Berthold II of Bucheck

Berthold de Bucheck (13?? - Molsheim 1353) entered the Ordre Teutonique, where already his/her father, the count Henri de Bucheck, locality close to Soleure, had been made admit at the end of his life. Very quickly, from important missions will be to him entrusted, and he became Commandeur with Coblentz.

Biography

In 1328, the pope Jean XXII named Berthold de Bucheck with the head office of Strasbourg, six months after being become bishop of Spire. He asked the archbishop Mainz to protect his rights. On its side, the Large-Chapter, especially composed of noble, men of the church, which had risen with this row, thanks to their fortune, had elected his Gebhard provost of Freiburg.

Become Large Commander about the Teutoniques Knights, for the bailliage of Souabe-Alsace-Burgundy, Berthold had a power financial and military considerable, likely to impose some, at the same time, with the Magistrate of Strasbourg and his Large-Chapter. So it succeeds in making cancel, by this one, the election of its candidate and making approve his own candidacy.

December 11th, 1328, it made its entry in the city, with six hundred knights teutonic. In order to restore the ecclesiastical discipline, it fought the spirit of the world vigorously, in the clergy. He convened a Synode diocesan, and issued that all the clerks bénéficières were to be made order, before exerting their ministry. This measurement was worth the savage opposition of the Large-Chapter to him, of which one of its members, Conrad de Kirkel, which had however argued in favor of Berthold, when the Chapter-Cathédral, had elected Gebhard of Freiburg, came from there to make remove the bishop by men-at-arms.

Berthold was thus imprisoned during sixteen weeks, initially with the Château of Waldeck, near of Sarreguemines, and possession of the lords of Kirkel-Saarwerden, then in that of Kirkel, near of Double-decker, in the Palatinat. It was released only against ransom.

The pope had to intervene to break the capitulation that the Great Chapter had imposed to him. It is under the episcopate of Berthold that the Black Death, coming from Switzerland, devastated all the country, of Basle with Wissembourg, progressing unrelentingly, towards north, throughout the year 1349. It is admitted that it mowed approximately one the third of the population.

In 1340, it built a vault dedicated to holy Catherine, in the low southern part of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, which it intended like place of burial. Holy Elisabeth of Hungary, very venerated by the Order Teutonique, figure on a stained glass. The weapons of the bishop are represented on a lintel above a door and also on a stained glass.

The Berthold bishop died in Molsheim, on November 24th, 1353, to have shortly after received the visit of the emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg (1316-1378).

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