 2:307-8, no. 209; 330-32, no. 230; 333-35, no. 232. Whether Megingod I was really the archiepiscopal butler in 1110-11 is open to question, but the author of the Vita Chunradi,who was writing from personal experience after 1131 (MGH SS 11:62), would have remembered Megingod I as the butler. 141 SUB 2:663-64, no. 489.
134 135
597
No miles is known to have employed this surname in the late twelfth century, but the Pettaus, a prominent lineage of archiepiscopal ministerials who provided Rudolph of Habsburg in 1276 with 200 men,142 claimed Voitsch for decades.143 Sometime after May 30, 1198, Duke Leopold VI of Austria wrote to Kuno III of Schnaitsee-Gutrat, an archiepiscopal ministerial who was the burgrave of Werfen, appointing him the protector of Admont's lands bordering on his own.144 Leopold referred to Kuno as strenuusmiles, and Pope Honorius III referred to him in 1217/19 as a noble and a miles.'45 All of these references to prominent archiepiscopal ministerials as milites, except for the one in Leopold's letter, occur in sources that originated outside the archdiocese and, as Henry VI's mandate indicates, may show some ignorance about conditions within the archdiocese. The better-informed Leopold VI may not have wanted to draw attention to the fact that he had granted the subadvocacy over Admont's property to the ministerial of a rival prince. The phrase strenuus miles in the duke's letter suggests that he was calling Kuno a knight rather than a vassal. The first reference to a prominent ministerial as a miles in an archiepiscopal charter occurs only in 1233, when Archbishop Eberhard II (1200-1246) called Eckart of Tann a ministerial and a knight.146 Interestingly enough, Eckart referred to himself simply as a miles in 1243.147 As far as I know, Eckart is the only prominent ministerial to be described in this fashion in the first half of the thirteenth century, but the use of the word miles in the sense of knight by prestigious outsiders must have contributed to its gradual acceptance within the archdiocese as a designation for a prominent ministerial. 4. 1200-1246 The Rise of the Knights Archbishop Eberhard II (1200-1246) was the creator of the ecclesiastical principality of Salzburg. During his long rule, miles remained the standard designation for a servile vassal, many of whom were humble men. Others, especially the urban milites,were men of considerable means, and some milites began to receive the title dominus.There was a perceptible rise in the status of militesin this period, and most important, the estate of knights began to take
Hans Pirchegger, "Die Herren von Pettau," Zeitschriftdes HistorischenVereinesfiir Steiermark 42 (1951), 12. 143 SUB 2:523-25, no. 375; 3:505-6, no. 955. Otto of K6nigsberg, who is mentioned in no. 955, was the grandson of the Frederick of Pettau mentioned in no. 375. See Pirchegger, "Herren von Pettau," genealogical table following p. 199. 144 SUB 2:681, no. 502. On the Schnaitsee-Gutrats, see Salzburgs, 1/1:390Dopsch, Geschichte 93. 145 SUB 3:209-10, nos. 698a, 698b. The papacy could also use the correct terminology. See, for example, SUB 3:124-25, no. 625, where Innocent III referred to Frederick III of Pettau as a ministerial. 146 SUB 3:438-39, no. 888. On the Tanns, see Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:373. 147SUB 3:556, no. 1004a.
142
598
shape. Its constituents were lesser ministerials, retainers of extinguished noble lineages that had entered the archbishop's service, and servile vassals of the ministerials. Miles continued to be employed in the first half of the thirteenth century primarily for the servile vassals of the few surviving nobles'48 and of the ministerials,149 and occasionally also for the armed retainers of various churches.150 The documents often stressed their servile status. Henry of Schnaitsee was identified before 1230 as a milesproprius of Kuno III of Gutrat;151 Ortolf was described in 1219/34 as a miles who belonged to the archiepiscopal familia;'52 and Ulrich of Breitbrunn was called in 1242/59 a miles and a homo proprius of St. Peter's.153 When Archbishop Eberhard II purchased the castle of Haunsberg in 1211 from its last noble lord, Gottschalk's "hominibus suis propriis militaribus sexus videlicet utriusque" were included in the sale.154 Count Hermann of Ortenburg sold the Lessach Valley in the Lungau to the archbishop in 1242, but the count specifically excluded among the serfs (mancipia) "quibusdam hominibus militaris conditionis" who possessed fiefs and alods in the valley.'55 Among the appurtenances that were included in Archbishop Eberhard's purchase of the Carinthian castle of Reisberg in 1245 were "quatuor personis de genere militari."156 Another charter that was drafted in conjunction with the same purchase referred to "omnibus hominibus operibus servilibus deputatis et quatuor militaribus." 57 As late as 1255, the dowry of Margaret of Steinkirchen, who married the archiepiscopal ministerial Conrad V of Kalham-Wartenfels, included "XII personas de genere militari etatis equalis et XII feoda militum."158 It may be that the scribes adopted such circumlocutions to distinguish servile milites from knights like the archiepiscopal ministerial Eckart of Tann. Still, such stipulations also show that the servile milites formed an elite group among the serfs. These servile militeswere often humble individuals whose way of life would have been barely distinguishable from that of other peasants. Sometime be148 SUB 1:498, no. 452; 3:532-34, no. 984. 149 SUB 1:497, no. 451; 509, no. 473a; 732, no. 306; 734, no. 311; 735, no. 313; 750, no. 342;
753, no. 348; 754-55, no. 351; 755, no. 353; 3:18-19, no. 548; 174-76, no. 669; 177, no. 672; 196, no. 690; 213-14, no. 700c; 411-12, no. 868; 509-11, no. 961; 631-32, no. 1086. 150 SUB 1:507-8, no. 470 (St. Peter's); 734, no. 311 (cathedral chapter); 3:162-63, no. 657 (Frauenchiemsee); 472-73, no. 923 (bishopric of Chiemsee). 151SUB 1:509, no. 473a. 152 SUB 1:747-48, no. 336. 153 SUB 1:507-8, no. 470. 154 SUB 3:149-50, no. 646. 155 SUB 3:540-42, no. 991a. 156 SUB 3:624-26, no. 1079. 157 SUB 3:631-32, no. 1086. 158 SUB 4:30-31, no. 33. She was called Margaret in SUB 4:42-43, no. 42. Margaret's father was an Ortenburg ministerial and her mother an archiepiscopal ministerial: SUB 3:425-27, nos. 882a, 882b.
