Adolf II (mountain)

Adolf II von Berg (* 1090s; first documented mention 1115–1160; † October 12, 1160–1170 in Odenthal - Altenberg ) was Count von Berg from 1115 to 1160 .

Life

Adolf II was a son of Count Adolf I von Berg from the Berg-Altena dynasty . After the death of his father in 1106, Adolf took over the county of Berg. He first appeared in a document in 1115 as Count von Berg. At this point he was already the bailiff of the Benedictine abbey in Werden and was around 20 years old. From 1125 he was Vogt of Siegburg Abbey . Later he was also Vogt of the Dünnwald Monastery , the Deutz Abbey , the Cappenberg Monastery and the properties of the Cologne Cathedral Foundation on the right bank of the Rhine. By 1120 at the latest he married the daughter Adelheid of the Count von Arnsberg and expanded and consolidated the property of his noble family in Westphalia . Adelheid died before 1131. Adolf may have had a son with her:

• Adolf (* 1120–1125; † July 28, 1148 during the siege of Damascus during the Second Crusade ).

However, it cannot be proven with certainty that this son Adolf was a son of Adelheid. It is possible that this son Adolf came from his father's second marriage. In 1131 at the latest, Adolf II married a niece of the Archbishop of Cologne Friedrich I von Schwarzenburg , possibly Irmgard, a daughter of Engelbert von Schwarzenburg. The following children were from this marriage:

• Eberhard (also Everhard ) (* / † unknown; documented mention 1144–1174), from 1161 to 1180 Count von Altena .
• Friedrich (* 1121–1125; † December 15, 1156 in Pavia , Lombardy ), was Archbishop of Cologne from 1156 to 1158 .
• Engelbert (* unknown; first documented mention 1152–1189; † beginning of July 1189 near Kovin , Serbia ), was Count von Berg from 1161 to 1189.
• Bruno (also Brun ) (* no later than 1140; † after 1193 as a monk in Altenberg Monastery ), was Archbishop of Cologne from 1191 to 1193 after various provost positions.
• Adolf (* hardly before 1148 and at the latest 1150; documented 1192–1197; † unknown)

Adolf II was the founder of Burg Castle ( novus mons ), which he moved into at the earliest in 1140, perhaps not until 1160. In 1133 he handed over the old ancestral castle of the Counts of Berg, Berge Castle in Odenthal - Altenberg , to the Cistercian order . Until the completion of Burg Castle, he resided at Altena Castle , which he had expanded in 1152, and Hövel Castle . The control of the Hanseatic trade routes between Cologne and Dortmund as well as the silver wealth of the Bergisches Land, which is documented by coinage from the second third of the 11th century, was of great economic and political importance for the county of Berg . Adolf II von Berg also had coins struck in Wildberg, Bensberg and Siegburg.

It is possible that Adolf II, like other German princes, also took part in the Second Crusade . His eldest son Adolf can be proven as a crusader; he fell in 1148 during the unsuccessful siege of Damascus. In 1160 Adolf II divided his county and passed it on to his sons Everhard and Engelbert . He then entered the Altenberg monastery as a converse . This behavior is very unusual for a monarch. Most of the time they carried their titles to the last anointing and did not give them up beforehand to become monks. For example, it is said of Emperor Friedrich II that he put on the Cistercian habit on his deathbed and died as such. It is possible that Adolf's brother Everhard , who became a monk in the Cistercian monastery Morimond in 1129 and acted as abbot in the Georgenthal monastery near Gotha in Thuringia from 1143, had a greater influence on Adolf II in this decision. Adolf II probably died on October 12, 1170 and was first buried in the Markuskapelle , Altenberg's oldest building from the year 1125. After the transept of the Altenberg Cathedral was completed, the remains were transferred to the cathedral for the funeral of Provost Konrad in 1313.

literature

• Alexander Berner: Crusade and regional rule. The older counts of Berg 1147–1225 , Böhlau, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22357-1 .
• Thomas R. Kraus : The emergence of the sovereignty of the Counts of Berg up to 1225 . (= Bergische Forschungen . Volume 16.) Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 1981, ISBN 3-87707-02-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas R. Kraus: The emergence of the sovereignty of the Counts of Berg up to the year 1225 , (= Bergische Research . Volume 16.) Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 1981, p. 35.
2. ^ Wilhelm Janssen: The Bergisches Land in the Middle Ages . In: Stefan Gorißen, Horst Sassin u. Kurt Wesoly (Ed.): History of the Bergisches Land. Until the end of the old duchy in 1806 . tape 1 . Bielefeld 2014, p. 42 .
3. ↑ Chronica regia Coloniensis, ed. G. Waitz, p. 84.

predecessor	Office	successor
Adolf I.	Count von Berg 1115–1160	Engelbert I.
-	Count of Altena 1115–1160	Eberhard I.