Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, b. 18 March, 1545, in the Castle of
Mespelbrunn, Spessart (Bavaria); d. 13 Sept., 1617, at Würzburg.
Descended from an ancient family in the service of the
archbishops of Mainz, he received a good education in the
schools of that city, also at Louvain, Douai, Paris, Angers,
Pavia, and Rome; it was in Rome that he became a licentiate of
canon and civil law. In 1567 he entered on his duties as canon
of Würzburg, an office to which he had been appointed in 1554;
in 1570 he became the dean of the cathedral chapter, and in
1573, at the age of twenty-eight, even before his ordination to
the priesthood, was appointed Prince-Bishop of Würzburg. Various
causes had combined to bring the diocese into a sad state.
Deeply in debt and poorly administered, it had an almost
entirely Protestant population. The clergy, in point of virtue
and learning, were for the most part unequal to their task, and
the cathedral chapter was adverse to any ecclesiastical reform.
During the first ten years of Echter'