599
fore his death around 1216, the archiepiscopal ministerial Markwart of Bergheim had procured for his miles Heinrich Vole the lifelong use of a hide that belonged to St. Peter's. After Markwart's death the abbey agreed to extend the same privilege to Heinrich Vole's wife.'59 Between 1242 and 1259 the miles Ulrich of Breitbrunn, an abbatial serf, conferred his alod of half a hide in Breitbrunn on St. Peter's with the consent of his seven sons. The sons then gave the monastery the other half and received it back in fief.160 Ulrich's family might have done better if he had prevented the fragmentation of his small fief among so many heirs. Other militeswere men of more substance than Ulrich of Breitbrunn. Lord Albert, a miles of the archiepiscopal ministerial Kuno III of Gutrat, gave St. Peter's in 1199/1214 eight serfs whom he held in fief from the Kalhams as altar dependents.161 Before his death in 1231, Kuno III of Gutrat had enfeoffed his milites Conrad and Eckart Garr, who had married Kuno's serfs (propriaemulieres), with two forested hides that they subsequently exchanged with St. Peter's for another property and an additional eight pounds.'62 Their descendants amassed considerable property and seignorial rights in the upper Enns valley. The Garrs are thus a remarkable example of the rise of a peasant family into the ranks of the lower nobility during the later Middle Ages.163 The miles Werner of Lengfelden, master of the archiepiscopal kitchen, had built a church, St. Jakob am Turm, near his tower (turris) and had endowed it with a property he had purchased in the Tyrol. He gave both to St. Peter's in 1238 on the condition that the monks use one hundred cheeses from the Tyrolese property to provide for the illumination of the church and to pay the parish priest of Hallein to say a mass in the church once a week. The other two hundred cheeses from the Tyrolese property were to belong to the monks.'64 Werner, who is identified elsewhere as a ministerial,'65 was one of the lesser ministerials. Urban milites appear to have been especially wealthy. Isingrim is identified as a miles,166as a burgher of Salzburg, and as an official involved with the production and trade in salt (salinator).167Lord Heinrich Chlozo, a miles and burgher of Salzburg, gave the cathedral canons in 1242/64 four serfs and
159SUB 3:196-97, no. 690. 160 SUB 1:507-8, no. 470. 161 SUB 1:497, no. 451. The entry is dated 1199/1231, but Ulrich II of Kalham was dead by 1214. SUB 1:735-36, no. 314. In addition, one of the witnesses, Heitfolch of Felben, was mentioned for the last time in a datable document in 1206. Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:393. 162 SUB 1:509, no. 473. 163 Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:401, 415. 164 SUB 3:489, no. 936. On Werner, see my forthcoming article about the Lengfelden-Thurn lineage, "Devotion to St. James and Family Identity: The Knights of Thurn," Journal of Medieval History 13 (September 1987). 165SUB 3:187-88, no. 680. 166 SUB 3:523-42, no. 974. 167 SUB 3:352, no. 819.
600
their children as altar dependents.168 Ortolf of Kai, who witnessed archiepiscopal charters in 1214169 and 1224170 and is identified as a knight who belonged to the archiepiscopal familia,l71 was a particularly wealthy urban knight. Innocent III indicated in 1216 that Archbishop Eberhard II had purchased from Ortolf vineyards in Arnsdorf, Lower Austria, and a house in the city of Salzburg.'72 Ortolf gave the cathedral canons in 1222 a vineyard and an orchard in Arnsdorf.173 Of course, the wealth of even the richest miles could not compare with the wealth of one of the great ministerial lineages. For example, Diemut of H6gl, the widow of Megingod II of Surberg, and her last husband, Burgrave Conrad of Hohensalzburg, had four castles of their own and their own chaplain, chamberlain, and seneschal.l74 Such donations are one indication that the status of the militeswas rising in the first half of the thirteenth century. Another was the use of the title dominus for a miles. The earliest designations of this type that I have found are from the first decade of the thirteenth century.175 In contrast, the first references to ministerials as domini are from around 1150.176 It is by no means clear why and under what circumstances specific milites or for that matter ministerials were styled lords. For example, only two of the four persons of military condition who were included in the sale of the Carinthian castle of Reisberg in 1245 were called lords.177 Why not the other two? Several things seem to be at work. The first references to ministerials as lords occur in descriptions of a ministerial's relationship to another person, for example, Berthold, a vir of Lord Liutold of Siegsdorf. 178 A lord was by definition a person who exercised rights over other people. This may explain why the sons of an archiepiscopal ministerial who witnessed an archiepiscopal charter in 1205 were not called lords, while their father was.179 Second, transactors, especially donors, were more likely than witnesses to be styled lords. For example, while Megingod II of Surberg and his brother Sigiboto are called lords after 1165 in documents
168 SUB 1:763-64, no. 371. 169 SUB 3:178-81, no. 674; 197-200, no. 691. The editors, SUB 1:966 and 3:R 62, were not
certain whether Kay, southwest of Tittmoning, Upper Bavaria, or Kai, a section of the city of Salzburg, was meant. Since these two charters involved the estate of Diemut of Hogl, who had been the wife of two burgraves of Hohensalzburg, the latter seems more likely. In addition, Ortolf owned a house in the city itself. SUB 3:200-202, no. 692. 170 SUB 3:321, no. 793. 171 SUB 1:747-48, no. 336. 172 SUB 3:200-202, no. 692. 73 SUB 1:747-48, no. 336. 174 Freed, "Diemut von H6gl," pp. 611, 643. 175 SUB 1:497, no. 451 (on the date, see n. 161 above); 733, no. 309 (Ulrich was called a miles in no. 311); 3:18-19, no. 548. 176 Freed, "Diemut of H6gl," pp. 644-45. For a reference in 1145/47, see SUB 2:336-37, no. 234. 177 SUB 3:624-26, no. 1079. 178 SUB 1:528, no. 521. Other examples are 2:336-37, no. 234; 476-78, no. 341. 179SUB 3:66-67, no. 586.
