Anna of Schweidnitz
Anna von Schweidnitz ( Czech Anna Svídnická , Polish Anna świdnicka ; * 1339 ; † July 11, 1362 in Prague ) was by birth Princess of Schweidnitz-Jauer . Through her marriage to Charles IV , she became Queen of Bohemia , Roman-German Queen and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire . She came from the noble family of the Silesian Piasts .
Life
Anna was the daughter of Duke Heinrich II von Schweidnitz-Jauer and his wife, the Hungarian Princess Catherine of Hungary († before September 29, 1355) from the Anjou family . Her father died when she was four years old. Her childless uncle Bolko II von Schweidnitz-Jauer , whom Anna was to inherit, became the guardian . The half-orphan stayed with her mother at her uncle's court in Ofen and Visegrád and was brought up there. At the age of eleven she had been promised to marry Wenceslaus, then eleven months old, son and heir to the throne of Emperor Charles IV . After the heir to the throne and his mother Anna von der Pfalz had died within the next two years, the now widowed Charles IV himself asked for the hand of Anna von Schweidnitz.
The negotiations about the wedding took place in 1353 at the Viennese court . In addition to the thirty-seven-year-old groom Karl and Anna's guardian Bolko II were present: Duke Albrecht II , King Ludwig of Hungary , Margrave Ludwig of Brandenburg , Duke Rudolf of Saxony , envoy of the Polish king Casimir and an envoy of the Republic of Venice .
The planned marriage went well with Charles's efforts to win the partial principality of Schweidnitz-Jauer as a fiefdom for the crown of Bohemia . Anna's uncle Ludwig of Hungary promoted this connection by - as the future Polish king - renouncing all claims to the duchy of Schweidnitz-Jauer in favor of the Luxembourgers .
After the Prague Archbishop Ernst von Pardubitz with Pope Innocent VI. had obtained a marriage dispensation because of extensive relatives, the wedding took place on May 27, 1353 in Ofen.
On July 28, 1353, Anna was crowned Queen of Bohemia in Prague by Archbishop Ernst von Pardubitz and on February 9, 1354 in Aachen, she was crowned Roman-German Queen. At the coronation of Charles as Emperor on April 5, 1355 in the Roman Basilica of St. Peter , she was also coronated as Empress of the Holy Roman Empire . She was the first Queen of Bohemia to be anointed empress.
In 1358 Anna gave birth to a daughter who was named after the last Přemyslidin Elisabeth. In February 1361 she became the mother of the longed-for heir to the throne, Wenzel , who was born in the imperial city of Nuremberg and was baptized on April 11 in the Sebalduskirche by the archbishops of Prague , Cologne and Mainz . However, the queen did not live to see the coronation of two-year-old Wenceslaus. She died on July 11, 1362, at the age of only 23, giving birth to another child. Her remains rest in a tomb in St. Vitus Cathedral .
The widowed forty-seven year old Emperor married Elisabeth von Pomerania a year later . The Duchy of Schweidnitz-Jauer fell to the Crown of Bohemia as a hereditary principality after Bolkos II's death in 1368.
Representations
In art, many depictions of the Empress and Queen Anna of Schweidnitz have been preserved, e.g. B .:
- Around 1375, Peter Parler created one of the sandstone busts as a life-size half-figure, with a strongly modeled face and long hair, based on her image on the choir triforium of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.
- Miniatures from a magnificent manuscript commissioned by Anna's son Wenzel around 1400 show the queen with a courtly entourage.
- On a wall painting of Karlstein Castle , Karl and Anna hold a reliquary cross and on another fresco they are shown kneeling in front of a picture of the Madonna.
literature
- Thilo Vogelsang: Anna von Schweidnitz and Jauer. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 299 ( digitized version ).
- Franz Machilek: Anna von Schweidnitz . In: Werner Bein, Ulrich Schmilewski: Schweidnitz through the ages. Bergstadtverlag Korn, Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-87057-160-8 , pp. 317-322.
- Peter Moraw : Anna von Schweidnitz and Jauer . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , column 655 f.
- Andreas Rüther : Anna von Schweidnitz and Jauer (1339-1362). In: Arno Herzig (Ed.): Silesians from the 14th to the 20th century (= Schlesische Lebensbilder. Vol. 8). Degener, Neustadt / Aisch 2004, ISBN 3-7686-3501-5 , pp. 24-31.
- Andreas Rüther: Anna von Schweidnitz-Jauer. In: Amalie Fößel (Ed.): The Empresses of the Middle Ages. Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2360-0 , pp. 273–286.
Web links
- Joachim Lukas: Regional history notes from Silesia - Anna von Schweidnitz (accessed on November 16, 2016)
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Margarethe |
Roman-German Empress April 5, 1355 to July 11, 1362 |
Elisabeth of Pomerania |
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Anna of the Palatinate | Queen of Bohemia 1353–1362 |
Elisabeth of Pomerania |
| Anna of the Palatinate |
Roman-German queen February 9, 1354 to July 11, 1362 |
Elisabeth of Pomerania |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Anna of Schweidnitz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Anna Svídnická (Czech); Anna Świdnicka (Polish) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Bohemian and Roman-German Queen and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1339 |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 11, 1362 |
| Place of death | Prague |