Adolf I. von Dassel

Adolf I. von Dassel (* before 1180; † 1224 ) was Count von Dassel and Ratzeburg and Marshal of Westphalia .

He was the second son of Count Ludolf I von Dassel . Adolf's older brother Ludolf II von Dassel inherited his father as regent of the County of Dassel , and Adolf spent most of his life on military expeditions.

After the overthrow of the Saxon Duke Heinrich the Lion in 1180, Adolf became the first marshal of Westphalia as the feudal man of the Archbishop of Cologne and now Duke of Westphalia , Philip I of Heinsberg . When Heinrich the Lion found a growing following again in 1189, including Count Bernhard II von Ratzeburg , Adolf von Dassel, who during the absence of his cousin Adolf III. von Schauenburg and Holstein administered his land, only holding the city of Lübeck and Segeberg Castle . When Heinrich the Lion approached Lübeck, the citizens, warned by the fate of Bardowick , opened the gates for him without a fight after Adolf von Dassel with his husbands, his mother and the wife of Count Adolf III. free withdrawal was guaranteed. The fighting that broke out again in Holstein in spring 1190 was unfavorable for the Guelphs . An army under the leadership of Count Bernhard II von Ratzeburg, Helmold von Schwerin and the Guelph Truchsessen Jordan von Blankenburg was defeated by Adolf von Dassel.

After the election of double kings in 1198, Adolf initially sided with the Staufer King Philip of Swabia , but switched to the Guelph side around 1204 and was then considered a loyal supporter of Otto IV . He was the last of his family to be close to the king.

Around 1200 he married Adelheid von Wassel , Countess von Ratzeburg, whose first husband, Bernhard II von Ratzeburg, had died in 1198. The couple had the following children:

• Count Ludolf IV of Dassel and Nienover († 1223)
• Adolf III. von Dassel († 1244) ⚭ Elisabeth von Lobdeburg
• Berthold I, Canon in Hildesheim († 1268)
• Adelheid (* 1224; † September 14, 1262/63) ⚭ Johann Jacobsen Galen - 1240 and ⚭ 2.) Ludwig , Count of Ravensberg

Since Bernhard III. von Ratzeburg had only survived his father by a year and had already died before his mother's marriage to Adolf von Dassel, Adolf inherited parts of Wassel's property north of Hildesheim through his marriage to Adelheid and obtained, also through the intercession of Adolf von Schauenburg, the enfeoffment with the county of Ratzeburg by Duke Bernhard of Saxony . But he lost it to the Danish King Knut VI in May 1200 (or 1201) after the lost battle near Waschow . and had to flee.

From 1204 Adolf was a follower of the Guelph King Otto IV, in whose Italian campaign in 1209 he took part. He later took part in the Damiette crusade and then at the side of Albert von Buxthoeven in his struggle for Livonia before he finally returned to his ancestral home and died a few years later.

Fiction

Carl Gottlob Cramer : Adolph the Kühne, Raugraf von Dassel, Weißenfels 1792. This knight novel of the Goethe era , written in dialogue form , was so well received by the readership that between 1792 and 1840 there were five editions and two plays . The work was reprinted in 1979 by Verlag Olms, Hildesheim.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Suibert Seibertz : The land marshal of Westphalia. In: General archive for the history of the Prussian state 1835 p. 63 digitized
2. ^ The PEDIGREE of Adelheid (from) DASSEL. In: RootsWeb.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2007 ; accessed on March 4, 2014 (English). 
3. ^ The PEDIGREE of Jens (Johannes) Jacobsen GALEN. In: RootsWeb.com. Archived from the original on April 1, 2007 ; accessed on March 4, 2014 (English). 

Web links

• Peter von Kobbe: History and description of the country of the Duchy of Lauenburg, First Part , Hammerich, Altona, 1836; photomechanical reprint 1979, Verlag Harro von Hirschheydt, ISBN 3-7777-0062-2 , pp. 234–249 ( digitized version )
• Wilhelm Meyer: Adolf von Dassel, Count of Ratzeburg . In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 76 (1911), pp. 59-68. ( Digitized version )