Dietrich Man, known as Dietrich II, was Bishop of Havelberg from 1370 to 1385.

Biography

The Man family, though not noble, were prominent in the

Prignitz Prignitz () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the northwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring are (from the north clockwise) the district Ludwigslust-Parchim in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the district Ostprignitz-Ruppin in Brandenburg, th ...

, which lay within the Diocese of Havelberg, and closely connected with the local nobility. Dietrich's grandfather Johann Man married, first, a widow of Ivan von Below, and the children by this marriage inherited von Below estates. The second wife, Dietrich's grandmother, was a sister of Ruthger III

von Blumenthal The von Blumenthal family are Lutheran and Roman Catholic German nobility, originally from Brandenburg-Prussia. Other (unrelated) families of this name exist in Switzerland and formerly in Russia, and many unrelated families (quite a few of them Je ...

, whose family remained close to the Man family. His father was Ruthger Man, mentioned in documents of 1313–18. Man was appointed to the

Bishopric of Havelberg The Bishopric of Havelberg (german: Bistum Havelberg) was a Roman Catholic diocese founded by King Otto I of Germany in 946, from 968 a suffragan to the Archbishops of Magedeburg. A Prince-bishopric (''Hochstift'') from 1151, Havelberg as a res ...

in 1370. This was a lawless period in the history of the Prignitz, and the bishops had constant armed conflict with the local barons. One of these, Heinrich von Bülow, known as Big Head, burned down the diocesan village of

Wilsnack Bad Wilsnack (until 1929 Wilsnack) is a small town in the Prignitz district, in Brandenburg, Germany. The former pilgrimage site of the Holy Blood of Wilsnack has been officially recognised as a spa town (''Bad'') since 1929. It is the administrati ...

. The parish priest found that, on the high altar of his ruined church, was a sacrarium containing three consecrated hosts, which not only had been unharmed by the fire, but now were spotted with blood. Bishop Dietrich came to consecrate the hosts so as to ensure that no unconsecrated host was accidentally being venerated idolatrously, but, so the story goes, the host overflowed with blood before he could say the

words of consecration The Words of Institution (also called the Words of Consecration) are words echoing those of Jesus himself at his Last Supper that, when consecrating bread and wine, Christian Eucharistic liturgies include in a narrative of that event. Eucharistic ...

. Miracles were soon attributed to the

Holy Blood of Wilsnack The Holy Blood of Wilsnack was the name given to three hosts, which survived a fire in 1383 that burned the church and village to the ground. The hosts were thus seen as miraculous. The relics became the destination of medieval religious pilgrim ...

, which soon became one of the most important places of pilgrimage in Europe, exceeding even Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem for numbers of pilgrims.

References

*Wentz, Gottfried: ''Die Bistümer der Kirchenprovinz Magdeburg: Das Bistum Havelberg'', part of ''Germania Sacra''. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1933. Reprinted 1963.
pp. 58–59
14th-century German Roman Catholic bishops {{Germany-RC-bishop-stub