Gerlach I (Nassau)

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Gerlach I (around 1285 ; † January 7, 1361 at Sonnenberg Castle , buried in Klarenthal Abbey ) was Count of Nassau from 1305 to 1344 from the Walram line with the Nassau-Idstein dominion and count of Nassau-Sonnenberg until 1361 .

Life

Gerlach was the younger son of the German King Adolf von Nassau and the Imagina von Isenburg-Limburg . He followed his older brother Ruprecht VI. after his early death in 1305 and resided at Sonnenberg Castle near Wiesbaden . Gerlach was a determined man who reconciled himself with his father's former adversaries and restored the reputation of his house in Nassau after his death. In politics he was luckier than his father and was able to steadily expand the property of his house.

As early as 1309 he succeeded in transferring his father's body to the Speyer Cathedral . In this context, he had the King's Cross erected at his place of death near Göllheim . It is the oldest field cross in the Palatinate . Gerlach was close to the House of Luxemburg and Henry VII and accompanied Heinrich in 1312 to his coronation as emperor in Italy . In 1310 he accompanied Heinrich's son John of Bohemia , later King of Bohemia , to Prague . After Heinrich's death, he sided with the Habsburg Frederick the Fair , the son of Albrecht I of Austria , his father's former enemy. In 1318 he stood up to the siege of Ludwig as a defender of Wiesbaden, whereupon he received his own coin . It was not until 1322, after the battle of Mühldorf , that Gerlach recognized Friedrich's opponent Ludwig the Bavarian as the German king . He had already supported Ludwig's brother Rudolf I during the Bavarian civil war and vehemently campaigned for peace in the country .

After 1322 he was reconciled with Ludwig. In 1326 he became imperial bailiff of the Wetterau and acquired half of the county of Weilnau with Neuweilnau Castle . In 1328 he acquired the rule of Merenberg , in 1336 he received the Biebrich ferry as an imperial fief, and in 1338 he was imperial envoy to the Pope in Avignon .

He was in feud with Kurmainz , Kurtrier and also with the Counts of Katzenelnbogen , although formerly connected to the latter by blood ties (his grandmother was a sister of Count Diether V. von Katzenelnbogen ).

Abdication and division of the county

In 1338 Emperor Ludwig visited him at his residence at Burg Sonnenberg. In 1344 he abdicated in favor of his sons Adolf and Johann, but remained master of Sonnenberg. As a supporter of Charles IV , he appeared in his entourage. His second wife, Irmengard von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim, asked King Charles IV to grant her town rights for Sonnenberg in 1351 .

As early as 1355, Walram's rule was divided into Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein (son Adolf from first marriage), Nassau-Weilburg (son Johann from first marriage) and Nassau-Sonnenberg (son Kraft from second marriage). As Kraft died in the battle of Maupertuis the following year , Gerlach's youngest son Ruprecht followed him as Count of Nassau-Sonnenberg.

progeny

Gerlach I von Nassau and Agnes von Hessen (drawing of the tomb in the former Klarenthal monastery from 1632, which was destroyed in 1850 )

He was initially married (before 1307) to Agnes von Hessen (* around 1290; † June 13, 1332), daughter of Heinrich the Younger, a son of Landgrave Heinrich I von Hessen and had a. a. the following offspring:

With his second wife Irm (en) gard von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim (* 1315; † 1371/1372), daughter of Kraft von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim and widow of Konrad von Zollern († 1334), he had the children:

After the death of her husband, Irm (en) gard von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim became a Dominican in the Liebenau monastery near Worms and died there in January 1371, with a reputation for holiness.

See also

literature

  • Pierre Even: Luxembourg-Nassau dynasty. From the Counts of Nassau to the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg. A nine hundred year history of rulers in one hundred biographies . Luxembourg 2000, pp. 20-22.
  • Festschrift of the Konrad-Duden-Schule in Wiesbaden-Sonnenberg 1904–1984.
  • Festschrift 875 years Sonnenberg. 1126-2001 . Wiesbaden 2001.
  • Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 7th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Christian Daniel Vogel: Description of the Duchy of Nassau , Wiesbaden 1843, p. 325 ff.
  2. ↑ Walter Czysz, Klarenthal , p. 170, on August 4, 1344, names differently .
  3. ↑ Otto Gärtner, Arnsburg Monastery in the Wetterau , Königstein 1989, p. 10 (with illus.).
  4. ^ Historischer Verein von Hessen: Archive for Hessian History and Archeology, Volume 2, Parts 2-3, Page 447, 1841; Scan from the source, on the death of Countess Irmengard von Nassau in the Liebenau monastery
personal data
SURNAME Gerlach I.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Nassau
DATE OF BIRTH around 1285
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1361
Place of death Sonnenberg Castle