Friedrich III. von Saarwerden
Frederick of Saarwerden was Archbishop of Cologne / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frederick von Saarwerden (c. 1348 in Saarwerden - April 9, 1414 in Bonn) was archbishop-elector of Cologne as Frederick III from 1370 to 1414. Through the promotion of his great-uncle, Archbishop Kuno II of Falkenstein of Trier, Frederick von Saarwerden was elected archbishop of Cologne at the age of 20, which the Pope in Avignon also confirmed two years later after some misgivings. Frederick found the archbishopric completely plundered by his two predecessors of the County of Mark, Adolf and Engelbert, and had himself promised high payments to the Curia on the occasion of his election. Nevertheless, with the help of his very rich great-uncle Kuno, he succeeded in paying off the debts of the archbishopric within a few years.
Frederick von Saarwerden supported Emperor Charles IV and was therefore granted privileges by him that supported Frederick's policy of rule. Right at the beginning of his term of office, he successfully suppressed hereditary conflicts among the landed nobility as well as autonomy efforts in the towns of the archdiocese, thus asserting his sovereign supremacy, which was not challenged again until the end of his reign. However, he was unable to take advantage of a conflict within the city of Cologne between the city council and the juryman over high justice to renew the position of power in the city lost by his predecessors. The dispute, which was ultimately also conducted militarily with the participation of neighboring princes, ended with a compromise in 1377.
Frederick was able to expand the territorial holdings of the archdiocese. Even before Frederick took office, Kuno von Falkenstein, as diocesan administrator, had acquired the County of Arnsberg in 1368. Frederick was able to secure this acquisition as well as the gain of the land of Linn on the Lower Rhine in three feuds against the two brothers of the counts Adolf and Engelbert of the Mark. His work as a territorial ruler can hardly be overestimated, even though his initiatives in imperial or ecclesiastical politics were pushed into the background.
When Frederick III von Saarwerden died in 1414, he left a rich and well-ordered archbishopric and lordship to his nephew and successor, Dietrich II of Moers.[1]