Gerhard VI. (Holstein-Rendsburg)

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Seal of Gerhard VI. by 1395

Gerhard VI. (* around 1367; † August 4, 1404 ) was Count of Holstein-Rendsburg and Duke of Schleswig .

Life

Gerhard VI. - Son of Count Heinrich II. From the Rendsburg line of the House of Schauenburg and the Ingeburg of Mecklenburg - was Count of Holstein-Rendsburg since 1384. On September 15, 1386 he was by King Olaf III. of Denmark with the Duchy Schleswig hereditary belehnt . Gerhard was able to extend his position of power to Holstein: after the Plön line of the Schauenburgs died out in 1390 and the Kiel line , he succeeded in taking over their territories in Holstein with the exception of Holstein-Pinneberg in 1403 . Thus the Duchy of Schleswig and the German county of Holstein were in personal union of Gerhard VI. largely under one rule.

Gerhard VI. fell in the battle of the Hamme on August 4, 1404 while trying to subdue Dithmarschen . The farmers there were formally owned by the Archbishopric of Bremen, but had extensive autonomy, which Gerhard wanted to take away from them by force. He invaded their territory with a strong army of knights , but was ambushed in the swampy landscape and killed along with most of his men.

His sons then got into a violent conflict over the Duchy of Schleswig with the Danish King Erik VII and his mother Margarethe I , which King Sigismund's arbitration ruling of June 28, 1424 was ultimately unable to end: The future emperor had decided that Schleswig which, in contrast to Holstein, was not part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but was not inherited, but integration into the Danish kingdom failed not least because of the Hanseatic intervention on the part of the Schauenburgers. In 1435 the Peace of Vordingborg was finally concluded, which gave the Schauenburgers almost all of Schleswig again, and in 1440 Gerhard's son Adolf VIII received the duchy again as a hereditary, “free and unencumbered” fiefdom: Schleswig remained formally bound to the Danish crown but to be administered and inherited by the dukes at will.

Marriage and offspring

In 1391, Gerhard and Elisabeth von Braunschweig, daughter of Magnus II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, married . The following children were born out of the marriage:

seal

Count Gerhard VI. von Holstein-Rendsburg united the two Schleswig lions with the Holstein nettle leaf (serrated shield) on its seal for the first time in 1395, as can be found in today's coat of arms of Schleswig-Holstein .

The following words are arranged around the combined coat of arms of Schleswig and Holstein: "S (IGILLUM) * GHERARDI * DEI * GRA (TIA) * DUCIS * IUCIE * COMITIS * HOLTZA (TIE) * ET * STOR (MARIE)".

This inscription has the following meaning: "Seal of Gerhard by God's grace Duke of Jutland Count of Holstein and Stormarn".

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eckardt Opitz : Schleswig-Holstein. The country and its history . Hamburg 2008, page 61.
  2. ↑ Robert Bohn: History of Schleswig-Holstein (= Beck's series, vol. 2615). Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50891-X , p. 26 f.
  3. ↑ Max Pappenheim: Die Siebenhardenbelieben from June 17, 1426. Festschrift for the five hundredth anniversary. Decorative Arts Museum of the City of Flensburg, Flensburg 1926, p. 7.
  4. ^ Palle Lauring : History of Denmark. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1964, p. 101.
  5. ^ Eckardt Opitz : Schleswig-Holstein. The country and its history . Hamburg 2008, page 60 f.
predecessor Office successor
Henry II Schleswig Arms.svg
Duke of Schleswig
1386–1404 		Henry III.
Albrecht Count of Holstein-Rendsburg
1403–1404 		Henry III.
personal data
SURNAME Gerhard VI.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Holstein-Rendsburg
DATE OF BIRTH around 1367
DATE OF DEATH August 4, 1404