Jordan of Osnabrück
German political writer

Jordan of Osnabrück (c. 1220 – 15 April 1284) was a political writer of the 13th century from the Holy Roman Empire. He is known for his work De praerogativa Romani imperii. Antony Black writes: "In the tracts written between c. 1250 and c. 1281 by Jordan of Osnabrück and Alexander of Roes [...] it was claimed that divine dispensation had allotted the empire to Germans via Charlemagne."
He died at Osnabrück.
Notes
External links
Heinrich Koch (1992). "Jordanus von Osnabrück". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German).
The public source identifies “Jordan of Osnabrück” as german political writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jordan, Osnabrück and German.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q820981. VIAF identifies the subject as 309873227. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1220, 1284, 1250 and 1281.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jordan of Osnabrück” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.