Adolph II von der Mark (English: Adolph II of the Mark) (August 1288 – Clermont-sur-Meuse, 3 November 1344) was the

Prince-Bishop of Liège A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to '' Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the B ...

from 1313 until his death in 1344. Adolph was the third son of Count Eberhard I of the

Mark Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...

and Mary of Loon. Aged only 25, but through the influence of King

Philip IV of France Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair (), was King of France from 1285 to 1314. Jure uxoris, By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre and Count of Champagne as Philip&n ...

, he became Prince-Bishop of Liège in 1313. The people of the Prince-Bishopric opposed his authoritarian way of ruling. In 1316, he was forced to sign the Peace of Fexhe, which has been compared to ''

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardin ...

'' and which limited his powers. When he tried to revert the treaty, he was forced to flee from Liège to Huy at the end of 1324. From here, he placed Liège under

interdict In Catholic canon law, an interdict () is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits certain persons or groups from participating in particular rites, or that the rites and services of the church are prohibited in certain territories for ...

. In 1333, he sold the Lordship of Mechelen to the Count of Flanders. He intervened in the War of Awans and Waroux and participated in the 1334 siege of Maastricht. When Louis VI of Loon died in 1336 without an heir, he tried to annex the

County of Loon The County of Loon ( , ) was a county in the Holy Roman Empire, which corresponded approximately with the modern Belgian province of Limburg. It was named after the original seat of its count, Loon, which is today called Borgloon. During the mid ...

, but without success. In 1343, his power was reduced further with the creation of the ''Tribunal of the XXII'', an independent court. He died the next year and was succeeded by his nephew Engelbert III of the Marck.

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adolph 02 Of The Marck 1288 births 1344 deaths House of La Marck 14th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the Holy Roman Empire Prince-bishops of Liège