601
where they appear as transactors,180 the first reference that I have found to a ministerial by himself as a lord in the witness list of an archiepiscopal charter occurs only in 1197/1200.181 Such designations appear to have been most common in documents of urban origin and to have become fairly standard for both ministerials and milites only during the 1240s. This leaves unexplained why some witnesses in the same document were called lords and others were not. For example, a charter issued by the abbot of St. Peter's in 1236 refers to Eckart of Tann as a lord, but does not bestow the same courtesy on Conrad of Truchtlaching, Henry of Teisendorf, who was the vidame of Salzburg, and Ulrich of Wiesbach.182 Since Henry and Ulrich belonged to families of lesser ministerials that were classified in the second half of the thirteenth century as knights,183 it is possible that the scribe was differentiating between greater and lesser ministerials, but this does not explain why Conrad of Truchtlaching, who belonged to a powerful ministerial family,184 was not styled a lord. Perhaps the scribe was distinguishing in this case between a ministerial who had been girded with a sword and one who had not undergone this initiation ceremony (Eckart of Tann happens to have been the only prominent archiepiscopal ministerial who was called both a ministerial and a knight in the first half of the thirteenth century).185 If this was indeed the case, it provides evidence for the growing importance of such chivalric customs in the archdiocese, which made it possible to call a servile miles a lord and to deny the same courtesy to a prominent ministerial. It should be stressed that this is simply an educated guess; we have no definite evidence that Eckart of Tann had been girded and that Conrad of Truchtlaching had not been. The use of the designation dominus for both ministerials and milites requires additional investigation. There are also indications that an estate of knights, composed of the lesser ministerials, the milites of extinguished noble lineages who had entered the archbishop's service, and the ministerials' own servile retainers, was beginning to form in the archdiocese in the first half of the thirteenth century. Most archiepiscopal charters merely indicate that many other witnesses were present besides the clerics and ministerials who are mentioned by name,186 but a
180SUB 1:451-52, no. 367a; 2:548-49, no. 398. SUB 2:684-86, no. 507. 182 SUB 3:463-64, no. 913. 183 Henry's surname is not indicated in no. 913, but it is given in SUB 3:352, no. 819. He was the father of Gottschalk of Unzing (SUB 3:414-15, no. 871), who had adopted his mother's surname (SUB 1:746, no. 333) and who also employed the surname Neuhaus (SUB 3:352, no. 819; Urkunden Raitenhaslach [see above, n. 128], 1:294-95, no. 367). Gottschalk of UnzingNeuhaus and the Wiesbachs were identified as knights rather than as ministerials in Regesten 1:91, no. 702; 96-97, no. 738; SUB 4:153-55, no. 130. 184 Dopsch, GeschichteSalzburgs, 1/1:379-80. Conrad's brother Henry appeared as a witness with his miles: SUB 3:213-14, no. 700c. 185 SUB 3:438-39, no. 888; 556, no. 1004a. 186 See, for instance, SUB 3:309-10, no. 782; 312, no. 784; 328-29, no. 800; 332-34, no. 805.
