Berwangen (noble family)

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Coat of arms of those von Berwangen in the Ingeram Codex , around 1459, titled verballhorn as "Werwag" (= Berwa [n] g)
Guttenberg Castle above Neckarmühlbach , first mentioned in a document in 1232 , in which place the von Berwangen family owned tithes before 1325

The Lords of Berwangen were a late medieval noble family who held the highest offices in Baden and Palatinate services. The family is probably named after their place of origin Berwangen (today part of Kirchardt in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg ), although they owned property there, but never had a manor house.

history

The origin of the family and the early relationships are in the dark. Due to the sources, the regional possessions and the similarity of the coat of arms to the Lords of Neipperg , the family's origins are located in Berwangen in northern Baden, where the Neipperg family also had property. An origin from other places called Berwangen is excluded. The lords of Berwangen had little property in Berwangen, but no mansion there. Rather, they seem to have owned changing larger goods at their respective places of activity.

The family was first mentioned in 1325 with the armiger ( nobleman ) Werner von Berwangen, whose father of the same name was also nobleman. In that year Werner sold ten shares in Neckarmühlbach and Zimmer to the Wimpfen monastery . In 1340 a nobleman Werner von Berwangen was named as a witness in a dispute over the village of Michelfeld in Kraichgau. In 1377 a nobleman was named Heinrich von Berwangen, who was presumably identical to Heinrich who died in 1378 and was thus the father of Albrecht I of Berwangen, who was first mentioned in 1379 .

Albrecht I was the first court master at the Baden court in Baden from 1387 , changed to the court of the Electoral Palatinate in Heidelberg until 1401 and was from 1403 court councilor under King Ruprecht III. It was also Albrecht, who was founded by Ruprecht III in 1398. received a farm in Berwangen as a man's fief , although it is not clear whether this farm was not owned by the family before. Albrecht's son Heinrich (* around 1380; † shortly after 1451) was court master of the Baden margrave and from 1426 to 1431 Baden Vogt in Pforzheim . By 1432, Heinrich expanded the farm in Neibsheim near Bretten, which had already been given to his father as a fief, into a castle. He had at least three children, in addition to the daughter Adelheid, the sons Albrecht II and Heinrich. During a Baden war campaign against the Electoral Palatinate in 1424, in addition to Albrecht II and Heinrich, another Claus von Berwangen is mentioned, most likely another son of Heinrich the Elder. Albrecht II appeared particularly militarily, in addition to the campaign of 1424 on the part of the imperial city of Heilbronn in the feud with the Lords of Venningen in 1438, in which the imperial towns of Böckingen and Frankenbach were burned down. Albrecht II von Berwangen is also mentioned in the subsequent campaign of revenge by the Heilbronn natives against the Steinegg Castle , but he did not contribute greatly to the fight, but only allowed himself to be endured. From 1439 Albrecht was again in the service of Baden, before he, like his grandfather, moved to the Palatinate court in Heidelberg in the 1450s, where he had the rank of marshal .

The family's heyday ended with Albrecht II. In 1476, Heinrich von Berwangen, probably the son of Albrecht II, was sitting on the family estate in Neibsheim, who was ostracized by the imperial court. Around the same time, Johann von Berwangen, a student in Basel, appears for the first time as a member of the family with an academic education. It is not known whether Johann was another son of Albrecht II. Johann was in the service of the Margrave of Baden in 1480 and was Vogt of Neu-Eberstein in 1482 . An Albrecht von Berwangen came in 1513 in a dispute with Philip III. von Hanau-Lichtenberg to death. Another Albrecht von Berwangen was mayor in Gengenbach in 1497 , he or a namesake became a citizen of Strasbourg in 1522 . Then the traces of the family are lost.

coat of arms

The coat of arms of the Lords of Berwangen shows a blue sloping bar in gold, covered with three gold (or silver) rings. On the helmet with blue and gold covers an eagle wing (or closed flight ), covered with the shield image. The coat of arms is related to the coat of arms of the Lords of Neipperg, which also shows three rings. After 1900 the municipality of Berwangen took over the coat of arms of the Lords of Berwangen.

literature

  • Peter Wanner: Lorsch Abbey and the Electoral Palatinate - Kirchardt, Berwangen and Bockschaft in the Middle Ages . In: Kirchardt, Berwangen, Bockschaft. A home book . Kirchardt municipality, Kirchardt 1991

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