Gebhard XIV. Of Alvensleben

Gebhard XIV. Von Alvensleben (* around 1360, † around 1428; mentioned in a document 1393–1425) was lord of the castle on Gardelegen and governor of the Altmark .

Gardelegen Castle around 1600 - drawing by Anco Wigboldus (detail)

Origin and life

He came from the Low German noble family von Alvensleben and was the son of Werner I von Alvensleben , who took over the castle Gardelegen , later also called Burg Isenschnibbe, in 1378 , and his wife Berta, the donor of a cup of communion, which is still in possession today the White Line of the Family. He was probably born around 1360, succeeded his father in 1395 and was margrave bailiff of Gardelegen.

Fronde against the Hohenzollern

In this capacity he experienced a time of great upheaval in the Mark Brandenburg . In 1411 King Sigismund appointed the burgrave of Nuremberg, Friedrich VI. von Hohenzollern , later Elector Friedrich I, as governor of Brandenburg. Large parts of the Brandenburg nobility, above all the Quitzows , who had acquired an important position of power between 1400 and 1410, were very reluctant to recognize the new governor. Gebhard XIV. V. A. On August 12, 1412 the king received a warning, on September 13, 1412 an order followed to pay homage to the burgrave, and on April 4, 1413 the order was finally obeyed. However, that did not end the conflict. Parts of the Brandenburg nobility had already been feuding with the ore monastery of Magdeburg since 1412 . They continued to do so after the homage until the new governor decided to take military action and break the power of the Quitzows and their allies. With the help of gun technology that had become fashionable and the use of the "big rifle", the Quitzow castles were stormed in February 1414 in a concentrated action. Gardelegen was also taken. The castle was first handed over to Gebhard's greatest enemy, Heise von Steinfurt at the archbishopric Alvensleben .

Reconciliation with the Hohenzollern and further life

After this victory, Friedrich von Hohenzollern tried to find a reconciliation with his opponents. Gebhard received the Gardelegen castle back in 1416 and even became governor of the Altmark on May 15, 1416. With this office he had the task to protect the country against internal and external enemies, to watch over the security in the country, to award secular fiefs where the succession was undisputed, to collect the feudal fees and fines, the raised money for the benefit of the country to use and to account for it. After a few years he asked several times to be dismissed from this office, which he was finally granted on July 7, 1421. Gebhard was married twice. Only the first names of his wives are known: Elisabeth (Else) and Geseke. He is believed to have died around 1428. Three sons and a daughter survived him, including his successor Werner II von Alvensleben and Sophia, who later became abbess of the Neuendorf monastery .

The Alvensleben feud

The feuds in Brandenburg and the neighboring regions did not end with the disempowerment of the Quitzows. From 1416 to 1420 the ore monastery of Magdeburg waged a war with the Altmark, which went down in history as the Alvensleben feud. Here Gebhard XIV. And Ludolf II. Von Alvensleben auf Calbe (Milde) were obviously the main actors.

literature

• Siegmund Wilhelm Wohlbrück: Historical news of the family of Alvensleben and its goods Volume I, Berlin 1819, p. 379 ff, p. 3-4 in the appendix.
• E. Nitter (Ed.): The white Alvensleben in the castle Gardelegen . Reprint from “Heimatbuch Gardelegen”, Volume 3, 1939, pp. 19–27.
• Uwe Michas: With feud, pawn and sword. The "Quitzow time" in the Mark Brandenburg . Berlin 2002.