181
602
charter of 1225 refers to "et alii quam plures milites et cives de civitate et de rure."187 This is a very apt description of the individuals who were identified as milites in the first half of the nineteenth century - urban milites and burghers like Ortolf of Kai and rural militeslike the Garrs - and shows that there was an awareness that they were united by a common military function and place at the bottom of the Heerschildordnung. Similarly, Archbishop Eberhard II granted the canons of Reichersberg in 1242 the right to receive or to exchange both real and movable property with both his ministerials and his milites.188In these cases we are fully justified in translating militesas knights. It is this distinction between ministerials and knights, including in this case the lesser ministerials, that may explain certain anomalies in the witness lists of some charters. For instance, Henry of Teisendorf and Ulrich of Wiesbach are not listed among the ministerials in an archiepiscopal charter drafted in 1229,189 even though each is called an archiepiscopal ministerial elsewhere.190 Since their descendants were usually called knights rather than ministerials in the second half of the thirteenth century,191 this distinction was probably already being considered in the 1220s, even though the lesser ministerials were not specifically identified in the 1229 charter as milites. Miles was thus beginning to be employed in the first half of the thirteenth century for the members of a particular estate, the knights. 5. After 1246 The Estate of Knights Scribes continued to distinguish between the ministerials and the knights until the end of the thirteenth century, but the distinction was becoming increasingly blurred. After 1270 the greater ministerials started to be styled milites, a crucial sign that they were coalescing with their own servile vassals and the lesser ministerials into a single estate of knights, the Ritterstandof the later Middle Ages. At the same time greater ministerials began to be called nobles, an honor that was also bestowed upon knights by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Knighthood thus united in the ecclesiastical principality not the nobles and the ministerials, but the greater ministerials and their servile vassals at the lowest rank of noble society. There are several reasons why the greater ministerials became part of the Ritterstandin Salzburg: the extinction of most of the lineages of greater ministerials; the ministerials' and knights' common service to the archbishop, especially after the Interregnum; the selection of ministerials and knights rather than nobles as archbishops; and the spread in the archdiocese of chivalric culture, especially the formal
187 188
SUB 3:327-28, no. 799.
SUB 3:551-52, no. 999. 189 SUB 3:374-75, no. 838. Another example is pp. 376-77, no. 840, where a Markwart of Haunsberg was not listed among the ministerials. He was presumably one of the militeswho had entered the archbishop's service after Gottschalk of Haunsberg sold his ancestral castle in 1211. 190Monumenta Boica, 2 (Munich, 1764), pp. 196-98, no. 15. 191See n. 183 above.
603
investment of knights with their arms. In contrast to this development in the ecclesiastical principality, the estates of lords and knights remained separate in the duchy of Styria. At first glance the line between the ministerials and the knights appears to have been drawn as sharply as ever in the second half of the thirteenth century. Individual ministerials continued to be identified as such until 1300,192 and individual knights were on occasion called militesas part of their surnames. For example, Conrad I of Kuchl, a member of a lineage of lesser ministerials,193 was in 1250 called "dominus Chunradus miles de Chuchil."194 Miles was clearly intended here to indicate Conrad's estate, and we are justified in translating Conrad's name as Herr Konrad, Ritter von Kuchl. While the witness lists of the twelfth century had distinguished between nobles and ministerials,195 and while the scribes of the first half of the thirteenth century had been careful to identify Adalbero I of Walchen, the last noble in the ecclesiastical principality, as a noble or a free man,196 the witness lists distinguished after 1250 between ministerials and knights.197 As late as 1327, Archbishop Frederick III (1315-38) announced that "unsers gottshaus dienstman, ritter und knecht" had given their consent to a levy to free the "edlleut" who had been captured in 1322 at the battle of Miihldorf.198 Yet this 1327 document, which seemingly retained the old distinction between ministerials and knights, also shows that fundamental changes had occurred in the social structure of the ecclesiastical principality. First of all, it is noteworthy that the archbishop had consulted with the knights, let alone the squires, in levying the tax. Second, the reference to the Knechteindicates that scribes in Salzburg were distinguishing not only between ministerials and but also between knights according to a man's place in the Heerschildordnung, those who had been dubbed and those who had not been formally made knights. Finally, and most important, the so-called nobles who had been captured at Miihldorf and whom the archbishop ransomed included such knights as Hermann of Thurn.199 Indeed, most of them belonged to families that cannot be traced back to the Hohenstaufen period. These noble knights pro192
193
See, for instance, Regesten 2:6, no. 50; 26, no. 204; 41, no. 326; 45, no. 358; 59, no. 486. Dopsch, GeschichteSalzburgs, 1/1:400; and Walter Brugger, "Die Kuchler: Ein Salzburger Ministerialengeschlecht vom 12.-15. Jahrhundert," Das Salzfass, n.s. 2 (1967-68), 1-33. 194 SUB 4:6-7, no. 7. Other examples are: "H(einrico) milite, cui cognomen est Dens" (7-8, no. 8); "Rudgeri militis dicti Zaphe" (18-19, no. 19); and "Gotschalcus miles de Castro Novo" (12526, no. 113). 195See, for instance, SUB 2:284-86, no. 196; 395-96, no. 280; 409-11, no. 294; 486-89, no. 349; 631-33, no. 465a; 670-75, no. 497. 196 SUB 3:286-88, no. 758; 487-89, no. 935; 527-28, no. 978a; 540-43, no. 991; 559-60, no. 1008. 197 SUB 4:153-55, no. 130. 198 SUB 4:368-69, no. 322. 199 Regesten 3:40, no. 391. On the Thurns, see Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:400-401 and my forthcoming article, "Devotion to St. James" (see above, n. 164).
604
vide a sharp contrast with the servile militesof the Hohenstaufen period. How and why had this change occurred? First of all, the greater ministerials had filled the vacuum created by the extinction of the free nobility. The honorific nobilis was first bestowed in the mid-twelfth century upon women of ministerial ancestry in documents describing their pious donations. The first male ministerial to be honored in this fashion was Henry of Siegsdorf, who was styled a nobilishomoin an entry in the Traditionsbuchof Raitenhaslach, written a decade after his death in 1171. Sigiboto of Surberg, the brother of Burgrave Megingod, was the first ministerial to be given such a title in his lifetime. He was called a noble ministerial around 1193 in the entry recording his gift of his ancestral castle to the cathedral canons. The first use of the term nobilis ministerialisin an archiepiscopal charter occurs in 1218, when Eberhard II referred to Burgrave Conrad of Hohensalzburg in this fashion.200 Strictly speaking, the term noble ministerial was a contradiction in terms, as the distinction between nobles and ministerials in the witness lists shows. Eberhard II called the brothers Frederick IV and Hartnid I of Pettau "nobiles viri" in 1236, the first time this term was applied to a ministerial in an archiepiscopal charter, but it may be a forgery.201 In any case, such designations of ministerials as nobles were never very common, and most of the examples occur around or after 1300.202 The honorific nobilis was thus applied to women before it was bestowed on men, was given to the dead before the living, and appeared in the unofficial Traditionsbiicherbefore it was used in archiepiscopal charters. Prominent ministerials were called nobles before they were called knights in documents drafted in the archdiocese. Knighthood was thus not a step towards the nobility for a prominent ministerial.
