Eberstein (Southwest German noble family)

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Coat of arms of the Counts of Eberstein

The counts of Eberstein were a Swabian noble family , which until the 13th century on the day as of 1085 Alt Eberstein famous castle in today's Baden-Baden district Ebersteinburg resided and then, until the expiry of the family in the male line in 1660, on New Eberstein near Gernsbach . They founded several cities and monasteries and turned the previously hardly populated Murg Valley into a flourishing rulership . Squeezed between the increasingly important dominions of Baden and Württemberg , they had to constantly fight against decline. The possessions fell to Baden, the Diocese of Speyer and Württemberg.

Map of the county of Eberstein after the assignments in 1283 (from Georg Heinrich Krieg von Hochfelden : History of the Counts of Eberstein in Swabia , 1836)
Alt-Eberstein ruins

1085–1250: rise and heyday

In 1085 the family received a deed of donation from the Reichenbach Monastery , in which the name "Berthold de Eberstein" appears for the first time. At this time they moved their residence from the Rhine plain (there they owned ten towns in the Sinzheim and Ottersweier area ) to Eberstein Castle (Alt-Eberstein), a hilltop castle at the transition from the Rhine valley to the Murg valley. After 1102 they received properties in the Murg Valley from the diocese of Speyer zu Lehen, while the neighboring Oostal fell to the Margraves of Baden, whose ancestral seat Hohenbaden Castle is only two kilometers away from Alt-Eberstein. The heyday of the counts, however, only extended over the relatively short period of around a hundred years (1150 to 1250). At first they succeeded in increasing their property through lucrative marriages, so that they finally had a stately lordship, which also included the Schauenburg near Oberkirch .

Berthold IV together with his wife Uta von Lauffen founded the Cistercian monastery in Herrenalb in 1149/50 , which served the Ebersteiners as a house monastery. 1180 founded Berthold's son Eberhard III. and his mother Uta also the Frauenalb monastery . In addition to piety, such monastery foundations focused on the pragmatic goal of caring for family members. The social rise of the Ebersteiners was not only expressed in marriage connections to the most distinguished families in southwest Germany, but also in the title of Count , awarded in 1195 , which the brothers Eberhard IV († 1263) and Otto I († 1278) had in their seals for the first time .

In 1241 the Rosenthal monastery was founded by the aforementioned Count Eberhard IV, lord of the castle of Stauf , and his wife Adelheid von Sayn .

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Ebersteiner owned property in Alsace , Ortenau , in the valleys of Murg, Alb and Pfinz as well as in Kraichgau .

1219–1387: decline

Eberstein Castle (Gernsbach)
Eberstein Castle at the end of the 17th century

In 1219 the property was divided between the brothers Eberhard IV and Otto I. In the years that followed, the Ebersteiners founded five cities ( Gernsbach , Kuppenheim , Neuburg am Rhein , Bretten and Gochsheim im Kraichgau), but the finances of the counts stood up it's not for the best. This became evident in 1240 when Kunigunde von Eberstein married Margrave Rudolf I of Baden . Since the financial means were insufficient for the dowry, Otto II had to leave half of the family castle Alt-Eberstein to the people of Baden. The Ebersteiners moved their headquarters to Neu-Eberstein Castle, first mentioned in 1272 (today Eberstein Castle ) above Gernsbach. The other half of Alt-Eberstein Castle was also sold to the Margraves of Baden in 1283. The fact that the Ebersteiners fell quickly was certainly due to their generosity and generosity towards the two house monasteries Herrenalb and Frauenalb. In addition, the Ebersteiners, who were mostly blessed with a large number of children, always had to provide considerable funds for equipping their daughters.

The fate of the Ebersteiners was sealed by Count Wolf (ram) von Eberstein (1360 to around 1395), who ensured that a large part of the remaining possessions of the house was lost. The belligerent wolf had ultimately found himself hopelessly in debt, which was largely due to a 20-year feud with Count Eberhard II of Württemberg . Waldangelloch came into the possession of the Lords of Angelach in 1363 . In 1387 Eberhard sold half of the county and half of Neu-Eberstein Castle for 8,000 guilders to Margrave Rudolf VII of Baden . The Counts of Eberstein meanwhile still exercised landlord rights in their remaining lands, but could no longer gain importance as territorial lords.

Count Wilhelm IV. Von Eberstein (1497–1562) officially introduced the Reformation in his domain in 1556, the other line of counts remained traditional. His sons Philip II (1523–1589) and Otto IV (1533–1576) had no male offspring; Otto's daughters married offspring of the Catholic Counts of Wolkenstein and Counts of Gronsfeld . After Philip's death they sued against the transfer of rule to the reformed counts of the surviving, younger Eberstein line and received large parts of the Eberstein County in the Thirty Years' War .

Extinction of the sex in the 17th century

Inner courtyard of Gochsheim Castle

After those von Angelach died out in 1608, the reformed Philip III moved. von Eberstein , who was still lord of Gochsheim and lands in Lorraine , regained ownership of Waldangelloch . In the male line, however, the sex finally died out around 50 years later with the death of the 21-year-old Count Casimir von Eberstein (born April 19, 1639; † December 22, 1660) in 1660. His wife Marie Eleonore von Nassau-Weilburg (born August 12, 1636 in Metz ; † December 16, 1678 in Gochsheim) he had only married on May 5 of the same year in Idstein . His daughter Albertina Sophia Esther (* May 20, 1661 in Gochsheim; † May 24, 1728), who had never met her father, who had died before her birth, married Duke Friedrich August of Württemberg on February 9, 1679, a few weeks after her mother's death -Neuenstadt (1654–1716) and brought the family's last properties in Gochsheim and Waldangelloch into the marriage. The couple temporarily resided in Gochsheim Castle . The marriage remained without surviving male descendants despite 14 children. The property fell to the House of Württemberg .

coat of arms

The family coat of arms of the Counts of Eberstein shows a rose with five red petals and a blue center on a silver shield. In 1207 the rose was first documented as a Eberstein emblem in a seal . In the 16th century the boar was also included in the coat of arms. A legend according to which the blossom was included in the coat of arms due to the awarding of a golden rose by the Pope to an Ebersteiner in recognition of services rendered can be traced back to 1531, but the truthfulness cannot be historically proven.

See also family members

literature

  • Rainer Hennl: Gernsbach in the Murgtal. Structures and developments up to the end of the Baden-Eberstein condominium in 1660. W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-019480-1 ( Publications of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. B 165), (At the same time: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 2004: Gernsbach 1219 to 1660. ).
  • Georg Heinrich Krieg von Hochfelden : History of the Counts of Eberstein in Swabia . Hasper, Karlsruhe 1836. Full text in the Google book search
  • Valentin König : Genealogical aristocratic history or gender description of those noble families in Chur-Saxon and neighboring lands . Volume 3, Leipzig 1736, pp. 238-274 ( full text ).
  • Cornelia Renger-Zorn: The Ebersteiners. BadnerBuch-Verlag, Rastatt 2011, ISBN 978-3-9814564-2-4 .

Web links

Commons : Eberstein  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cornelia Zorn: Connections to the Pope doubtful . In: Badisches Tagblatt . January 24, 2008 ( literaturdesign.de [PDF; 300 kB ]).
  2. ↑ Cornelia Zorn: Flunked in honor of the Ebersteiner . In: Badisches Tagblatt . January 25, 2008 ( literaturdesign.de [PDF; 375 kB ]).