Elisabeth von Ziegenhain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elisabeth von Ziegenhain (* around 1375; † December 1, 1431 ) was a daughter of Count Gottfried VIII von Ziegenhain . She was married to Ulrich V. von Hanau from 1388 .

The marriage resulted in three daughters, Elisabeth , Agnes and Adelheid . The lack of a male heir threatened the continued existence of the Hanau family. According to the Primogeniture Statute of 1375, however, other male members of the house were not allowed to marry. This was an important reason why Ulrich V was forced to abdicate in 1404 and his next older brother, Reinhard II , took over the government and married.

In the run-up to her husband's abdication, Elisabeth had contractually guaranteed her Wittum and the care of her children through Ulrich's successor and, in return, waived all claims to and on the rule of Hanau . In doing so, she stabbed her husband in the back and promoted political change in the Hanau rule. Even at this time, the marriage seems to have been broken. In the following years Elisabeth lived separated from her husband.

When the last Count von Ziegenhain, Elisabeth's brother Johann II. , Died in 1450 without a male heir, their relationship - their daughter Elisabeth had married a Hohenlohe - broke the ultimately unsuccessful claim of the Hohenlohe family to the Ziegenhain inheritance to the Landgraviate of Hesse fell.

She spent the last twenty years of her life - without formally entering the order - with the sisters of the Klarenthal Monastery , in whose neighborhood she had a house built. Two of her daughters, Agnes and Adelheid, had joined the monastery; Agnes even became abbess there . Elisabeth bequeathed an amount of 100 Florentine guilders to the monastery in her will .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Elisabeth von Ziegenhain
BRIEF DESCRIPTION by marriage to Countess von Hanau
DATE OF BIRTH around 1375
DATE OF DEATH December 1, 1431