Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/203

Rh The remaining coat, a wolf salient, is not so easy to assign. The arms of the Bishopric of Passau are—Argent, a wolf salient gules; and those of a Silesian family, Wolfen, are given in the Wappenbuch as—Or, a wolf salient, probably proper, as no colour is given.

The prelate commemorated by the other brass, Rudolph, the first Bishop of Breslau of the name, bore an active and distinguished part in the political and ecclesiastical transactions of his time in Poland, Bohemia, and Silesia.

He is said to have been a native of Rüdisheim, on the Rhine, and of good family, but though Dlugossi says that his father's name was Henry, and his mother's Catherine, he appears not to have known his family name, nor is the information to be found either in the Series Epism Wratm of Henelius von Hennenberg, or in the anonymous lives before referred to. He seems to have gone early to Rome, as at the age of twenty-four he was Auditor of the Rota, soon after Auditor Cameræ: according to Henelius, he was chosen Auditor Cameræ at the Council of Basle. He was Referendarius to the Popes Pius the Second and Paul the Second, and afterwards Bishop of Lavamund in Cariuthia. After the election of George of Podiebrad in 1459 to the crown of Bohemia, the Silesian Magnates and the City of Breslau, on account of his leaning to the Hussite opinions, refused to recognise him as King; and about this time Rudolph seems to have been sent as legate to Breslau. In 1466, he appears as the chief agent in the conclusion of peace between Casimir the Fourth of Poland and the Teutonic Knights; the conditions of this peace were very favourable to the former, and in token of his gratitude the King offered to Rudolph many valuable gifts, among which are enumerated four silver dishes and two basins, four hundred florins in gold, four gilt cups, many garments of purple or scarlet lined with sable and martin, fine horses, &c. These, however, he refused; but he afterwards accepted a pension of 200 florins per annum, assigned to him from the salt mines of Cracow or Bochnia, and the title of Conciliarius Regius.

In the same year the Pope (Paul the Second) excommunicated George Podiebrad, and pronounced his deposition from the throne of Bohemia. In 1467, an assembly of the Bohemian magnates of the Roman Catholic party was held at Iglau, by direction of the Pope, and in this Casimir was elected King of Bohemia, to which dignity he had indeed some claim through his wife. The office of tendering the crown of Bohemia was deputed to Rudolph, but to his vexation the King of Poland, after much deliberation and consulting the diet, determined to decline the offer.

In 1471, upon the vacancy of the see of Breslau, he was chosen bishop and held that dignity until his death in 1482. During that period he was actively employed either in the affairs of his church, or in various embassies and negotiations between the Teutonic Knights and the King of Poland, and Matthias Corvinus and the Emperor Frederic.