Konrad von Marburg

Konrad von Marburg (born c. 1180, probably near Marburg, Thuringia—died July 30, 1233, near Marburg) was the first papal inquisitor in Germany, whose excessive cruelty led to his own death. In 1214 he was commissioned by Pope Innocent III to press his crusade against the Albigenses, a heretical Christian sect flourishing in western Europe. The results of Konrad’s efforts were a succession of bloody massacres. By 1226 he held an influential position at the court of Louis IV, landgrave of Thuringia. A year earlier he had become confessor to Louis’s wife, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, whom he disciplined with physical brutality. In 1231 Elizabeth died, and Pope Gregory IX made Konrad the chief inquisitor in Germany; he was assigned to exterminate heresy, denounce clerical marriage, and reform monasteries. His method was so severe that a plea for his removal was made to Gregory by the German bishops. In 1233 he accused Count Henry II of Sayn (Bendorf-Sayn) of heresy. An assembly of bishops and princes at Mainz declared Henry innocent, but Konrad demanded a reversal of this sentence. As he rode from Mainz, he was murdered. Konrad is portrayed in a verse drama about Elizabeth, The Saint’s Tragedy (1848), by the English author Charles Kingsley.