Bernhard III. (Saxony)

Bernhard of Saxony in a woodcut from 1598

Bernhard, Duke of Saxony (* 1140 ; † February 9, 1212 in Bernburg ) was Duke of Saxony , Count of Askanien and Ballenstedt , Lord of Bernburg.

Life

Bernhard was the youngest son of Albert the Bear of the sex of the Askanier and Sophie von Winzenburg . In 1157 he attended the funeral of Conrad the Great with his father and brothers . In 1159, Bernhard and his brother Otto accompanied Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa on his Italian expedition . After the death of his father in 1170 he received the district of Ascaria (Aschersleben) as well as the former Gau Serimunt between Saale , Mulde and Elbe as later property in Anhalt .

With the death of his brother Adalbert , he became Count of Ballenstedt in 1171 . In the same year he received from Friedrich Barbarossa at the Reichstag in Goslar the right to revert to the rule Plötzkau (Plötzke), which passed into his possession in 1173. The county Plötzkau However him by Henry the Lion disputed. During a campaign against Bernhard Heinrich destroyed Aschersleben and Gröningen and devastated Halberstadt . Nevertheless, Bernhard was able to assert himself in this dispute.

Period of the fall of Henry the Lion

In 1180 Heinrich the Lion was ostracized by Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and lost his fiefdoms, the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony , at the Reichstag in Würzburg . Then Bernhard received on 13 April 1180 the court day to Gelnhausen with Gelnhäuser document the eastern part of the Guelph land and the Diocese of Bremen .

However, the Duchy of Saxony was previously divided, so that it only made up the land between the Mark Meißen and the Mark Brandenburg as land ownership . The areas around Aken and Wittenberg as well as some other possessions such as the Burggrafschaft Magdeburg were transferred to Bernhard . The Archbishop of Cologne acquired the lands of Engern and Westphalia, once owned by Henry the Lion, along with the ducal sovereignty . The Counts of Holstein were released from the feudal sovereignty of the Saxon dukes, the County of Stade came to the Archdiocese of Bremen , Lübeck became an imperial city , the Palatine County of Saxony went to Ludwig III in 1179 . of Thuringia . In addition, the Saxon bishops took back their fiefdoms. For this, Bernhard had to support the emperor in 1181 in the imperial journey against Henry the Lion . In November 1181 Heinrich submitted to the Kaiser at the Diet of Erfurt . It was only at this point in time that Bernhard von Sachsen was awarded the title of Duke of Saxony in addition to the territory. After his prostration, Heinrich the Lion was able to save his allodial goods , which later became the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg .

Bernhard's work as Duke of Saxony

In northern Albingia and the areas between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea , the feudal people soon revolted against him. After he returned, they found support in Heinrich the Lion. Bernhard tried to enforce his claims and was supported by his brothers, especially Otto I , Margrave of Brandenburg , and Siegfried , now Archbishop of Bremen . First of all, the vassals of his area were supposed to swear the oath of allegiance to Artlenburg on one day . The counts of Ratzeburg , Dannenberg , Luckow and Schwerin came . The most powerful, however, Count Adolf von Holstein , did not come and as a result initially became his adversary. Disputes about the Dithmarschen , the western Holstein, broke out, which he received from his brother Siegfried as a Bremen fief, who hoped to wrest it from the power of the Count of Holstein, but without success.

Bernhard now initiated the construction of the Lauenburg (Polabenburg) on ​​the lower Elbe in order to have at least one fixed point on the right bank of the Elbe. He imposed high taxes on certain areas hostile to him, which led to an attack on the Lauenburg, which was destroyed in 1182.

In 1183, Bernhard's brother Dietrich von Werben died without an heir, and most of his property fell to Bernhard.

The dispute now spread to the Slavic lands. Heinrich Borwin I , the son of Pribislaw , was like his father a follower of Henry the Lion, and the husband of his daughter Mathilde, so it was with Bernhard's opponents. His cousin Nikolaus I (Niklot) , the son of Wratislaw von Mecklenburg, whom Heinrich had hanged in his stormed Malchow castle in 1164 , sided with Bernhard. To weaken the friends of Bernhard, the rebellious vassals invaded Slavic territories and drove Niklot away. Borwin allied himself with the Pomeranian Duke Bogislaw I and Niklot with Prince Jaromir I of Rügen , who was a loyal liege of the Danes . Bogislaw now had the secret commission from the emperor, the Danish king Knut VI. for refusing to pay homage, which split the country between the Elbe and Oder into a Danish and a German party. Borwin was captured by the Danish king and had to swear the feudal oath on the Danish king. After the devastating Danish incursions into Pomerania in 1184 and 1185, Bogislaw met the same fate.