200
Freed, "Diemut von Hogl," p. 645. SUB 3:464-65, no. 914. Martin did not question the authenticity of this charter, in which Eberhard II confirmed that Frederick IV and Hartnid I had returned to the Teutonic Knights the church in Gross-Sonntag (today Velika Nedelja), which their grandfather Frederick II had given the knights, but their father Frederick III had seized. The problem is that it is hard to see how Frederick II, who was dead by 1174, could have given anything to the Teutonic Knights, who were founded only in the 1190s. Urkundenbuch des Herzogthums Steiermark,1, ed. Joseph von Zahn (Graz, 1875), pp. 531-32, no. 559. Moreover, Frederick IV indicated in 1222 that his deceased father Frederick III had given the knights his holdings in Gross-Sonntag (ibid., 2 [Graz, 1879], pp. 292-93, no. 203); and Frederick IV did not suggest in 1235 that he was correcting his father's misdeeds when he gave the knights the patronage of the church in Gross-Sonntag (ibid., 2:42728, no. 324). Under these circumstances the early use of the term "nobiles viri" for archiepiscopal ministerials in SUB 3, no. 914, is highly suspicious. The earliest reference to archiepiscopal ministerials as nobles in an archiepiscopal charter may thus have occurred in 1272, when Archbishop Frederick II referred to his "avunculos nostros . nobiles de Goldek." SUB 4:75-79, no. 76. 202 See, for instance, the use of the term for the Goldeggs: Otto VI was called a noble ministerial in 1285 (Regesten 1:150, no. 1168); Conrad II was listed among the nobles in 1286 (157-58, no. 1231); and Wulfing of Goldegg was called a noble in 1323 (SUB 4:343-44, no. 300) and 1326 (359-60, no. 316).
201
605
On the other hand, miles did become a common designation for a prominent ministerial in the late thirteenth century. Conrad V of KalhamWartenfels, whose wife's dowry had included in 1255 twelve persons of military status and their fiefs, was, among other things, a member of the archiepiscopal council and the Hofmeisterin the 1290s.203 Conrad was generally called a ministerial,204 but also a noble,205 a noble ministerial,206 and a knight.207 In fact, the classification of people in the witness lists of the late thirteenth century makes increasingly little sense. For example, on July 18, 1280, in a document concerning the trial of Frederick V of Pettau, Conrad of Wartenfels and Kuno V of Gutrat are listed along with such minor ministerials as Ulrich of Wiesbach among the knights, while such equally prominent ministerials as the brothers Otto VI and Conrad II of Goldegg are listed afterwards and are not included in the group of knights.208 Yet another document drafted on the same day and concerning the same matter lists Conrad of Wartenfels, Kuno of Gutrat, and Ulrich of Wiesbach among the ministerials and nobles (in that order), while including the Goldeggs among the knights!209 A document of 1300 actually lists the knights, including Conrad of Wartenfels and Otto of Goldegg, but also such minor ministerials and knights as Conrad II of Kuchl, before equally prominent ministerials who are identified as ministerials.210 The term noble knight appears in 1338.211 Such terminological confusion can mean only that the old distinctions between ministerials and knights had broken down and that a dubbed knight could be perceived as being higher in status than an undubbed ministerial. The importance of this ceremony is revealed by the increasing references to squires in documents. The earliest reference I have found occurs in a 1270 document in which King Ottokar II of Bohemia acknowledged that Archbishop Frederick II (1270-84) had enfeoffed him with all the fiefs that the Babenbergs and Spanheims had held from the church of Salzburg. In return, the king promised to protect the archbishop if anyone seized fiefs that had been vacated by counts, other free nobles, ministerials, knights (milites), squires (militares), or any other vassals.212 In 1278 Archbishop Frederick II gave general permission for his men, except for knights and personaemilitares, to marry members of the familia of St. Peter's.213 Archbishop Conrad IV (1291-1312) and Count Ulrich of Heunburg reached an agreement in 1292
203 Regesten 2:12-13, no. 196; SUB 4:189-90, 204 SUB no. 141. no.
no. 157; 225-26, no. 186. 4:66-67, 68; 168-70, 205 Regesten 1:157-58, no. 1231; SUB 4:153-55, no. 130. 206Regesten 1:150, no. 1168. 207 Regesten 1:130, no. 1016. 208 Regesten 1:122-23, no. 957. 209 Regesten 1:123, no. 958. 210Regesten 2:59, no. 486. 211SUB 4:439-40, no. 369. 212SUB 4:67-69, no. 69.
