Burgraves of Kirchberg

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Family coat of arms of the burgraves of Kirchberg based on the seal of 1351

The burgraves of Kirchberg were a German noble family in Thuringia .

history

Kemenate of the Wasserburg Kapellendorf from the 14th century.
The three Kirchberg castles on the local mountain near Jena : Greifberg - Kirchberg - Windberg

The original Counts of Kapellendorf with their headquarters in Kapellendorf near Apolda were shortly before 1149 by King Konrad III. raised to imperial ministerial and enfeoffed with the burgraviate of Kirchberg near Jena . It is named after the Kirchberg Castle on the local mountain near Jena. It was previously the imperial palace and later the center of a Burgward district , from which the Burggrafschaft Kirchberg emerged. This also included the two neighboring castles Greifberg and Windberg on the local mountain.

In the following decades, the Kirchbergers developed into one of the most influential aristocratic families in eastern Thuringia. In 1235 they founded the Cistercian convent Kapellendorf and chose it as their hereditary burial place.

The decline of the burgraves of Kirchberg began at the beginning of the 14th century with the destruction of their three castles on the local mountain near Jena (1304). In 1304 the Kirchbergers got into a feud with the city of Erfurt and the Wettins , as a result of which three of the four castle complexes on the local mountain were conquered and almost completely destroyed. In the following decades the Kirchbergers had to give up almost all of their property. From 1345 to 1358 they lost their castles on the local mountain to the Wettins. In 1348, Burgrave Hartmann von Kirchberg even had to sell the headquarters, the Wasserburg Kapellendorf , to the city of Erfurt due to financial difficulties.

However, around 1380 the family gained new property in Kranichfeld and Farnroda further west and stayed there for several centuries. Through the marriage of Albrecht III. von Kirchberg with Margareta, the heiress of Kranichfeld, Kranichfeld came into the family's possession and became the headquarters of the burgraves of Kirchberg-Kranichfeld. In the middle of the 15th century, the castle and estate of Ober-Kranichfeld were sold in 1453 to the Reuss family , into which a daughter from the Kirchberg family had married. The subordinate rule (Nieder-Kranichfeld), however, came to the Counts of Gleichen-Blankenhain in 1455 .

In 1714, the burgraves of Kirchberg acquired the imperial county of Sayn-Hachenburg by marrying a countess of Manderscheid-Blankenheim and resided at Hachenburg Castle in the Westerwald until 1799 .

Members of the sex

Castles and estates

coat of arms

A seal from 1351 shows two silver stakes on black and a silver feather ball on the helmet. The silver coat of arms has three black posts. The helmet with a bulge, on it a cap that is tipped with a plume. The count's coat of arms is quartered, 1 u. 4, a black crowned lion on silver (as a sign of the dignity of the count for the Burgraviate of Thuringia), in 2 u. 3 the family coat of arms.

See also

literature

  • Johann Gottfried von Mieren : Preface to HF Avemann's complete description of the counts of the Imperial Counts and Burgraves of Kirchberg in Thuringia . Frankfurt am Main 1747.
  • Eduard Schmid, JKG Wagner: History of the Kirchberg castles on the local mountain near Jena: According to documents and other news , 1830 digitized
  • Hans-Ulrich Barsekow: The local mountain castles over Jena and the history of the burgraves of Kirchberg . Jena 1931.
  • Matthias Rupp: The four medieval fortifications on the local mountain near Jena . Jena 1995.
  • Markus Müller: Municipalities and State in the Reichsgrafschaft Sayn-Hachenburg 1652–1799 (Contributions to the history of Nassau and the State of Hesse, Vol. 3), plus Siegen Univ. Diss. 2004, Wiesbaden, 2005, pp. 122, 330. ISBN 978-3-930221-14-1 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Herr zu Windberg und Ziegenhain (before 1372), Herr in Niederkranichfeld (1384/1387), Herr von Altenberge (1387), Herr von Oberkranichfeld (1412, † between February 15, 1427 and June 29, 1427, ▭ in the Kapellendorf monastery ), Son of Burgrave Albrecht I von Kirchberg (–1364) and Elisabeth (Else) von Orlamünde (–1372)
  2. ↑ Documented 1387 to 1426, ▭ in the Kapellendorf monastery
  3. ^ Eduard Schmid: History of the Kirchberg'schen locks on the local mountain near Jena. Verlag JKG Wagner, 1830, original from: Harvard University, digitized: Nov. 17, 2008 books.google.de p. 65, accessed February 19, 2014