Andechs (noble family)
In the 12th and up to the middle of the 13th century, the Counts of Andechs were among the most important Bavarian noble families of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the Guelphs . They were a branch of the Counts of Dießen am Ammersee , presumably from the Diepoldinger-Rapotonen , who , together with a Count Berthold, resident on the upper Isar near Wolfratshausen, can be traced for the first time in 990 and have been after the allodial ancestral castle of Andechs (around 1060 by Andehsa ). In 1248 the family died out.
history
In the 11th century attacked counts of Dießen after the Bavarian Augstgau between Lech and Ammersee and were Viscount of Wolfratshausen with the advocacy of Tegernsee Abbey and Schäftlarn and got the county to the Würmsee ( Lake Starnberg ) and Huosigrafschaft the counts Sigimar.
A line of the Counts of Dießen became resident there with Otto II von Wolfratshausen, builder of Wolfratshausen Castle around 1116 . He also inherited the County of Thanning through his wife Justitia von Babenberg. He acquired rulership rights far beyond the Isar region to the Inn , Eisack and Pustertal valleys .
Otto's nephew Berthold II. († 1151) was meanwhile sitting on the Dießen Count Castle and is also mentioned in 1135 as "comes de Plassenberch" because he probably acquired goods on the upper Main with Kulmbach at that time and had the Plassenburg built there on the the Lords of Plassenberg were appointed as ministerials. He also built a new castle in Andechs , on the opposite side of the Ammersee from Dießen.
His descendants continued the Dießen-Andechser line. The current (from 1132) Counts of Andechs expanded their territory through favorable marriages and inheritances. They founded Bayreuth at the end of the 12th century , were bailiffs of the Banz monastery and the Langheim monastery and acquired land in Giech and Lichtenfels . The Bavarian counties of Neuburg am Inn , Schärding am Inn and Windberg an der Donau were inherited from the Counts of Formbach .
The wife of Berthold II, Sophia , daughter of the Margrave Poppo II of Istria, earned him the right to margrave office for Istria, but not the actual rule there. This created the connection between Andechs and a suspected Meranien on the Istrian bank of the Adriatic. Around 1173 the Staufer transferred to their son Berthold III. (* around 1110/15; † 1188) for his loyal service the margraviate of Istria as a fiefdom, as the successor of the late Margrave Engelbert III. from Spanheim . He was also Count von Andechs (1147), Count im Radenzgau (1149) and Count von Plassenburg (1158/1161). When the Wolfratshauser line went out with Heinrich II in 1157, Berthold III inherited. von Andechs also their extensive possessions and became Count of Wolfratshausen and lord of the Tyrolean lordships, Count on the lower Inn, Count in the Norital , Vogt of Brixen and 1173 Margrave of Istria. At the end of the 11th century he received the counties of Unterinntal and Pustertal from the Brixen monastery and founded Innsbruck in North Tyrol in 1180 . He married Hedwig von Wittelsbach-Dachau († 1174), heiress of the Duchy of Merania . Around 1180/1182 the Counts of Andechs were therefore enfeoffed with Meranien including Fiume ( Rijeka ), Croatia and Dalmatia .
Hedwig and Berthold's son Otto I was Duke of Merania from 1205 , Count Palatine of Burgundy from 1211 and Margrave of Istria from 1228-30; his wife Beatrix von Staufen († 1231), daughter of Count Palatine Otto I of Burgundy and Margaret of Blois , was a granddaughter of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa . Due to this marriage, Otto I von Andechs-Meranien took over the government of the Palatinate County of Burgundy from his mother-in-law in 1211 (as Otto II). Otto's younger brother Heinrich had inherited the margraviate of Istria-Carniola, but had been ousted there by the Republic of Venice and the Patriarchate of Aquileja and in 1208 also lost most of his Bavarian and Tyrolean goods to the Bavarian Duke Ludwig the Kelheimer and the bailiwick of Brixen to the Count of Tyrol , because he was allegedly involved in the murder of King Philip of Swabia - from today's point of view, probably a trick of the Wittelsbachers , but which should result in the rapid decline of the Andechs loyal to the Hohenstaufen dynasty ; The regicide was indeed Otto VIII von Wittelsbach .
Otto II , son of Otto I and Beatrix of Burgundy, died in 1248 as the last of the family; the title of Duke of Meranien expired with his death, the Palatinate of Burgundy fell to his sister Adelheid and her son Otto , whose two daughters were married to two sons and successors of King Philip the Fair of France and thus brought the imperial fief of Burgundy to the Capetians . The remaining inheritance fell to the Dukes of Bavaria, the Counts of Tyrol, the Burgraves of Nuremberg, the Bamberg Monastery and the Counts of Orlamünde and Truhendingen.
