Johann Rode von Wale

Johann Rode von Wale ( – 4 December 1511, Vörde; distinguished from his namesake uncle as Johann Rode the Younger; also Johann Roden Bok, or Rhode, Latinised: Iohannes Rufus de Wale) was a Catholic cleric, a Doctor of Canon and Civil Law, a chronicler, a long-serving government official (1468–1497) and as John III Prince-archbishop of Bremen between 1497 and 1511.

Family and early life Rode was born in Bremen. He was a member of a patrician family of Bremen, recorded for holding political offices of the city since the 2nd half of the 13th century. The family was said to be also related by marriage with ministerialis and noble families in the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. Rode's father Heinrich Rode (died 1496) was city councillor in Bremen between 1484 and 1496, his mother Anna was a daughter of Bremen's burgomaster Borchard Vagedes (Vaget/Vagts; died 1512, burgomaster since 1482) and his wife Bartke Brede. His family was most likely also invested in urban real estate, Buden (literally booths), rented out to the non-propertied classes. Rode finished school as baccalaureus in 1464. In 1465, Rode started his studies at the University of Rostock, where he enrolled under Rector Johann Stammel. Henry conveyed the administration of Bremen to vicegerents, among them Günther of Schwarzburg and another of his brothers. However, while the overlordship and all the effort, such as pawning other Bremian estates to finance it, was from the side of the prince-archbishopric, Henry then annexed Lechterseite, regained in 1481, to his preferred Münster. Magnus tried to justify his violent act with the pretence that Wursten used to be Saxon before the imperial deposition of Duke Henry the Lion and the carve-up of his Saxony in 1180, which only brought Magnus' Ascanian dynasty to take the belittled dukedom.

Reign and archiepiscopate After Henry's death in 1496 the enfranchised capitulars wanted a successor rich and thus independent enough and void of any princely aspirations. This was accompanied by the papal invoice, the so-called servitia minuta and servitium commune, the latter making up a third of the annual revenues of a see. The capitulation had been formulated by the cathedral chapter during sede vacante, thus Rode was one of its co-authors. On 14 September, Emperor Maximilian I invested Rode, the confirmed and consecrated archbishop, with the princely regalia, which made him the secular ruler of the prince-archbishopric, holding a vote in the imperial diet and that of the Lower Saxon Circle. ) in order to recover the papal fees, Rode had to realise that a prince-archbishop lacking a local power base cannot assert himself. By reclaiming estates and privileges he had to confront their then holders, causing conflicts with the knightage (Ritterschaft) among ministerialis and nobles.

An external new conflict arose with the ambitious Regent Magnus in Hadeln, who planned a new conquest of Wursten. Rode had prepared for this, he and Hamburg's three burgomasters (upcoming, presiding, and outgoing), Johannes Huge, Hermen Langenbeck and Henning Buring had concluded a defensive alliance on 16 November. On 24 August, Hamburg admonished Rode to maintain the war alliance, finally accusing him for breach of contract in a letter to Hildesheim's Prince-Bishop Bertold of Landsberg. The lansquenet rumoured a Ditmarsian had slain von der Lieth and fled. Hamburg's lansquenets then attacked the uninvolved Ditmarsians and slayed 76 men in their military camp. Having crossed the latter's border the Guard turned westwards into the Bremian prince-archbishopric, by-passing the fortified Buxtehude and Stade, leaving behind a wake of devastation on the countryside and in the monasteries (, Neukloster, both localities of today's Buxtehude, and the Himmelpforten Convent).

Since prince-archiepiscopal forces secured Vörde the Guard circumvented them southerly, not sparing the Zeven nunnery. So the Guard turned northeastwards, looting Neuenwalde Nunnery underways, into Hadeln, repressing the joint forces of Rode and the cities – lacking support by Bremian knights and the Ditmarsians –, recapturing it for Magnus in early 1500. For the Hadelers, however, this invasion meant no less slaughtering, looting and incendiary than for the rural population in the prince-archbishopric.

By early December, Rode had to do what he exactly did not want to do, and had committed not to do in his election capitulation. Without sufficient military forces at his hand Rode turned for help to Duke Henry IV the Elder, who was actually allied with Magnus. In return Rode had to offer appointing Henry's 12-year-old son as his coadjutor, a position usually (as coadiutor cum iure succedendi), and in this case indeed, entailing the succession to the respective see. The free peasants in Stadland and Butjadingen liberated themselves from the Oldenburgian yoke in April 1500. This had deteriorated Rode's finances, who had to borrow 8,314 guilders from different creditors, many members of the cathedral chapter, and pawned them all the prince-archiepiscopal castles except of his residential castle in Vörde.

