Dernbacher feud
The Dernbach feud was an almost hundred-year-old conflict between the House of Nassau , the local nobility and the Landgraves of Hesse , which lasted from about 1230 to 1333 . The feud flared up above all over ownership rights to the Herborner Mark . It was overshadowed by the dispute between the Archdiocese of Mainz and the Landgraves of Hesse. After the death of Heinrich Raspe , the last Landgrave of Thuringia from the house of the Ludowingers , Mainz wanted to move in his Hessian possessions and fiefs as repudiated imperial fiefs of the Archdiocese of Mainz in 1247 . On the other hand, Duchess Sophie von Brabant , daughter of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, fiercely defended herself in order to at least secure the Hessian inheritance for her underage son Heinrich von Brabant (later Landgrave Heinrich I ). From then on the conflict smoldered with varying results. The Counts of Nassau and the local nobility used these opportunities to pursue their own interests.
The feud was named after the knightly family of the Lords of Dernbach , a powerful inheritance with almost sovereign rights in the Herborner Mark. The Ganerbe, along with the Herr von Bicken , bore the brunt of the burden. They were in the way of the Nassau people in their efforts to gain territorial rule in this area. At the same time, Heinrich II, "the rich" , of Nassau also led a feud against knights from Wilnsdorf in Siegerland, who soon allied themselves with the Dernbachers.
The feud
In the middle of the 12th century, the up-and-coming House of Nassau purposefully expanded its possessions. The landgraves of Thuringia had lent the imperial fiefdom inherited from the Gisonen to the counts of Nassau via the Mark Herborn in 1231 ( afterlehen ), probably under pressure from the emperor. Already in 1230 there were reports of violent feuds and deals between the local nobility (Lords von Dernbach and von Bicken) and the Nassauers. Under Count Heinrich II., Who died in 1251, the feud was in full swing. The reason was the efforts of the Nassau to curtail or take away the rights of the local nobility, especially those of the Lords of Dernbach (including mining rights, wild bans , customs law) and possessions (forest and ore mines in the Schelderwald ). The landgraves of Thuringia and later of Hesse gave massive support to the nobility. Little is known about the individual fighting. Presumably, however, they followed the usual pattern of feuds, with “name” and “fire”, i.e. H. Looting and devastation of opposing possessions.
According to tradition, at the beginning of the feud, the Nassau people are said to have destroyed a Dernbach castle on the site of today's church in Burg , a district of Herborn today , and the small Hessian castle Lixfeld . However, this cannot be proven. In connection with the feud, the construction of the first Nassau castle near Dillenburg and the Herborn castle are said to be .
When the county of Nassau was divided under Heinrich II's sons Walram II and Otto I in 1255 , the Dernbach feud was first mentioned in the accompanying document. Also from the time of Heinrich III. From Nassau-Dillenburg (1270-1343) there are reports of a sporadic continuation of the fighting. During this time, the people of Dernbach must have received support from the neighboring gentlemen von Bicken and von Bicken zu Hainchen .
As early as 1250, the Landgraves of Hesse , who were feudal lords of the Nassauer with regard to the Herborn Mark, were involved in the feud, probably in connection with the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession . Landgrave Heinrich I had Eisemroth Castle built near Eisemroth around 1307/8 against the Nassauer. On November 9, 1309, the Dernbachers sold their ancestral castle, the small moated castle Alt-Dernbach , to Landgrave Otto I and received it back as a fief, presumably because their finances were badly affected by the feud. Otto undertook to expand the castle further, to create a town under their protection and under no circumstances to let the Nassau belong to them. Apparently this business led to the fact that the Dernbacher could again assert themselves stronger against Nassau.
The comparison of 1312
On June 26, 1312, a document is dated in which Landgrave Otto I made a comparison with Count Heinrich III. von Nassau and his brothers Emich and Johann closed. The comparison was made through the mediation of Bishop Ludwig II of Munster (brother of Landgrave Otto), Count Engelbert II of the Mark and Werner III. von Wittgenstein and the royal bailiff Eberhard III. von Breuberg came about. Both sides undertook not to build any more castles against each other in the future, and the Nassau residents conceded that they were not allowed to restrict the rights of the Lords of Dernbach and Wilnsdorf, which they had had at the time of Count Otto von Nassau.