Appreciation
The Andechs were praised early on as the “race of saints and heroes”. They are considered to be one of the most important and powerful noble families of the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages. Initially based around the Ammersee in the County of Dießen in Dießen am Ammersee or Andechs , they expanded their holdings to the land between Staffelsee and Ammersee in the west, Starnberger See in the east and Karwendel with Seefeld in the south. They dominated important roads to central Germany, sat in important areas of the Alps and controlled the Brenner , among other things . In addition to their possessions in southern Bavaria , almost all of Upper Franconia ( Bamberg , Coburg , Hof an der Saale , Bernstein, Bayreuth , Kulmbach ) as well as Hirschberg and Sonneberg also belonged to their territory.
The family's marriage policy linked them with the French and Hungarian royal houses and with Duke Henry I of Silesia . The memory of the family lives on through the adoration of two famous family members, Saint Hedwig of Silesia , daughter of Count Berthold IV , and her niece, Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia .
coat of arms
The family coat of arms of the Counts of Andechs shows a gold-tongued and armored silver lion striding forward over a similarly tinged eagle on a blue background; on the helmet with blue and silver covers a bush of five silver ostrich feathers. (The walking lion was also depicted as a leopard , i.e. looking, and later both heraldic animals were also tinged with gold.)
Family coat of arms (around 1530), with a golden lion and a golden eagle on a blue background - the heraldic animals were originally silver
Coat of arms of the Counts of Andechs Dießen
The coat of arms in the Siebmacher is - as can be seen throughout - shown reversed because it is placed on the left in panel 2/8.
Traditions on the origin and history of those from Dießen-Andechs-Meranien
The beginnings of the Andechs family around 1100 are related to the formation of agnatic, that is to say, aristocratic families understood in male lineage, who named themselves after an ancestral castle. Before that, the nobility was organized in larger clan associations, which also included the female lineages. In this sense, the important ancestors of the later Count House of Andechs lived and worked several generations earlier in an area that encompassed the important Alpine passes from Bozen to the Augsburg area. Later these conditions were only vaguely known. For example, there was a report of a Count Rasso († 954) from the Frankish Empire, who is said to have been Duke of Bavaria, Franconia , Burgundy , Merania (Istria) and Carinthia at the same time ; he was also Margrave of Austria , Count Palatine of the Rhine and Count of Görz and Andechs. The family, later known as the Counts of Hohenwart and active in the same area around the Alpine passes, was also considered to be related.
Initially, from the 11th century, the Sconenburg near Dießen am Ammersee was the eponymous and identity- giving ancestral castle of an evolving agnatic Count House of Dießen . This divided into two lines in the early 12th century, which were named after the two castles Andechs and Wolfratshausen , further east.
At the site of the first family castle, the Augustinian Canons Monastery in Dießen was founded as a house monastery and family burial place. That was a common occurrence back then. In the middle of the 13th century, a family tree of the count's founding family is said to have been created in this monastery, about which nothing more is known. The Diessen Abbey was later given over to the Holy See .
The Counts of Andechs and Dukes of Meranien were among the most important noble families in the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and first half of the 13th century. The wedding of Otto VII of Meranien with a granddaughter of Friedrich Barbarossa can be regarded as the highlight .
Soon afterwards, the Andechser were suspected of having been involved in the murder of King Philip of Swabia . As a result, they lost all of their Bavarian property. Although the family proved innocent, they did not succeed in restituting the property. Various defeats against the Wittelsbachers followed and their influence declined. In the middle of the 13th century, the Andechs-Meranians died out.
Names
Men
The numbering of the names (mostly) refers to "dukes and saints".
Andechs line:
Arnold (∞ Gisela von Schweinfurt )
- Otto IV.
-
Berthold II. (Andechs) † 1151
-
Berthold III. (Margrave of Istria) † 1188
-
Berthold IV. (Duke of Merania) 1180 / 82–1204
-
Otto VII von Andechs 1204–1234
- Otto VIII von Andechs 1234–1248
- Henry IV. (Mayor of Istria) † 1228
- Ekbert (Bishop of Bamberg) † 1237
- Berthold V (Archbishop of Kalocsa , Patriarch of Aquileja ) † 1251
-
Otto VII von Andechs 1204–1234
- Poppo II. (Bishop of Bamberg, 1237–1242) † 1245
-
Berthold IV. (Duke of Merania) 1180 / 82–1204
- Otto VI. ( Bishop of Brixen , Bishop of Bamberg ) † 1196
- Poppo I. (Andechs) † 1148
- Heinrich II. (1166-after 1177 abbot of Millstatt )
-
Berthold III. (Margrave of Istria) † 1188
Wolfratshausen line:
Friedrich I. von Haching (verifiable 1003-1027)
- Berthold I of Dießen
- Otto II von Wolfratshausen, builder of Wolfratshausen Castle around 1116
- Heinrich I (Bishop of Regensburg) † 1155
- Otto III. † 1127
- Heinrich II. † 1157
- Otto V. † 1136
- Luitpold † 1102
- Otto II von Wolfratshausen, builder of Wolfratshausen Castle around 1116
Women
- Mechthild , Abbess of Edelstetten + 1160 (daughter of Berthold II.)
