Bertram of Metz
Bertram, born Berthold[a] (died 6 April 1212), was a Saxon nobleman, jurist and prelate of the Holy Roman Empire.
[2] Responding to a complaint brought by Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony, who had initially supported Berthold,[5] Alexander refused to consecrate him and the council revoked his election.
[2][3] His former teacher, Girard la Pucelle, spoke up in his defence calling him "a man arrayed in knowledge, instructed in the liberal arts, learned in both [Old and New] Testaments, expert in decretals and laws".
The county of Metz likewise remained a fief of the bishopric and the count—Albert of Dabo throughout Bertram's episcopate—was also his grand advocate in the city.
[2][3] Probably in 1203 or 1204, certainly by the end of 1207, Bertram had to contend with the new institution of the thirteen jurors (jurés),[c] created by the same established families who controlled the aldermen, the city advocate and the three mayors.
He favoured the deposition of Henry the Lion (1180) and was present when the Peace of Constance between Frederick and the Italian city-states was agreed (June 1183).
Nevertheless, he attended the provincial synod Folmar convoked in Mouzon in February 1187, while Peter of Brixey and Bishop Henry of Verdun stayed away.
[3] In response to Bertram's actions, the emperor seized the bishopric of Metz and placed it in the hands of the ministerialis Werner von Bolanden.
From late 1191 through 1192, he was at the court of Henry VI, except for a short embassy to Rome in mid-1192, where he sought to break Pope Celestine III's alliance with King Tancred of Sicily.
[2] Following the disputed royal election of 1198, Bertram recognized the Staufer candidate, Philip of Swabia, as king and served him in a diplomatic capacity.
[2] In 1202, Pope Innocent III ordered the clergy of the province of Trier to recognize Philip's opponent, Otto IV, as king.
On 12 November, he ordered an inquiry into Bertram's ability to carry out his office given reports of a disease affecting his eyes (he was said to be almost blind).
In a letter of 24 February 1203, Innocent accused Bertram and Bishop John of Cambrai of refusing the legate their cooperation.
[2][6] In 1199, Bertram complained to the pope about the presence in his diocese of lay men and women who preached without a licence and had produced a translation of the Bible into French.
Innocent ordered Bertram to investigate the vernacular translation of the Bible the heretics were using and to submit a report to Rome.
On 9 December, Innocent charged the abbots of Cîteaux, La Crête [fr] and Morimond with aiding in the suppression of the sect.
[6] In September 1206, Albert of Dabo engaged his newborn daughter, Gertrude, to Theobald, heir of Duke Frederick II of Lorraine.
[2] On 9 April 1209, Innocent III asked Archbishop Siegfried II of Mainz to back up Bertram's excommunications with his own.
[2][3] Bertram fell ill at the start of 1210 and convalesced at the abbey of Sainte-Croix de Bouzonville [fr] until the summer.
[2] Bertram wrote a Latin accessus ad auctores to the final chapter, "De regulis juris", of Justinian I's Digest.
[8][6] His interest in legal matters is evident in two letters from Pope Innocent III dated 28 August 1206 responding to questions posed by Bertram regarding whether a Jewish convert in extremis could baptize himself (no) and whether a man who had been unlawfully but unknowingly married to a widow could be ordained a priest (yes).
[2][9] John of Alta Silva dedicated his Dolopathos, a Latin version of the Persian tale of the Seven Wise Masters, to Bertram.
[10] In the later Middle Ages and the early modern period, Bertram was regarded as a great legislator and the chief architect of Metz's unique republican constitution, a view espoused by Philippe de Vigneulles in the 16th century and Bishop Martin Meurisse in the 17th.
This view has been modified by later historians, who recognize Bertram's resistance to the established families as paving the way for the republican constitution but stress his non-republican motives and the larger social forces at work in the Empire at the time.
In 1260, when Bishop Jacques de Lorraine brought the Gesta episcoporum Mettensium down to his time, he did not add to the entry for Bertram's episcopate, leaving the final 23 years of it uncovered.
