Berthold (patriarch of Aquileia)

Berthold^[1] (c. 1180 – 23 May 1251) was the Count of Andechs (as Berthold V) from 1204, the Archbishop of Kalocsa from 1206 until 1218, and from 1218 the Patriarch of Aquileia until his death.

He was a younger son of the Bavarian count Berthold IV of Andechs, who was elevated to a Duke of Merania by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in 1183. His mother was Agnes of Rochlitz, a member of the Saxon Wettin dynasty. Among his siblings were Duke Otto I of Merania, French queen consort Agnes of Merania, Hungarian queen consort Gertrude of Merania, and Saint Hedwig of Silesia.

Berthold, chosen for an ecclesiastical career, became provost at the cathedral chapter of the Archdiocese of Bamberg in 1203. He followed his sister Gertrude to the Hungarian court under King Andrew II, who in 1206 had his brother-in-law elected Archbishop of Kalocsa. However, the appointment was not acknowledged by Pope Innocent III in 1212, until Berthold had applied himself to intense study in the Diocese of Vicenza. Nevertheless King Andrew also made him Ban of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia, and even Voivode of Transylvania and the king's deputy in 1212. His undue preference at the instigation of his sister disgusted the Hungarian magnates. In 1213, while the king was on a campaign to Galicia–Volhynia, they dared a raid into a queen's hunting camp and murdered Getrude and several of her liensmen, while Berthold narrowly escaped with his life with Leopold VI of Austria.

On 10 February 1218 Pope Honorius III appointed him Patriarch of Aquileia. In 1238 Berthold moved the capital of the ecclesiastical state from Cividale to Udine, where he gave orders to erect a cathedral. He secured his position being a loyal supporter of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II against the Italian cities of the Lombard League. However, in the fierce conflict between the emperor and Pope Gregory IX, his loyalty earned him a papal excommunication in 1239, which nevertheless was revoked two years later upon the intercession by King Andrew II of Hungary. In his later years, Betroldo tried to arbitrate between Emperor and Pope, though ultimatively to no avail.

With Berthold's death, his line of the counts of Andechs became extinct. He was also the last in a long line of German Patriarchs of Aquileia. His successor Gregorio di Montelongo had led a Guelph coalition against Emperor Frederick II.

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