County of Padberg
The county of Padberg was a short-lived territory that was partly in what is now the Sauerland and partly in what is now northern Hesse . The county was established around 1030 and became extinct in 1120. The Counts of Padberg are also known as Erponen . They are probably not related to the Padberg family . Especially before the beginning of the counts and after their end, the area was called the Padberg rule.
Origin and scope
The progenitor was a Count Bernhard , an illegitimate descendant of Haold III. A small county with a focus around Padberg was formed from his inheritance. The count's headquarters were in the old castle in Padberg .
In the later Duchy of Westphalia , the southeastern part of the Brilon office as far as the Hoppecke River belonged to the county . In addition, there was the southern part of the Marsberg office with the lords of Padberg and Canstein . The north-western part of the Eisenberg office and the south-western part of the Arolsen office belonged to the later Principality of Waldeck .
Emperor Konrad II transferred the small county to Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn in 1030 ; further possessions of Bernhard and a sister followed in 1031. These transfers had the consequence that the descendants of Bernhard, who is no longer mentioned in the sources after 1031, had to take the county as a fief from the bishops of Paderborn .
Another story
Bernhard's successors were usually called Erpo or Erp, a variant of Adalbert's name. The Vita Meinwerci therefore also calls the counts nobilissima Erponum . The large number of people with the name Erp makes it difficult to distinguish the individual people named in the sources.
Bernhard's son, Erpo I., appears in various documents from Bishop Meinwerk, initially together with his father as a witness. He lived temporarily in Warburg , where he probably also took over the deputy of Bernhard II as court lord. In 1038 Erpo was a witness when Bishop Rotho von Paderborn confirmed the foundation of the Abdinghof Monastery. Erpo was also present for other similar files. Overall, Erpo I. is mentioned in documents for over 38 years.
His son Erpo II appears for the first time in 1093 as a witness at the foundation of the Bursfelde monastery . The fact that he appears as a witness directly after the donors in the relevant document speaks for its importance. In 1101 Erpo founded the Boke Monastery ; the property that formed the material basis of the monastery had come to him through his wife Beatrix von Itter . The other goods in the monastery consisted to a large extent of possessions in the county of Padberg. Because the property in Boke was also claimed by other counts and there had been conflicts about it, Erpo moved the monastery to Flechtdorf , which was in his county. A short time later he had a dispute with the residents of Horhusen, today Niedermarsberg . This allegedly led to an outrage on a crucifix in the church of Horhusen when Erpo cut off the crown of thorns from the depicted Jesus with his sword. Further desecrations are said to have been prevented by divine intervention. Erpo then entered the Flechtdorf monastery. He died there in 1113 and was buried in the monastery church.
Lordship of Padberg
The Erpos marriage remained childless. After Erpos II von Padberg's death, his widow Beatrix, with the consent of Thietmar von Padberg, a brother of Erpos, transferred the castle and dominion of Padberg with all associated rights to the Archbishopric of Cologne . The Archbishop of Cologne also confirmed the rights of the Flechtdorf Monastery. A family of ministers enfeoffed by the Archbishops with Padberg Castle later called themselves von Padberg . Much of the former county came to Waldeck in the Padberg feud in 1414 . For the rest of their rule, the Padbergs had to finally recognize the Cologne electors as overlords in 1576. Nevertheless, the Padberg rule remained as such until 1807. Only with the establishment of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia were the last remnants of independence abolished.
According to Tönsmeyer, the nobleman Thietmar von Padberg, the brother of Erpo II. Von Padberg, is identical to the first nobleman Thietmar von Büren.
literature
- Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 4th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-35865-9 , p. 455.
- Ernst Friedrich Mooyer : The Flechtdorf Monastery and its documents , Minden, 1850 digitized online
- Johann Suibert Seibertz: The Counts of Padberg and their Comitat . In: Ders .: State and legal history of the Duchy of Westphalia. First volume, second section. History of the Dynasts. Arnsberg, 1855 pp. 378-390.
- Hans Dieter Tönsmeyer: Gerhao quondam dux. On the role of the Frankish imperial nobility in the Hessian-Saxon border area . In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies (ZHG) Volume 122 (2017), pp. 1–24. Digitized online