213 SUB 4:107, no. 100.
606
about their common captive Louis, the son of Duke Meinhard of Carinthia. It called for twelve of the count's knights and better militareshominesto swear an oath to the archbishop.214 We are justified in translating militesas knights and such words as militares as squires in these documents because the German version of the last agreement refers to "unser reiter und unser beste leude zwelfe"215 and because a German-language arbitral award of 1284 refers to two of the Goldeggs' "retter maezigen leuten."216 By the beginning of the fourteenth century the few surviving lineages of greater archiepiscopal ministerials, like the Goldeggs, were thus well on their way to merging with their own servile warriors, the lesser ministerials, and the servile retainers of the extinct free nobility into a single estate of knights, who were the nobles of the late medieval ecclesiastical principality. As has already been pointed out, a single estate of knights did not form in the duchy of Styria, which was under the archbishop's spiritual jurisdiction; there the Herrenstand,or estate of lords, composed of the few surviving noble lineages and the greater ministerials, remained separate from the Ritterstand. Heinz Dopsch has provided the best explanation why Salzburg and Styria developed different social structures in the later Middle Ages. Many of the greater ministerial lineages in both principalities died out. The Habsburgs who controlled Styria were deeply involved in imperial politics and depended upon the continuing loyalty of the great lineages. The Styrian lords were thus able to acquire by inheritance or purchase the lands of the extinguished lordly lineages, and the gulf between the lords and the knights widened. The archbishops, whom the Avignonese popes ranked among the wealthiest bishops in Christendom,217 were able instead to concentrate their attention and resources after 1270 on their principality. They purchased the inheritances of heiresses, thus preventing the surviving ministerial lineages from profiting from the extinction of their coministerials,218 and crushed insubordinate lineages like the Kalhams, Bergheims, and Tanns.219 The survivors, often in financial difficulties and reduced to political insignificance, were too few in number to form a separate estate. Three others factors should also be considered. First, those individual ministerials who retained their influence, like Conrad V of KalhamWartenfels, the archiepiscopal Hofmeister,did so as officials of the new principality. This was another point of contact between the greater ministerials and
4:210-11, no. 170. SUB 4:211, n. 1. 216 SUB 4:133-40, no. 120, article 21. 217 Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:465. 218 The best example is the Gutrats, who died out around 1304. See my forthcoming article about the Gutrats in the Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fiir SalzburgerLandeskundefor additional information. 219 In addition to the literature cited in n. 17 above, see Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:367403.
215
214 SUB
607
the knights, whose comparative lack of familial resources made them willing to serve the archbishop and perhaps for that reason more amenable to the archbishop's wishes. For instance, Ulrich II of Wiesbach, one of the lesser ministerials, was the vidame of Salzburg in 1261,220 the archiepiscopal marshal at various times between 1270 and 1295,221 and the burgrave of Tittmoning in 1282;222 his brother Ulrich III was the judge of Salzburg in 1261223 and the master of the kitchen of the cathedral chapter in 1270 and 1281;224 and a third brother, Henry III, was the judge of Salzburg in 1281-82.225 Either Ulrich II or Ulrich III was the Hofmeisterin 1278.226 To cite another example, Sigiboto II of Nopping was the castellan of Haunsberg in 1306;227 his brother Henry was the burgrave of Tittmoning in 1299228 and the judge in Raschenberg in 1309;229 and their brother Hartnid III was a cathedral canon from 1281 to 1300.230 The Noppings were the descendants of servile knights who had served the noble lords of Haunsberg until 1211.231 Such service helped to enrich and to ennoble the knights and to lessen the gap between them and the greater ministerials. Second, after 1270 the archbishops themselves must have had a different view of the social structure of the archdiocese. Until then all the archbishops except for Ulrich (1256-65) had belonged to the old free nobility, and several of them like the Babenberg Conrad II and the Wittelsbach Conrad III had been scions of princely dynasties. After 1270 they were either ministerials, like Frederick II of Walchen and Frederick III of Leibnitz, or knights, like Conrad IV of Fohnsdorf.232 Archbishops who were themselves of ministerial or knightly ancestry would have been far more likely than their noble predecessors or the Habsburg dukes to view their fellow ministerials and knights as nobles, and the papal translation of Conrad IV from the bishopric of Lavant to Salzburg in 1291 must have hastened the acceptance of the knights as members of the nobility. Of course, the very selection of ministerials and knights as archbishops is indicative of the extinction of the old nobility and the formation of a new nobility of largely servile ancestry.
Reindel-Schedl, "Die Herren von Wispeck" (see above, n. 128), p. 259. Regesten 1:78, no. 681; 80-83, nos. 614, 629, 631, 633; 2:34, no. 272; SUB 4:484-86, no. 417; UrkundenRaitenhaslach (see above, n. 128), 1:328-29, no. 405. 222 Regesten 1:133-34, no. 1041. 223 Reindel-Schedl, "Die Herren von Wispeck," p. 259. 224 SUB 4:484-86, no. 417; Regesten 1:128, no. 1007. 225 Regesten 1:128, no. 1007; 135, no. 1056. 226 Regesten 1:110, no. 855. 227 Regesten 2:93, no. 795. 228 UrkundenRaitenhaslach, 1:401-2, no. 483. 229 Regesten 2:107-8, no. 929. 230 Regesten 1:985, no. 126; 2:64, no. 522. 231 SUB 1:452-53, no. 368; 498, no. 452; 792, no. 47. 232 For a list of the archbishops, see Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/2:1145-50.
