Synod of Würzburg (1287)

[4] The council and diet were convoked in February 1287 by Cardinal Giovanni Boccamazza, the legate of Pope Honorius IV in Germany, and King Rudolf I for 9 March 1287.

[4] The anticipated financial demands of the legate engendered strong opposition within the German episcopate, led by the archbishop of Cologne, Siegfried II.

The legate was accused of trying to sever the Kingdom of Germany from the Holy Roman Empire and set up a hereditary king, thus negating the rights of the prince electors, which had been recognized by Innocent III in the decretal Venerabilem [de] (1202).

It was attended by bishops from the ecclesiastical provinces of Aquileia, Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, Bremen, Magdeburg, Besançon and Regensburg.

[4] The bishop of Toul, Konrad Probus [de], climbed onto the font to rant at the pope's exorbitant exactions he was asked to pay in both France and Germany.

[10] Because the recess is one of the earliest royal acts drawn up in the vernacular, it gave rise to later traditions that Rudolf made German the legal language of Germany in preference to Latin, but this is not the case.

[7] On 27 March, Rudolf asked the legate on behalf of the diet to excommunicate all rebels who had been under the imperial ban for a year, including Count Guy of Flanders.