Gerhard of Mainz

Gerhard of Eppstein was Archbishop of Mainz, made two kings of Germany and unmade one of them. As archbishop he held one of the seven electoral votes and the arch-chancellorship of the empire, and he used both as assets to be traded rather than offices to be discharged. After Rudolf of Habsburg's death he opposed the succession of Rudolf's son Albert, whom he judged too strong, and in 1292 engineered the election of Adolf of Nassau - a count of no great lands or income, and therefore no great threat. The price was set out in writing: castles, tolls, territorial concessions and cash, in a set of promises so extensive that Adolf could not have kept them and remained a king. Adolf did not keep them. He took English subsidies for a war against France he never fought, used the money to buy Thuringia and Meissen instead, and made himself a territorial prince at the expense of every arrangement Gerhard had made. In 1298 Gerhard assembled the same electors, declared Adolf deposed for breach of his obligations, and had Albert of Habsburg elected in his place - the man he had blocked six years earlier. Adolf was killed at Gollheim weeks later fighting Albert in person. Gerhard then quarrelled with Albert too, over the Rhine tolls, and joined the archbishops' league against him. He died in 1305, having demonstrated that the German crown was in the gift of the electors and worth whatever they could extract for it. His family, the lords of Eppstein, produced four archbishops of Mainz across the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The written promises Adolf gave him survive and are among the clearest evidence of how an imperial election was actually bought. No German king was deposed by the electors again until Wenceslaus in 1400.

• Nationality: German
• Roles: religious, politician