Hesse. Eventually he became a Premonstratensian priest.
In 1214 he was commissioned by Pope Innocent III to
press the crusade against the Albigensians, a mandate
which resulted in a series of bloody massacres. Two
years later he appeared as a different type of crusade
preacher, this time as a recruiter of men to participate
in the Fifth Crusade which had been called into being
in 1213 by Pope Innocent. According to the chronicler
Burchard of Ursberg, most recruiting activity slowed
down following the death of Innocent in July 1216,
but Conrad of Marburg and Conrad of Krosigk were
two who apparently continued their efforts without
ceasing.
By 1226 Conrad of Marburg had acquired an infl u-
ential position at the court of Ludwig IV, landgrave of
Thuringia; a year earlier he became the confessor of
Ludwig’s wife, Elizabeth, whom he disciplined with
physical brutality. The prolonged fasts which he pre-
scribed for her eventually wore down her health and
ultimately may have caused her early death, but in the
process she developed a reputation for piety which
served to promote her beatifi cation almost immediately.
Here too, Conrad of Marburg was infl uential, just as he
had been in determining her place of burial at Marburg
where St. Elizabeth’s church soon arose as a fi tting
shrine for her relics.
Conrad had meanwhile obtained another papal
assignment: Pope Gregory IX made him the chief in-
quisitor in Germany, with the mandate to exterminate
heresy, denounce clerical marriages, and reform the
monasteries. His methods were so severe that a plea
went out from the German bishops to have the pope
remove him. Their plea was ignored, however.
In 1233 he took his maniacal inquisition to the fi nal
extreme by accusing one of the highest members of Ger-
man society—Count Henry of Sayn—of various forms
of heretical activity, including such bizarre behavior as
riding on turtles. Henry in turn appealed to a court of his
peers, an assembly of princes. Such a diet, held at Mainz
under the presidency of King Henry VII declared him
innocent. Speaking for the others, Archbishop Dietrich
II of Trier declared that Count Henry was departing
from the session “a free man and a Christian.” Conrad
of Marburg is said to have muttered that, had he been
found guilty, things would have been very different.
The hatred toward Conrad was by now diffi cult to
control. As he and his companions rode away from
Mainz toward Marburg, he was brutally murdered on
July 30, 1233. When news of this event reached Rome,
the pope merely accepted it; no effort was made to pun-
ish the perpetrators. The contemporary chronicles report
that, with the death of Conrad, peace and quiet returned
to Germany once again.
See also Innocent III, Pope
Further Reading
Förg, Ludwig. Die Ketzerverfolgung in Deutschland unter Gregor
IX. Historische Studien 218. Berlin: Ebering, 1932.
Kaltner, Balthasar, Konrad von Marburg und die Inquisition in
Deutschland. Prague: F.Tempsky, A. Haase, 1882.
Maurer, Wilhelm. “Zum Verständnis der heiligen Elisabeth
von Thüringen.” Zeitschrift der Geschichte und Kunst 65
(1953/1954).
Shannon, Albert Clement. The Popes and Heresy in the Thirteenth
Century. Villanova, Pa: Augustinian, 1949.
Paul B. PixtonCONRAD OF URACH (fl. late 12th c.)
Conrad of Urach was the son of Count Egino the
Bearded of Urach; his mother came from the family
of the dukes of Zähringen. His birth fell before 1170.
Apparently determined for a clerical career early on,
he received his training at the cathedral school of Liège
(St. Lambert’s), where his maternal great-uncle, Rudolf
of Zähringen, sat as bishop 1167–1191. At some point
(probably while his uncle was still bishop), Conrad ac-
quired a canonate in the cathedral; in 1196 he appears as
cathedral dean, charged with maintaining order among
the community. That the canons were in need of reform
can be seen from the statutes issued in 1202 by Cardinal
legate Guy Poré. By that time, however, Conrad had
left the chapter.
Conrad’s uncle, Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, was
a candidate for the throne of Germany in the disputed
election which followed the untimely death of Henry
VI in 1197. As guarantees that he would produce the
money needed to secure his election, Berthold offered
his nephews—Conrad and Berthold of Urach—to the
archbishops of Cologne and Trier; meanwhile, most
other German princes had elected Philip of Swabia,
brother of the deceased king. Hearing this, the duke
renounced his claims, but the two archbishops retained
their hostages for some time longer. This use of them
as pawns in the political game of chess apparently had
a profound effect upon both hostages: should they be
released, they vowed to become monks, and, in fact,
both became Cistercians. In 1199, Conrad entered the
Cistercian house at Villers-on-the-Dyle in Brabant.
Meanwhile, on February 1, 1200, Albert of Cuyck,
the successor to Rudolf of Zähringen as bishop of Liège,
died, and the see was left vacant. Part of the cathedral
chapter elected Conrad of Urach, who had not yet made
his fi nal profession at Villers, as bishop; another faction
elected an archdeacon who was studying at Paris at the
time. Conrad renounced any claim to the offi ce, however,
apparently preferring the vita contemplativa (contem-
plative life) to the vita activa (active life) required of
a German prince bishop. He made his fi nal vows at
Villers. His family ties, as well as his obvious abilities,
led to his becoming prior at Villers by ca. 1204, and inCONRAD OF URACH