Ruprecht of the Palatinate

Who is Ruprecht of the Palatinate?

Ruprecht of the Palatinate was the Archbishop and Prince Elector of Cologne from 1463 to 1480.

He was the third son of Louis III, Count Palatine of the Rhine, by his second wife, Matilda of Savoy. He renounced his claim to lands of the Palatinate and studied for holy orders at the universities of Heidelberg and Cologne. He was a canon in the Mainz Cathedral and then became subdeacon of the cathedral chapter at Cologne and cathedral provost at Würzburg.

Ruprecht was elected Archbishop of Cologne on 30 March 1463, but not confirmed by the Pope until August 1464 and not consecrated until Palm Sunday 1468. He only received the episcopal regalia from the Holy Roman Emperor in August 1471. Chosen for his family connections, he faced the challenge of guarding the Electorate of Cologne against diminution of its powers while solving its internal problems, in particular the shortage of income from being denied the toll income from the most important Rhine trading towns, which had been mortgaged by his predecessor, Dietrich II von Moers, to raise money for war. He was required to agree to 23 articles presented by the cathedral chapter limiting his financial options which the chapter and the Estates had agreed upon four days before his election, and to the chapter holding the important trading town of Zons as a pledge of his good behaviour.