Albrecht I of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg

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Count Albrecht I of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg († around 1365 ) was a count who descended from the Count Palatine of Tübingen through the Counts of Montfort .

Live and act

Count Albrecht I was the youngest son of eleven children of Hugo II von Werdenberg-Heiligenberg and Eufemia von Ortenburg and great-grandson of Rudolf I von Montfort-Werdenberg († 1243). Due to his close connection with the Duke and King Albrecht I , his father, Hugo II, felt compelled to name the youngest of his three sons Albrecht, and he was particularly outstanding.

Albrecht I first appears as a witness in a document dated August 25, 1308. Like his older brother and his Sargansian cousins, Albrecht, following the customs of his house, initially worked with the Austrian dukes and took the side of Frederick the Fair . Afterwards, however, he knew how to do no less well in his long career with Ludwig the Bavarian and Charles IV . By King and Emperor Ludwig he was appointed Imperial Bailiff around Lake Constance and Imperial Bailiff of the countries of Uri , Schwiz and Unterwalden (Albrecht documents these titles in 1327 and 1331), and King Charles IV appointed him capitaneus et defensor episcopi Tridentini in 1348 . After Johannes von Winterthur , Albrecht went several times with King John of Bohemia against the pagans, distinguished himself with very special bravery, brought home a distinguished, young pagan from these trains and looked after them in the convent in Bludenz.

If participation in such journeys suggests a desire for adventure, the way in which Albrecht knew how to use his high connections to expand and round off his rule testifies to clever calculation and political understanding. His plan emerges unmistakably from this, following the castle and town of Rheineck , which had previously been pledged by the rich to the Werdenberg family, above all a secure, permanent position between the Counts of Montfort and the abbot of St. Gallen, his most powerful and powerful most dangerous neighbors and rivals, and at the same time a better and more secure connection between his home country in the upper Rhine valley and the rulership of Heiligenberg. In 1344 he had the imperial bailiwick over most of what would later become the Appenzell region and the immediate vicinity of the St. Gallen monastery pledged for 600 marks of silver “for the service and damage that he had done in Bavaria” .

Abbot Hermann hastened to remove the threatening danger of becoming dependent on Werdenberg by paying the pledge to Albrecht and to have 600 Marks struck in the Bailiwick for himself for service obligations he entered into towards the emperor (1345). In 1347, however, Albrecht succeeded in acquiring the Reichsvogtei Rheintal with the town of Altstätten and the beautiful Kehlhof Valley with the associated court, directly near Rheineck, as pledges for which no early redemption was to be feared. These acquisitions must have been all the more unpleasant for the Montfort family since they were preceded as early as 1330 by that of the old county in the Allgäu, now called the Eglof , which lies behind them . It is likely that the acquisition of the Wartau lordship above Werdenberg with the stately Wartau Castle goes back to Albrecht, who thus moved the Counts of Sargans closer and also strengthened his position against them. On the other hand, he sold his property, which was in the Toggenburg sphere of influence, which harbored the risk of conflict with the energetic sex and, given its exposed position, would hardly have been tenable in such a case.

The Werdenberg-Heiligenberg family seemed to be more powerful than ever around the middle of the 14th century, all the more solid when Albrecht I had been the only one of his tribe since 1334 and united all of their power in his hands. It might well have suffered major and minor mishaps from time to time without any serious endangerment in the many rifts that the restless man got into one after the other with almost all the neighbors in his diverse areas.

But even in the last few years of Albrecht I, the decisive turn in the fate of the house was being prepared. It had risen after Habsburg Austria; it was to go under because of the opposition to Habsburg Austria.

In November 1355 there was a first violent dispute with Duke Albrecht II of Austria because Count Albrecht von Werdenberg-Heiligenberg had joined the Bishop of Constance against the Duke. Heiligenberg was hard pressed by the Austrian Vogt and the forecourt of the castle was taken. But the opponents reconciled themselves again in January 1356 - probably through the mediation of the emperor - and this first clash with Austria could be regarded as a swift and without further consequence temporary feud, as it was common at the time. It was even more alarming when Albrecht got into open war with the Counts of Montfort-Feldkirch in January 1360 over the legacy of the Montfort- Toster line, which died out in the male line on March 29, 1359 . Count Rudolf III presented himself. von Feldkirch and his sons under the protection of the far-sighted Duke Rudolf IV of Austria , in order to secure themselves against the revenge of the Werdenbergs for the attack on the areas on the left bank of the Rhine and their devastation. With all their celebrations, people and goods they committed themselves to service and obedience to the duke, against which he instructed his governor in Swabia and Alsace to shield them against Albrecht I of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg and his son Albrecht II of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg and To force the two counts to surrender the two daughters and goods of the last count of Montfort-Tosters that they had taken into their hands.

But this did not happen. An Austrian army did not appear in these upper lands, and a lucky coup d'état by the young Albrecht II, Albrecht I's only son, led to a happy outcome of the bitter struggle for the Werdenbergs. In July 1361, Albrecht II succeeded in catching Count Rudolf von Montfort-Feldkirch with his eldest son Ulrich on Lake Constance when they wanted to travel from Arbon to Lindau . In order to regain freedom, they had to agree to a peace in which the Werdenbergers got back everything they had lost and asserted their claims to Toster's legacy. So Albrecht I could end his days in peace; But the Werdenberg rule was severely shaken and weakened by the Montfort War, the counts were embroiled in great financial difficulties and lawsuits, and the close connection that had been initiated between the Montforters, who were now even more hostile to them, took on an all the more threatening form as the latter had grown so enormously The encompassing house not only took over the hinterland of the Vorarlberg landscapes, Tyrol, in 1363, but two years later (April 8, 1365) by purchasing the handsome fortress Neuburg near Koblach in the middle of the previously undisputed sphere of influence of the original House of Montfort -Werdenberg gained a firm foothold.

Albrecht I must have died around this time. On May 16, 1364, he is mentioned for the last time in a document from Charles IV, through which the emperor exempts Count Albrecht I, his son Albrecht II and his eldest son Hugo IV of all judgments against them at any regional court and referred the plaintiffs who had affected these eight sentences to the imperial court.

family

Albrecht I was married to Katharina von Kiburg and had the following three children with her:

  • Albrecht II, Count von Werdenberg-Heiligenberg (* around 1345) ∞ (1) Mechthild von Montfort-Tettnang ∞ (2) Agnes von Hohenzollern-Nuremberg
  • Hartmann von Werdenberg (* 1338)
  • Rudolf von Werdenberg (* 1338)

Of the great-grandchildren of Albrecht I, one is particularly noteworthy: Rudolf II von Werdenberg-Rheineck (* around 1370, † around 1420), because in his distress he temporarily defied the Appenzell people in their fight against Duke Friedrich IV of Tyrol and the The aristocracy all around and was therefore very undeservedly declared a freedom hero above prejudice of class.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geneall.
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht I of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg
DATE OF BIRTH 13th century or 14th century
DATE OF DEATH around 1365