221
220
608
Third, as the designation of prominent ministerials as knights in external sources indicates, chivalric culture was gradually penetrating the archdiocese, perhaps through the ministerials' contacts with the Babenberg court and their participation in crusades. There is a considerable amount of other evidence as well. The archiepiscopal ministerial Ortolf II of Katsch moved from the Lieser valley in Carinthia to southern Styria in the 1180s and built a new castle southeast of Celje, Yugoslavia, which he named Montpreis (today Planina)233 - surely a remarkable example of the penetration of French culture to one of the remotest corners of western Christendom. Although the Friesach tournament of 1224 was a figment of Ulrich of Liechtenstein's fertile imagination,234 discusses at Magnus, the canon who continued the Annales Reicherspergenses, considerable length the tournament held at Graz on December 26, 1195, where Duke Leopold V of Austria broke his leg in a fall from his horse and subsequently died.235 Archbishop Adalbert, who was quickly summoned to the duke's side after the accident, had obviously spent Christmas with his cousin, even though Leopold V was excommunicate for capturing Richard Lion-Heart. The author of the Passio Thiemonisarchiepiscopi,written in the mid-twelfth century, concentrated on Thiemo's martyrdom in Anatolia in 1101;236 Magnus refers to the most elect knights who went on the Third Crusade.237 The Annales sancti RudbertiSalisburgenses describes in vivid detail the glorious martyrdom of the knights at Damietta, a subject of considerable interest in the archdiocese because Duke Leopold VI was one of the leaders of the Fifth Crusade. The Salzburg cathedral canon who wrote the passage included the count of Bogen among the elect knights who died and spoke about the members of the equestrian order.238 The concept of the milesChristi had reached even Salzburg. Chroniclers took an increasing interest in the formal investiture of young princes with their arms - no doubt reflecting the growing interest of society as a whole in this topic. The earliest reference I have found that someone connected with Salzburg had been initiated in this manner is the report of Magnus that the twenty-nine-year-old count of Bad Reichenhall, Gebhard of Wasserburg, untied the belt of knighthood on September 8, 1169, and took the habit in Reichersberg.239 Starting with Otakar IV of Styria in 1180, the chroniclers recorded how various Hohenstaufen, Babenberg, and Wittelsbach
233 Ernst
235
234 Claudia Frass-Ehrfeld, Geschichte Kdrntens, 1: Das Mittelalter(Klagenfurt, 1984), pp. 296-97.
Klebel, Der Lungau: Historisch-politische Untersuchung(Salzburg, 1960), pp. 89-93.
MGH SS 17:521-23. The Annales sancti RudbertiSalisburgensesrecords that more than five hundred people perished in a fire in 1222 during a tournament held in Bozen (today Bolzano) in the neighboring diocese of Brixen: MGH SS 9:782. 236 MGH SS 11:51-62. 237 MGH SS 17:516. 238 MGH SS 9:781. 239 MGH SS 17:495-96. The Annales Admuntenses,MGH SS 9:575, reports that Henry IV was girded with a sword in 1065, but the annals were compiled in the twelfth century, and the passage was borrowed from the Annales Mellicenses.
609
princes were girded with the sword.240 While the princes' companions were also initiated on such occasions,241 the first specific reference to the archbishop's retainers undergoing some form of initiation occurs only in 1297. On the occasion of the christening of the daughter of Duke Albrecht of Austria in Vienna, Archbishop Conrad IV blessed the shields and swords of seven individuals, none of whom were archiepiscopal ministerials.242 Among the individuals who were honored in this fashion were the knight Rudolph of Fohnsdorf, who was the archiepiscopal vidame of Friesach and is described in the Osterreichische Reimchronik as Archbishop Conrad's nearest relative;243 and Dietmar of Breitenfurt, another kinsman of the archson; Rudolph's This bishop.244 undoubtedly contributed to the acceptance of such knightly lineages as the Fohnsdorfs and Breitenfurts as nobles. Finally, on September 28, 1319, on the eve of a battle that was never fought, Archbishop Frederick III and his ally, Duke Frederick of Austria, the Habsburg claimant to the throne, knighted sixty men; and on September 20, 1322, eight days before the decisive battle of Miihldorf, Archbishop Frederick dubbed another eighteen men.245 The new knights included a few descendants of prominent ministerial lineages like Nicholas and Eckart of Tann and Otto and Frederick of Leibnitz, but also such minor ministerials and knights as Ulrich of Wiesbach; Sigiboto of Nopping, whose ancestors had been servile knights of the noble lords of Haunsberg; Eckart Garr, whose forefathers had been the proprii homines of the Gutrats; Johann Pfaffinger and Zachreis der Panicher, who were burghers of Miihldorf;246 and even one of the Tann's own knights. Knighthood had united a diverse group of people, but it was at the very lowest level of noble society and only because the archbishops, unlike the Habsburg dukes of Styria, had asserted their authority over the few surviving lineages of greater ministerials.
240 The Annales sancti Rudberti Salisburgenses reports the following ceremonies: Barbarossa's sons, Henry and Frederick, in 1184 (MGH SS 9:777); Otto II of Bavaria in 1228 (p. 784); Duke Frederick II of Austria in 1232 (p. 785); Dukes Louis II and Henry XIII of Bavaria in 1253 (p. 792). The ChroniconMagni presbiteri,MGH SS 17:519, mentions that Henry VI's brother Conrad and Duke Louis I of Bavaria were girded in 1192. The Continuatio Admuntensis reports the following ceremonies: Otakar IV of Styria in 1180 (MGH SS 9:585); Barbarossa's sons in 1184 (p. 586); Philip of Swabia in 1197 (p. 588); Leopold VI of Austria in 1200 (p. 589); and Otto II of Bavaria in 1228 (p. 593). 241 ChroniconMagni presbiteri,MGH SS 17:519. The ContinuatioWeichardide Polhaim, MGH SS 9:815, reports that Dukes Otto III and Stephen I of Bavaria and two hundred nobles of their land were girded with the sword in 1300. 242 Regesten 2:44, no. 354. 243 Regesten 2:9, no. 73. The exact relationship is unknown. 244 Regesten 2:4, no. 25. See Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:457 und 3:1341, n. 186. 245 RitterweihenderJahre Regesten 3:17-18, no. 174; 33, no. 332. See Wilhelm Erben, Miihldorfer 1319 und 1322, Veroffentlichungen des Historischen Seminars der Universitat Graz 12 (Graz, 1932). 246 Dopsch, Geschichte Salzburgs, 1/1:407.
