Lupold of Bebenburg

Who was Lupold of Bebenburg?

Lupold of Bebenburg was the Bishop of Bamberg from 1353, as Leopold III. He is best known for his political writings.

Lupold came of a knightly Frankish family, and studied canon law at Bologna. From 1338 to 1352 he was a member of the chapters of Würzburg and Mainz and dean of St. Severus at Erfurt. In 1353 he was made bishop of Bamberg, and remained there till his death.

In the struggle between Louis the Bavarian and Popes John XXII, Benedict XII, and Clement VI, Lupold was among the jurists who took the emperor's side. His treatise De juribus regni et imperii Romanorum, dedicated to Louis' supporter, the elector Baldwin of Treves, deals less with abstract ideas and Aristotelian politics than with historical considerations.

Two minor works of Lupold's have also been preserved, one in praise of the devotion of the old German princes to the Church, the other a lament over the condition of the Holy Roman Empire.