Due to the success of the Danes, the emperor pushed for a compromise between Bernhard and his vassals in 1184. Count Adolf III. von Holstein was supposed to keep the disputed tracts of land, but had to pay Bernhard 700 marks for it and take the refused feudal oath. Count Bernhard von Ratzeburg and Count Gunzelin von Schwerin were also obliged to make payments. The destroyed Lauenburg should be rebuilt by everyone together. At the latest after Henry the Lion's second banishment in 1188, Count Adolf kept it with the new overlord, in the hope of regaining his lost land with him. After Heinrich's return in 1189 there were again conflicts in which Bernhard Bardowick (in Lüneburg) lost.

As Duke of Saxony, Bernhard took part in the election of Henry VI in 1190 . part, at whose coronation he first acted as arch marshal . Later, through his contradiction, he thwarted Heinrich's plan to bind the German crown hereditary to his house. In the double election of 1198 he was one of the princes who elected Philip of Swabia as king. After his murder in 1208, however, he switched to Philip's rival Otto IV when he was re-elected .

Bernhard founded the Saxon coat of arms. To this end, he placed the five black bars in the golden field over the old shield of the Ascanian house and the sloping lily bar as a sign of the younger birth and branch of lines. He received what was later known as the diamond wreath from Friedrich Barbarossa at the Reichstag in Gelnhausen in 1180. Due to the acquired Saxon possessions, Bernhard moved his seat and court camp to Wittenberg, which remained as the Ascanian residence until the Ascanian line died out in 1422. There he also set up the Wittenberg mint , where he had bracteates and denarii minted on both sides made. He died on February 9, 1212, as the last of Albrecht's many sons, and was buried in Ballenstedt in the church of the Benedictine monastery.

effect

With the enfeoffment of Bernhard by Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa , the lifelong struggle of Albrecht the Bear, who had died ten years earlier, for power in Saxony was finally ended successfully for the Ascanians. Albrecht himself was after the coronation of the Staufer King Konrad III. was enfeoffed by this with the Duchy of Saxony, but only held this office for four years between 1138 and 1142 and could not assert himself against the Guelphs' claim to rule in the long term. Barbarossa in turn supported the Guelph Heinrich the Lion and forced Albrecht to accept this. It was only when Barbarossa fell out with Henry the Lion in 1175 that the way was cleared for an Ascanian duke of Saxony-Wittenberg.

Marriages and offspring

Bernhard's first marriage was to the Danish Princess Brigitte, daughter of King Canute V of Denmark. The following children were from this marriage:

• Magnus († around 1195)
• Heinrich I , Prince of Anhalt
• Albrecht , Duke of Saxony
• Hedwig ⚭ 1204 Count Ulrich I of Wettin

In his second marriage, Bernhard was connected to Sophie von Thuringia. They had a child together:

• Johann, provost in Halberstadt

Bernhard recently married Judith (Jutta) von Polen, daughter of Duke Mieszko III. The following child is from this marriage:

• Sophie , Abbess of Gernrode

Research does not confirm which marriages Hedwig and Sophia came from. The assignment currently represented by research is shown here. The fact that Heinrich I was the son of Judith of Poland has been refuted.

ancestry

Otto (Ballenstedt) (1075–1123)

Albrecht I (Brandenburg) (1100–1170)

Eilika (Saxony) (1081–1142)

Bernhard III. (Saxony) (1140-1212)

Sophie von Winzenburg (1105–1160)

heritage

After Bernhard's death, the property was divided up: Bernhard's son Albrecht I became Duke of Saxony. His son Heinrich I , Prince of Anhalt , inherited the Anhalt family estates.

literature

• Hans-Joachim Freytag:  Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 112 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hahn: The sons of Albrecht the Bear 1170-1184 , in: Annual report on the Louisenstädtische Realschule , Berlin 1869. (The events surrounding the struggle between the Ascanians, Heinrich the Lion and Emperor Friedrich I are presented here in detail and with extensive reference to the source)
• Otto von Heinemann:  Bernhard (Duke of Saxony) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 437-439.
• Georg Hirschfeld: History of the Saxon-Askanischen electors . Julius Sittenfeld, Berlin 1884
• Heinrich Kühne: The Ascanians . Drei Kastanien Verlag 1999. ISBN 3-933028-14-0
• Paul Marcus: Duke Bernhard von Anhalt (around 1140 to 1212) and the early Ascanians in Saxony and in the empire . (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences; 562). Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1993.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Child of Judith of Poland, according to: Otto von Heinemann:  Heinrich I., Count of Ascharia and Prince of Anhalt . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 449 f.
2. ^ History of Anhalt in data. Edited by Association Studium Hallenser e. V. Interdisciplinary research group on the regional history of Saxony-Anhalt. Halle, 2014, p. 884.

predecessor	Office	successor
Henry III.	Duke of Saxony 1180-1212	Albrecht I.
Albrecht	Prince of Anhalt 1173–1212	Heinrich I.