Emich IV.

Emich IV of Leiningen (* around 1215 ; † before 1279 ) was Count of Leiningen . He founded the city of Landau in the Palatinate .

Family environment

The Leininger were an influential Palatinate noble family with ancestral seat at Altleiningen Castle . Emich's parents were Friedrich II., Count von Leiningen († 1237 ) and Agnes von Eberstein , sister of Count Eberhard IV. Von Eberstein and cousin of St. Hedwig . His brother Berthold von Leiningen officiated as Bishop of Bamberg , another brother, Heinrich von Leiningen , was Bishop of Speyer , which office her uncle Konrad von Eberstein held before ; the great uncle Poppo von Andechs-Meranien was also bishop of Bamberg.

Leiningian inheritance

After the death of the father and the older brother Simon it came between the brothers Friedrich III. and Emich IV. on the inheritance dispute, which was settled through the mediation of her maternal uncle, the Speyer Bishop Konrad von Eberstein, in 1237 with the division of the inheritance. Emich was given the Leininger half of Landeck Castle, which was first mentioned in a document in this context, along with the associated places and rights. The family castle Altleiningen became joint property of the two. Friedrich III. A little later, in the period from 1238 to 1241, he built Neuleiningen Castle five kilometers northeast of Altleiningen .

In addition to Landeck Castle, which had been an imperial fief since 1222 at the latest and was half owned by the Counts of Zweibrücken and the Counts of Leiningen, Emich also held the Madenburg and the villages of Waldhambach , Waldrohrbach , Eschbach , Ranschbach , Arzheim , Nussdorf , Dammheim , and Queichheim , Mühlhausen, Servelingen , Eutzingen and Oberbornheim. Emich was a reliable follower of the Count Palatine . Count Palatine Otto II appointed him in 1248 as a Burgmann at Winzingen Castle near Neustadt an der Weinstrasse . Count Palatine Ludwig II took Count Emich von Leiningen into the Wachtenburg as a castle man in 1278 . While this act was previously assigned to Emich IV, it is now assigned to his son Emich (V) and is also used as an ante quem term for the death of Emich IV.

Foundation of the city of Landau

Monument to Emich IV von Leiningen and Rudolf von Habsburg

Around 1260 Emich had an additional fortification built on the plain not far from Landeck Castle - in the area of ​​the four villages Mühlhausen, Servelingen, Eutzingen and Oberbornheim. The city of Landau emerged from the new foundation in just a few years . As early as 1274, King Rudolf I of Habsburg granted the young town town rights and the right to hold a weekly market. In order to ensure pastoral care in his city, Emich called Augustinian canons from the Oberstieg monastery in Alsace to Landau in 1276 , who set up a canon monastery there, the “ Steigerherren ” monastery . Papal confirmations of the monastery "Monasterium sancte Marie de Steiga", also "Monasterium beatae Virginis Mariae ad Scalas", followed in 1285 and 1289. In Landau a memorial was erected around 1910 (fort, forest road).

Death and succession

Emich died before 1279 and was inherited by his son of the same name, Emich (V.). When he died a few years later (1289) and only a few months later his little son Rudolf, the male line of Leiningen-Landeck died out. The Madenburg fell back to the main line in Leiningen. The Leininger half of Landeck Castle, which had reverted to the empire, was given by King Rudolf I and the surrounding villages to his nephew, the Alsatian bailiff Otto III. von Ochsenstein , while the other half remained in the possession of the Counts of Zweibrücken. The city of Landau was made an imperial city by Rudolf in 1291 .

Marriage and offspring

Tomb of Kunigunde von Leiningen, Countess von Blâmont in the Chapel of the Cordeliers in Nancy, Lorraine

The following descendants came from Emich's marriage to Elisabeth († 1264) around 1235:

• Agnes († after December 1299) ⚭ before 1270 Otto I , Count of Nassau
  • Henry III. , Count of Nassau-Siegen († 1343)
  • Johann , Count of Nassau-Dillenburg († August 10, 1328 near Wetzlar)
  • Emich , Count of Nassau-Hadamar († June 7, 1334), ⚭ around 1300 Anna of Hohenzollern-Nuremberg
  • Gertrud, 1329–1359 Abbess of Altenburg († September 19, 1359)
  • Otto, Canon in Worms († September 3, 1302)
  • Mechtild († before October 29, 1319), ⚭ Gerhard I. , Count of Vianden († 1317)
• Adelheid, ⚭ 1265 Johann I , Count of Sponheim-Kreuznach
• Kunigunde ⚭ before 1267 Heinrich I, Count of Blankenberg
• Emich (V.), Count of Leiningen († 1289) ⚭ Katharina von Ochsenstein, daughter of Kunigunde von Habsburg .
  • Rudolf († 1290)

No children are known from a second marriage with Margarethe von Hengebach (Heimbach) , widow of Count Simon I von Sponheim-Kreuznach , in 1265 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Regional and Folklore of the Bavarian Rhine Palatinate. Cotta, Munich 1867, pp. 727–728 ( full text in the Google book search).
2. ↑ Neustadt an der Weinstrasse: History 1155 to the end of the 13th century ( memento from January 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 7, 2014
3. ^ Johann Georg Lehmann : Documented history of the castles and mountain palaces in the former districts, counties and lordships of the Bavarian Palatinate , Volume 2, Kaiserslautern 1857, p. 421 f.
4. ^ History of the Wachtenburg , Association for the Preservation of the Ruin Wachtenburg eV, accessed on May 7, 2014
5. ^ Ingo Toussaint: The Counts of Leiningen , Sigmaringen 1982, p. 45
6. ^ Pfarrverband Landau-Stadt, St. Maria ( Memento from May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), bistum-speyer.de, accessed on May 7, 2014
7. ^ Association Clef de Voûte du Blamontois - Histoire , accessed May 7, 2014

literature

• Ingo Toussaint: The Counts of Leiningen , Sigmaringen 1982, ISBN 3-7995-7017-9 .
• Michael Martin: A short history of the city of Landau. G. Braun, Karlsruhe, 2006, ISBN 3-7650-8340-2 .
• Alexander Thon, Hans Reither, Peter Pohlit: Landeck castle ruins. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1713-9 .
• Johann von Birnbaum: History of the city and federal fortress Landau, with related documents. Kohlhepp, Kaiserslautern, 1830 ( full text in the Google book search).