After that, the feud seems to have cooled down a little, because by 1325 the Nassauers bought some of their properties from the Dernbachers, von Bicken and von Bicken zu Hainchen, thereby gaining a stable power base , especially in the Ebersbach court . Ludwig von Hachenburg , one of the Dernbacher Ganerbe, sold his sixth to Herborn in 1313 and the Herborn mark to Heinrich III. and became Nassauer Burgmann in Dillenburg with an annual grain duck. In May 1313 Heinrich III bought. from the brothers Friedrich and Gottfried vom Hain their Hainchen castle , and in May 1314 he acquired the Bailiwick of Eibelshausen from Eckhard von Helfenberg († around 1326), who resided at Wolfersdorf Castle . In February 1323 Heidenrich von Dernbach sold to Count Heinrich III. Serfs to Simmersbach. In May 1325 the brothers Philipp, Johann and Konrad von Bicken finally sold him their share in the Ewersbach court.
Recovery and climax
Soon afterwards, in 1325, the feud must have broken out again with great severity. Among other things, the wooden Nassau castle near Dillenburg is said to have been burned down during this time. Probably in the same year Heinrich III destroyed. from Nassau-Dillenburg the castle (Alt-) Dernbach, the ancestral seat of the Dernbacher. The landgrave's castle Wallenfels , built after 1324, was conquered by Nassau but apparently not destroyed and in 1334 came into Nassau's permanent possession as a Hessian fief, but had to be kept "open" to the landgrave. As a further link in the Eisemroth and Wallenfels castles in the contested area, Hesse built the new Hessenwalt Castle in 1326 near the present-day town of Roth , which was strategically located to the remaining possessions of the Lords of Bicken and at the same time protected the Breidenbacher Grund . But it was also destroyed again by the Nassauer in 1327/28.
One of the larger battles took place near Seibertshausen in 1327 , which Hesse lost, but Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse won the great and decisive field battle near Wetzlar in 1328 , in which the Mainz-Nassau field captain Johann von Nassau , brother of Heinrich III. from Nassau-Dillenburg, fell. Archbishop Matthias von Mainz , the landgrave's main opponent, died in the same year .
End of the feuds
With the loss of Dernbach Castle in 1325, the feud was lost for the knightly family there. On May 21, 1333 it concluded a contract with Henry III. von Nassau-Dillenburg, which gave him all rights, including fishing and game ban , in the city, in the Mark Herborn, in the Schelderwald and the Hörre , as well as other rights in smaller settlements and all theirs for the then proud price of 4000 Mark Pfennigs Serfs sold in the count's territory. The Dernbacher only retained the church patronage rights and 13 farms in the Herborner Mark (in the places Dernbach, Stippach, Bicken, Merkenbach, Offenbach and Monzenbach ). On July 30, 1334, another contract was signed between Nassauern and Dernbachern, in which legal questions from the first peace treaty were clarified.
On May 21, 1336, through the mediation of Count Siegfried von Wittgenstein, a contract was concluded between the Lords of Bicken and the House of Nassau, in which the Lords of Bicken owned their Hainchen Castle with most of the associated property (with the exception of their farms and Gülten in Bicken and Herbornselbach and the patronage rights there) were sold to Count Heinrich von Nassau for 800 marks. After Count Heinrich had proven that he had bought the suzerainty over it from the Lords of Molsberg, they were to take the Ebersbach court as a fief from the Counts of Nassau.
The Lords of Dernbach, with the help of the Lords of Bicken zu Hainchen and with the support of the Landgrave, built Neu-Dernbach Castle in the Hessian Office of Blankenstein (Gladenbach) before 1350 . After the feuds ended, the border between Hesse and Nassau was established in this area in 1352 and secured with the outer hedge (see Mittelhessische Landheegen ), which still exists today as the district boundary.
On April 21, 1486 a Heidenrich von Dernbach sold his remaining serfs in the Nassau area to the counts there for a low price . Thus the Dernbach rule was finally passed to the Nassauer.
literature
- Karl Nebe: Castle trips on the old border between Hesse and Nassau. The castles: Dernbach, Bicken, Wallenfels, Hessenwald, Murstein-Tringenstein . Nickel, Straßebersbach 1914.
- Willi Görich: The Dernbach feud and its castles. In: Dill-Zeitung, Heimatblätter (supplement), No. 2 and 3, 1952, Dillenburg.
- Joachim Wienecke: The Dernbacher feud. A constitutional conflict. In: Bulletin of the Herborn History Society No. 1, 2, 3 and 4, 1967 and No. 1, 2 and 3, 1968, Herborn.
- Jürgen Runzheimer : Dernbacher feud and Bickener Handel. In: Office Blankenstein. , Magazine of the Heimatverein and Heimatmuseum Amt Blankenstein eV Gladenbach, No. 5, 1990, Gladenbach.
- Horst W. Müller: Dernbach and the 'von Dernbach'. In: Hinterland history sheets. No. 3 and 4, 2005 and No. 1 and 2, 2006, Biedenkopf
- Hans-Joachim Becker, New Investigations on the Dernbacher Feud , Nassauische Annalen 119, 2008, pp. 49–74