- Euphemia, Abbess of Altomünster (daughter of Berthold II.)
- Gisela † after 1150 ∞ Count Diepold von Berg (daughter of Berthold II.)
- Kunigunde, nun in Admont (daughter of Berthold II.)
- Sophie, ∞ Count Poppo von Henneberg (daughter of Berthold III.)
- Kunigunde, ∞ Count Eberhard von Eberstein (daughter of Berthold III.)
- Mathilde † after 1193/1206 ∞ Count Engelbert III. von Gorizia +1220 (daughter of Berthold III.)
- Bertha † after 1249, Abbess von Gerbstedt (daughter of Berthold III and his 2nd wife Luitgart of Denmark)
- Hedwig † 1243, ∞ Duke Heinrich of Silesia (daughter of Berthold IV.)
- Agnes * 1175, † July 20, 1201, ∞ King Phillip of France (daughter of Berthold IV.)
- Gertrud † 1213, ∞ King Andreas of Hungary (daughter of Berthold IV.)
- Mechthild, Abbess of Kitzingen
- Elisabeth, ∞ Burgrave Friedrich von Nürnberg (daughter of Otto VII.)
- Margarethe, ∞ I Margrave Přemysl of Moravia, ∞ II Friedrich von Truhendingen (daughter of Otto VII.)
- Beatrix, ∞ Count Hermann von Orlamünde (daughter of Otto VII.)
- Agnes † 1263, ∞ I Duke Friedrich of Austria, ∞ II Duke Ulrich of Carinthia (daughter of Otto VII.)
- Alice, ∞ I Count Hugo von Chalon, ∞ II Count Philip of Savoy (daughter of Otto VII.)
- Maria, ∞ I Count Philipp of Namur, ∞ II Duke Heinrich von Brabant (daughter of Otto VII.)
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Bosl: European nobility in the 12./13. Century. The international ties between the Andechs-Meranians, a high Bavarian nobility. In: ZBLG. 30, pp. 20-52 (1967)
literature
- Karl Bosl : European nobility in the 12th and 13th centuries. The international interdependencies of the Bavarian noble family of the Andechs-Meranier. In: Journal for Bavarian State History. 30, pp. 20-52 (1967). Fully digitized
- Karin Dengler-Schreiber : Traces of the Andechs-Meranians in Bamberg. Collibri, Bamberg 1998, Andechs (Counts, Dukes) p. 13 u. 14, ISBN 3-926946-61-X .
- Georg Herlitz: History of the Dukes of Meran from the House of Andechs. Dissertation from the University of Halle, 1909.
- Ludwig Holzfurtner: The county of the Andechser. Comitatus and county in Bavaria 1000–1180. Laßleben, Kallmünz 1994, ISBN 3-7696-9690-5 (= Historical Atlas of Bavaria, part of Old Bavaria. Series II, Issue 4).
- Josef Kirmeier, Evamaria Brockhoff (ed.): Dukes and saints. The Andechs-Meranians in the European High Middle Ages. Pustet, Regensburg 1993, ISBN 3-7917-1386-8 (= publications on Bavarian culture and history. No. 24, catalog for the state exhibition in Andechs Monastery, July 13th – October 24th, 1993).
- Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories and imperial immediate families from the Middle Ages to the present. 6th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44333-8 , Andechs (Grafen, Herzöge) , p. 13 and 14 - with further references.
- Jakob Lehmann: On the history of the Andechs-Meranier on the Obermain. HOSchulze, Lichtenfels 1963, ISBN 3-87735-009-7 .
- Edmund von Oefele : History of the Counts of Andechs. Innsbruck 1877, reprint of this edition, Verlag für Kunstreproduktionen, Neustadt an der Aisch 1999, ISBN 3-89557-102-4 .
- Erich Andreas Reinlein: The last of the Meranians, Duke Otto II. 1248 - End of a hope. Schulze, Lichtenfels 1983, ISBN 3-87735-034-8 .
- Franz Tyroller: The Counts of Andechs. In: Bavarian forays through 12 centuries. Edited by H. Fink, 1971, 19 ff.
- Philipp Jedelhauser: The descent of Bishop Bruno von Brixen, Count of Kirchberg (Iller) with an excursus on Countess Mathilde von Andechs, wife of Engelbert III. von Görz and family table of the Counts of Görz , in: Adler, Zeitschrift für Genealogie und Heraldik, Volume 28, Issue 6–7, Vienna April / September 2016, pp. 277–341 (on Mathilde von Andechs, Bertha von Andechs, Poppo II.).
Web links
- The Andechs-Meranier: The rise of a count family to a princely family with European significance
- grafen-von-andechs.de: History of the Andechser with a focus on Franconia (detailed family tree)