610
It is simply not true that "all alike, high and low," called themselves, as Keen says, "from some time in the twelfth century ... milites"or that, as Arnold asserts, "ministerialiswas a scribal experiment of the eleventh century which prevailed early in the twelfth century as the label for 'unfree knight' everywhere in Germany." In the archdiocese of Salzburg miles was occasionally employed before the Investiture Contest for a free vassal, but miles became during the Hohenstaufen period the technical term for the servile retainer of a untitled nobleman or of a ministerial, as Zallinger pointed out in 1878. Nobles and the greater ministerials were not styled milites in twelfthcentury Salzburg. Not until the late thirteenth century did miles become an acceptable designation for the greater ministerials. It is wrong, therefore, to equate ministerials with knights or to think that knighthood bridged the chasm between the nobility and the ministerials in southeastern Germany. The knights, men who did not have their own vassals, occupied instead the lowest rung in the Heerschildordnung.The spread of a common chivalric culture made it easier, however, for the few surviving lineages of greater archiepiscopal ministerials, hard pressed by the archbishops, to combine with the knights into a single estate in Salzburg; but the greater ministerials and the knights belonged to separate estates in Styria. In neither case was knighthood a step on the ministerials' road from servitude to the nobility. While the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model does appear to explain what happened in some German-speaking territories, for example, Baden, it is extremely dangerous to generalize for medieval Germany as a whole. A scholar must be thoroughly familiar with conditions in a specific territory or run the risk of misinterpreting the evidence, particularly if he is looking for evidence throughout the country that will fit a particular paradigm. For example, Arnold, who investigated in his dissertation the ministerials in the diocese of commitment to Eichstatt,247 argued that one consequence "of the ministeriales' . .. the to values was attached importance knightly growing knightly descent as such, the sense of noble family of which ministeriales were becoming He cited as proof the 1223 charter in which Archbishop aware. ...248 Eberhard II granted the knightly lineages who belonged to thefamilia of the last count of Dornberg the status of archiepiscopal ministerials: "et nos ipsius familiam in hoc honoravimus, ut omnes ammodo de militari prosapia inter nostros nomine et iure ministerialium censeantur."249 In fact, Eberhard was simply distinguishing between those members of the Dornbergfamilia who had provided the count with military service and those who had not and conferring the status of archiepiscopal ministerials upon the former. There is not the slightest hint of a linkage between knightly descent and noble status; if anything, knightly service had elevated these Dornberg retainers to the rank
247 "Ministeriales and the Development of Territorial Lordship in the Eichstatt Region, 11001350" (Oxford, 1972). 248 GermanKnighthood,p. 136. 249 SUB 3:310-12, no. 783.
611
of lesser archiepiscopal ministerials, and none of them appears to have risen further in the archbishop's service. Instead of relying upon the Guilhiermoz-Bloch model to explain the formation of the nobility in the archdiocese, particularly in the ecclesiastical principality, it is more appropriate to say that there were three groups of nobles in Salzburg between the tenth and fourteenth centuries: the old free nobility, which had virtually disappeared by 1200; the ministerials, who composed the de facto nobility of the Hohenstaufen period; and the knights of the later Middle Ages. As Karl Bosl has pointed out, new groups rose periodically through service out of the ranks of the servile population.250 In essence, the milites repeated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the process by which the ancestors of the ministerials had separated themselves from the familia between 950 and 1050. Just as the few surviving noble lineages, like the Walchens, were forced to enter the archiepiscopal ministerialage, so the last of the great ministerial lineages merged with the knights. Knighthood did eventually help to integrate the nobility of the ecclesiastical principality into a single estate, but it was at the lowest stratum of noble society. Salzburg was not "typical" - after all, there were significant differences between it and even Styria - but it is of intrinsic interest to know what miles meant in the largest ecclesiastical principality south of the Main. Only after we have comparable studies of other territories will we be able to generalize about the relationship between nobles, ministerials, and knights in Germany.
250"Vorstufen der deutschen Konigsdienstmannschaft (Begriffsgeschichtlich-prosopographische Studien zur fruhmittelalterlichen Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte)," Frihformen der Gesellschaft(see above, n. 18), pp. 228-76.
John B. Freed is Professor in the Departmentof History, Illinois State University,Normal, IL 61761.

Freed Salzburg Ministeriales

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Deskripsi Asli:

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Freed Salzburg Ministeriales

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Medieval Academy of America

SPECULUM 62/3 (1987)

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights in the Archdiocese of Salzburg

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

SUB 3:327-28, no. 799.

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Klebel, Der Lungau: Historisch-politische Untersuchung(Salzburg, 1960), pp. 89-93.

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Nobles, Ministerials, and Knights

Anda mungkin juga menyukai