In the course of the inquiries for the Vörde Register Rode learned about the fact that the free peasants of Kehdingen had established their own bodies of representation (Hauptleute), and held jurisdiction with their own judges, ignoring the imposed prince-archiepiscopal reeves, about which Rode complained in 1500. In the Vörde Register Rode states that cruelty and pressure of the prince-archiepiscopal bailiffs against the serfs drove many into flight leaving behind deserted villages and untilled land turning into wasteland.

On 1 February, Rode and the cathedral chapter officially appointed Christopher, a foreign prince, as coadjutor. In September 1501, Rode, supported by Wolfenbüttel and Oldenburg, failed to conquer Stadland and Butjadingen for the prince-archbishopric. Also the parapet of the rood screen in the western quire, an important piece of art, was commissioned by Rode and finished by Evert van Roden in 1512. So Rode assured, that neither the East Frisians, aiming at subjecting Butjadingen, nor himself, having failed so far to do so, would take that area.

As to the interior, in 1503 Rode exceptionally broke his self-commitment (as in his election capitulation) of not allowing ministerialis and nobility to build new fortified castles of their own by permitting von der Lieth family to fortify their residence in Niederochtenhausen (a part of today's Bremervörde). Rode tried to prevent the new fortified manor house from becoming a vassal stronghold against him, the liege lord, but in vain, the von der Lieths gradually usurped deserted villages and arable land and settled them with their serfs.

Accompanied by Legate Cardinal Raymond Peraudi, Christopher, simultaneously Prince-Bishop of Verden since 1503, entered the city of Bremen in 1504 and Rode involved him more and more with government affairs. Rode promoted a stronger adherence to the Benedictine rule and stricter claustration. In 1509, at Eytzen's request Rode issued a writ confirming her election and her power in all conventual matters. Stade's burgomaster Claus von der Decken was apparently the only higher-ranking official representing city interests. It includes information about customary law, copies of deeds covering the time between 1160 and 1507, dealing with treaties, decisions, decrees, memoranda, comments and forms used in all three fields of Bremian administration, the religious archdiocese proper, the Ecclesiastical Province of Bremen, and the secular prince-archbishopric. Rode prompted the compilation of similar land books (, Low Saxon: Jördebôke; literally Earth Book), for the possessions in other prince-archiepiscopal areas, which, however, mostly have never been completed or were later lost, except of the one dealing with the southern Elbe Marshes (Altes Land, Hadeln and Kehdingen) and with Wursten.

With the comprehensive registration and listing of all privileges, estates and franchises Rode established a new office, the rent master (Rentmeister), first held by Matthäus von Hoya, in charge of collecting recurrent prince-archiepiscopal revenues. Rode also installed a chancery for the regular prince-archiepiscopal correspondence, and appointed a chancellor, Bertold Rese, a cleric from Mainz, recorded since 1509, thus establishing and stabilising a permanent bureaucracy.

Rode further rationalised the office of the landdrost, with the new incumbent Hermann von Mandelsloh, appointed in consensus with the chapter ("mit weteme und willen des … Capittelss" ) and sworn to strict instructions in 1500.

1497–1499: Balthasar Schulte 1499–1500: Jürgen Bremer 1500–1505: Hermann von Mandelsloh ( Koborch) 1505–1507: vacancy 1507–1510: Martin von Heimburg 1510–1515: vacancy

Legacy Rode's election capitulation became the blue print for those of his successors, repeating most of the contents and adding more restrictions developed from the experiences during the reigns of every deceased incumbent. ) was a Carthusian from the Charterhouse Mariengarten near Prague, recorded for the years 1400–1430. whose third part is also known under the separate title: Viridarium clericorum. Maybe one of the last two namesakes is identical with another Johann Rode, serving definitely until 1481, possibly until 1497, as Catholic priest in Lunden in Ditmarsh, subject to Bremen archdiocese and under Bremen's loose prince-archiepiscopal overlordship, whose work as chronicler shows a good knowledge of Lübeck. Dr. Johann Rode from Stadthagen (Urbin daginaeus), "Summus legatus" of Wittenberg, is mentioned in a work of Marschalkus Thurius in 1522.

Works Johann Rode von Wale (Johann Roden Bok), Johannis Rode Archiepiscopi Registrum bonorum et iurium ecclesiae Bremensis, Richard Cappelle (ed.), Bremerhaven: Heimatbund der Männer vom Morgenstern, 1926. Missale secundum ritum Bremense, Strasbourg: Renatus Beck, 1511