Berthold I. (goat grove)

Berthold I. von Ziegenhain (* around 1207; † before August 6, 1258 ) from the family of the Counts of Ziegenhain was count of Ziegenhain and Nidda from 1229 until his death . He ruled together with his older brother Gottfried IV († 1250), with Berthold residing in the Ziegenhain native lands and Gottfried in Nidda .

origin

Berthold was the second son of Count Ludwig I (* around 1167; † after January 17, 1229) von Ziegenhain and his wife Gertrud (* around 1172; † after 1222), the widow of Count Friedrich II. Von Abenberg († 1201 ). (The third brother, Burkhart († August 1247), embarked on an ecclesiastical career, united a number of provosts in his hand from 1234 , and finally became Archbishop of Salzburg in 1247. )

Count of Ziegenhain and Nidda

After Ludwig I's death, his sons Gottfried IV and Berthold I ruled the two counties inherited from their father nominally jointly, notarizing and sealing them jointly, but de facto divided the rule as Gottfried remained in the county of Nidda and Berthold in the county of Ziegenhain .

Comparison with Ludowinger

In November 1233, the two concluded a protection and defiance alliance with Konrad von Thuringia , the regent of the Ludowinger landgraves in their Hessian parts of the country, against everyone except the Reich . The long smoldering dispute over the in 1185 by the marriage of Lukardis, daughter of Gozmar III. of Ziegenhain, deceased with Conrad's 1229 Uncle Frederick the house Reichenbach -Ziegenhain alienated goods adjusted. Landgrave Konrad enfeoffed the brothers with property of the late Count Friedrich, renounced all rights to Staufenberg Castle , which came into the possession of Berthold I, and to Friedrich's property in Treysa and Ziegenhain, and undertook not to give any castle in the Count's territory erect or acquire goods to their detriment. In return, the two counts also renounced the building of castles and the acquisition of goods to the detriment of the landgrave and their rights to the castles Reichenbach and Keseberg . Within a year, the counts should  resign their feudal lords - whether the Reich, the archbishops of Mainz , the abbots of Fulda or Hersfeld - and ask them to grant the landgrave of Thuringia a concession. This settlement, however, sealed the final loss of considerable territorial property in the area of ​​the former rule of Wildungen and (after the death of Gottfried III , the last Reichenbach relative) of Reichenbach Castle with all property and accessories there.

Staufer vs. papacy

Like their father, Berthold and Gottfried were initially partisans of the Staufers . In the decisive phase of the confrontation between the Hohenstaufen dynasty and the papacy from 1241, however, they moved, together with their brother Burkhart, to the camp of the imperial opponents around Archbishop Siegfried III of Mainz . von Eppstein , godfather of Berthold's son Gottfried V. On behalf of the archbishop, Burkhart and Berthold von Ziegenhain led the conquest of the imperial city ​​of Wiesbaden , loyal to the emperor, in 1242 ; Burkhart was captured, but was soon released again. A few years later, Berthold was among the counts who, in May 1246, elected the Thuringian landgrave Heinrich Raspe IV in Veitshoechheim near Würzburg as the opposing king ; Provost Burkhart became Heinrich Raspe's chancellor.

Relationship with Gottfried von Reichenbach

Berthold and Gottfried were evidently for some time in dispute with their relative Gottfried III. from the Reichenbach branch of her family. This emerges from the fact that Gottfried III., When he was captured by the Archbishop of Mainz Siegfried in 1236 because of his loyal attitude to the Hohenstaufen, was only released again in 1237 after he had undertaken not to harm the two counts of Ziegenhain any more. The dispute seems to have been settled: in August 1250 - probably after Gottfried IV's death - Berthold I and Gottfried III came to an agreement. accordingly that Gottfried transferred all of his fiefdoms to Berthold and his heirs and Berthold advanced a sum of money to him in return. This was confirmed in 1251 by Abbot Werner (1240–1252) von Hersfeld when he recorded that he would lend his Hersfeld fief to Berthold I von Ziegenhain and his heirs at the request of Gottfried von Reichenbach in the event of his death. The dispute must then have broken out again and then settled again in 1257. In that year they agreed that Gottfried would transfer all of his fiefs to Berthold and his descendants, that his vassals should receive their fiefs from Berthold in the future, but that Gottfried and his male descendants should keep lifelong rights of use to the fief. Should Gottfried die without an heir, his fiefs with all rights should pass to Berthold. This agreement was on August 6, 1258 by Gottfried III. after Berthold's death confirmed again for Berthold's widow Eilika, her sons Gottfried V. and Berthold and their descendants.

Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession

In the long war to the legacy of Ludowinger after the death of Heinrich Raspe Berthold was initially on the side of the Duchess Sophie of Brabant , the mother of her proclaimed new Hessian Landgrave Henry I. She won him already in 1248 by investiture of goods in Treysa and Wohra for him, his wife and his children. The next year Berthold accompanied the Duchess on a campaign to subjugate Mainz partisans in Oberlahngau. The Mainz Archbishopric viewed the Hessian possessions of the extinct Landgrave family as fallen fiefdoms from Mainz and tried to withdraw them. When the new Archbishop of Mainz Gerhard I in February 1252 the excommunication over Sophie and her adversary, the Margrave Heinrich III. von Meissen pronounced and occupied the places under her rule with the interdict , Berthold was forced to act. The promise of a substantial cash payment finally moved him to switch sides. On May 22nd, 1252 in Amöneburg he committed himself in an alliance of protection and defiance to support the archbishop and the Mainz archbishopric against everyone, namely against Heinrich III. von Meißen and against Sophie von Brabant; the archbishop promised a payment of 400 marks. Sophie's military successes and the strong support she received from the Lower and Upper Hessian nobility soon made it necessary to come to terms with her again, and as early as 1254 Berthold was found as a witness on Sophie's documents. Careful maneuvering between Kurmainz and the Landgraviate of Hessen was the leitmotif of Ziegenhain's survival strategy for the next two centuries. In 1256 both Berthold and Sophie joined together with the three most important Upper Hessian cities of Marburg , Alsfeld and Grünberg the Rhenish Association of Cities , which tried to prevent feuds and settle conflicts peacefully on the basis of the Mainz Peace of 1235 .

Feud with Fulda

With the Fulda prince abbot Heinrich IV. Berthold, who as Count von Ziegenhain was also Vogt of the Fulda Abbey , was repeatedly in serious feud from 1252 for the rights of the prince abbot on the one hand and the canon bailiff and his subordinates on the other. In the course of the dispute, Berthold u. a. the Fulda castle in Niederbimbach and devastated the Fulda area from there, but was driven out of the castle by Abbot Heinrich in 1254.

Gifts

Berthold made numerous donations to the Haina Monastery , founded by his ancestors on the Aulesburg and moved to Haina in 1214 , in order to ensure its expansion and economic survival. But also the German Order in Sachsenhausen and Marburg and the Haydau Monastery, founded in 1235, were honored by him.

Marriage and offspring

Berthold had been married to Eilike (Eilika) von Tecklenburg (* around 1220, † 1286), daughter of Count Otto I , by 1248 at the latest . The marriage had four children known by name:

• Eilika (mentioned in 1248)
• Berthold (mentioned in 1258)
• Gottfried V. († 1271/72), Count von Ziegenhain, ∞ before March 26, 1262 Hedwig von Castell († after 1291)
• Gertrud († January 15, 1279), ∞ Konrad II. Schenk von Erbach († May 16, 1279)

After Berthold's death, his son Gottfried followed him as the ruling Count of Ziegenhain and Nidda zu Ziegenhain. A dispute soon arose between him and his cousin Ludwig II († 1289) in Nidda, the son of Gottfried IV, and the two of them completed the formal division of the two counties in 1258, which was to last until 1333.

literature

• Martin Röhling: The story of the counts of Nidda and the counts of Ziegenhain. (Niddaer Geschichtsblätter booklet 9) Niddaer Heimatmuseum e. V., Nidda 2005, ISBN 3-9803915-9-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 659. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
2. ↑ Röhling. P. 29
3. ↑ Röhling, p. 28
4. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 701. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). and Ziegenhainer Regesten online no. 661. Regesten der Grafen von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
5. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online no. 662. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
6. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 702. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
7. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 705. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
8. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 237. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
9. ↑ ^{a b} Friedrich Küch:  Sophie, Duchess of Brabant . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 661-665.
10. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online no. 75. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
11. ^ Georg Landau: Description of the Electorate of Hesse. Fischer, Kassel, 1842, p. 489
12. ^ Karl Arnd: History of the Hochstift Fulda from its foundation to the present. Second edition. Brönner, Frankfurt / Main, 1862, p. 69