Melchior Otto Voit von Salzburg

Last updated April 24, 2019

Melchior Otto Voit von Salzburg (1603–1653) was the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg from 1642 to 1653.

The Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire. It goes back to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bamberg established at the 1007 synod in Frankfurt, at the behest of King Henry II to further expand the spread of Christianity in the Franconian lands. The bishops obtained the status of Imperial immediacy about 1245 and ruled their estates as Prince-bishops until they were subsumed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German Mediatisation in 1802.

Biography

Melchior Otto von Voit von Salzburg was born in Eichenhausen, which is today part of Wülfershausen, on 19 June 1603.^[1]

The Free Imperial knights were free nobles of the Holy Roman Empire, whose direct overlord was the Emperor. They were the remnants of the medieval free nobility (edelfrei) and the ministeriales. What distinguished them from other knights, who were vassals of a higher lord, was the fact that they had been granted Imperial immediacy, and as such were the equals in most respects to the other individuals or entities, such as the secular and ecclesiastical territorial rulers of the Empire and the Free Imperial cities, that also enjoyed Imperial immediacy. However, unlike all of those, the Imperial knights did not possess the status of Estates (Stände) of the Empire, and therefore were not represented, individually or collectively, in the Imperial Diet.They tended to define their responsibilities to the Empire in terms of feudalized obligations to the Emperor, including personal service and strictly voluntary financial offerings paid to the Emperor himself.

Wülfershausen is a municipality in the district of Rhön-Grabfeld in Bavaria in Germany. The municipality consists of these two villages: Wülfershausen and Eichenhausen. The township is a member of the administrative community called "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft" Saal an der Saale.

He served as a Landrichter (judge) in Würzburg and later as cantor of Würzburg Cathedral.^[2]

Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia, northern Bavaria, Germany. Located on the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is East Franconian.

Würzburg Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, dedicated to Saint Kilian. It is the seat of the Bishop of Würzburg and has served as the burial place for the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg for hundreds of years. With an overall length of 103 metres, it is the fourth largest Romanesque church building in Germany, and a masterpiece of German architecture from the Salian period. Notable later additions include work by Tilman Riemenschneider and Balthasar Neumann. The cathedral was heavily damaged by British bombs in March 1945 but rebuilt post-World War II.

He was appointed Prince-Bishop of Bamberg on 25 August 1642, with Pope Urban VIII confirming his appointment on 5 May 1643.^[1] He was never consecrated as a bishop, and died with the clerical rank of priest.^[1]

Pope Urban VIII reigned as Pope from 6 August 1623 to his death in 1644. He expanded the papal territory by force of arms and advantageous politicking, and was also a prominent patron of the arts and a reformer of Church missions.

A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight.

As bishop-elect, he founded the Ottoniana Academia (named after his patron saint, Otto of Bamberg), which later became the University of Bamberg.^[2]

Patron saint saint regarded as the tutelary spirit or heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person

A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism or Eastern Orthodoxy, is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family or person.

Saint Otto of Bamberg was Bishop of Bamberg and a missionary who, as papal legate, converted much of medieval Pomerania to Christianity.

The University of Bamberg in Bamberg, Germany, specializes in the Humanities, Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Economics and Applied Computer Science.

He died on 4 January 1653.^[1]

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The Diocese of Passau is a Roman Catholic diocese in Germany that is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. It should not be confused with the Prince-Bishopric of Passau, an ecclesiastical principality that existed for centuries until it was secularized in 1803. The diocese covers an area of 5,442 km².

The Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire located in Lower Franconia west of the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg. Würzburg had been a diocese since 743. As definitely established by the Concordat of 1448, bishops in Germany were chosen by the canons of the cathedral chapter and their election was later confirmed by the pope. Following a common practice in Germany, the prince-bishops of Würzburg were frequently elected to other ecclesiastical principalities as well. The last few prince-bishops resided at the Würzburg Residence, which is one of the grandest baroque palaces in Europe.

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Philipp Valentin Albrecht Voit von Rieneck (1612–1672) was the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg from 1653 to 1672.

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Georg Karl Ignaz Freiherr von Fechenbach zu Laudenbach (1749–1808) was the last Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, holding office from 1795 until 1803, when the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg was mediatised to the Electorate of Bavaria. He continued to serve as Bishop of Würzburg, though without temporal power, until his death. He was also Bishop of Bamberg from 1805 until his death.

Balthasar von Dernbach, was a Benedictine monk of Fulda monastery and its Prince-Abbot from 1570 to 1606.

The Würzburg Bishops' Conference of 1848 was a four-week workshop of the German Catholic bishops in Würzburg. It can be regarded as the birth of the German and Austrian bishops' conferences.

Georg Arnold was an Austrian composer and organist.

Georg Mengel was a German composer. After service in the army from 1640 he was Kapellmeister to Fürstbischof Melchior Otto Voit von Salzburg at the court of the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg.

Gößweinstein Castle, also called Schloss Gößweinstein, is a mediaeval hilltop castle in Gößweinstein in the county of Forchheim in the German state of Bavaria. It towers high above the market town and the River Wiesent and may have been the inspiration for Richard Wagner's grail castle in his opera, Parsifal. The castle is a Bavarian listed building, no. D-4-74-129-10.

References

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Franz von Hatzfeld	Prince-Bishop of Bamberg 1642–1653	Succeeded by Philipp Valentin Albrecht Voit von Rieneck

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