Gerlach von Breuberg
Gerlach von Breuberg (* around 1245 ; † 1306 ) was from 1282 to 1306 governor in the Wetterau and governor of peace in Thuringia .
Parentage and family
He was the eldest son of Eberhard I. Reiz von Breuberg, who died in 1286, from the family of Reiz von Breuberg , who, through his marriage to Mechthild von Büdingen († 1274), one of the four daughters of the noble lord Gerlach II von Büdingen , owned an important property who had acquired Wetterau. With Gerlach von Breuberg and his son Eberhard III. the sex reached the height of its territorial possession and political influence. Gerlach von Erbach († 1332), chosen bishop of Worms , was his nephew.
Territory acquisition
During the reign of King Rudolf I , Gerlach was able to considerably expand the original property of his house in the Büdingen area. As early as 1282 he received the Frankfurt Castle, the Saalhof , as an imperial mortgage ( pawn ) from King Rudolf I. In addition, Selbold (1282) with the Gelnhausen coin and in 1297 the imperial city of Mosbach and the Schwäbisch Hall coin as an imperial mortgage and Köppern , Bergen and Oberrad as imperial fiefs . He was also burgrave of Gernsheim .
Imperial politics
Gerlach played an important role in the power struggles of the late 13th century in the Holy Roman Empire , but more as an ally and instrument of others than as a self-determined actor.
In the armed conflict between Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse and Archbishop Werner von Eppstein of Mainz over territorial supremacy in Hesse, he supported the Landgrave and was therefore excommunicated by the Archbishop in 1275 .
In 1282 King Rudolf I appointed him royal bailiff in the Wetterau, where he was supposed to restore law and order after the turmoil caused by the long interregnum . At the same time, Rudolf pledged the Mint in Gelnhausen and the Selbold court to him for 100 marks of silver . Until 1291 he was repeatedly declared as governor. Presumably he was the destroyer of the many robber barons' castles in the Wetterau.
When King Rudolf I wanted to swear the Peace of Mainz once more for a single tribal area, the Archbishop of Mainz and Arch Chancellor Heinrich von Isny , appointed by Rudolf I as Chief of Peace and Imperial Vicar of the Thuringian Lands, established one on March 29, 1287 by the king confirmed land peace. This mere connection to the old imperial law failed, however, and at the Würzburg Court Congress of 1287 Rudolf I renewed the Peace of Mainz. Archbishop Heinrich's successor as Landfriedenshauptmann and Reichspfleger in Thuringia was the Landvogt der Wetterau, Gerlach von Breuberg.
After Rudolf I's death in July 1291, Gerlach fell into the mills of the electoral intrigues that preceded the next royal election - in particular that of Archbishop and Imperial Chancellor Gerhard II of Mainz , who tried to advance his expansive territorial policy and strengthen his power through skillful lavishing . Due to massive pressure on Gerlach, the archbishop initially succeeded in taking possession of the Thuringian imperial castles - with the exception of the Boyneburg - in August 1291 . In March 1292 he sent Gerlach von Breuberg and Count Eberhard I von Katzenelnbogen to Duke Albrecht von Habsburg to negotiate his candidacy for king. Nevertheless, on May 5, 1292, he elected Count Adolf von Nassau , who had made considerable election promises to the electors, as the new king. Just a week after his coronation (June 24, 1292), Adolf recognized the possession of the imperial castles in Thuringia by Gerhard and also promised the archbishop the government of Mühlhausen and Nordhausen and Ballhausen Castle . Two weeks later, on July 15, 1292, the king fully renewed the former position of the Archbishop of Mainz as Reichspfleger in Thuringia by making him imperial vicar in Thuringia and captain of the peace still established by King Rudolf in place of Gerlach von Breuberg appointed.
Nevertheless, Gerlach proved to be a loyal servant of the new king. This paid off, as the tide turned again in Gerlach's favor just a few years later. As early as 1293, the new king confirmed the purchase of Magenheim Castle and the city of Bönnigheim from Count Albrecht von Löwenstein-Schenkenberg , a son of Rudolf von Habsburg. On a court day on January 8, 1295 in Mühlhausen, Adolf von Nassau reorganized the Thuringian state peace and reappointed Gerlach von Breuberg as governor of the peace in Thuringia. After Archbishop Gerhard von Mainz protested massively against the purchase of Thuringia by King Adolf in the same year and even appealed to the Pope against the associated violation of his rights, Adolf responded, among other things, by saying that after the conquest of the Wettin lands, he and the Margrave Friedrich von Meißen and Dietrich von der Lausitz , with whom Gerlach had distinguished himself as an energetic follower and in Adolf's absence several times as commander-in-chief of the king's troops, in June 1296 Gerlach von Breuberg reinstated Mainz as the Reichspfleger in Thuringia.
Through his work in Thuringia and the redemption of the Raspenberg Castle and other goods, Gerlach obtained a debt claim of 4,400 silver marks against Adolf von Nassau, which he redeemed by taking the town of Mosbach am Neckar with tithe and all accessories and the Schwäbisch Hall mint in 1297 pawned to Gerlach, his son Eberhard and his brother Arrois .
Last years, death and succession
In 1298 Gerlach's political activity in Thuringia ended. After the Battle of Göllheim (July 12, 1298), in which Adolf von Nassau was killed, he took part in the court day of the new King Albrecht in Nuremberg in November. After that, until his death he was mainly active in matters of the Abbey of Fulda , whose feudal man he was on his home estates.
Probably around 1303 he bought from Gerhard III. Donate from Erbach half of the Erbach Castle with the associated goods in the Zenten Reichelsheim and Berfelden and a quarter of the Erbach Castle and the Schönberg Office in the Odenwald as a deposit .
Gerlach von Breuberg was buried in the Konradsdorf monastery , of which he was the patron and bailiff. His son Eberhard III. he inherited from his marriage to Lukardis (whose origin is unknown) and became the new governor of the Wetterau.
literature
- Wolfgang Bläsing: Gerlach von Breuberg - A study on the relationship between royalty and noble freedom after the Interregnum , in: Contributions to the exploration of the Odenwald and its peripheral landscapes III; Breuberg-Bund, 1980, ISBN 978-3-922903-00-0 , pp. 1-52
- Adolf Gauert: Breuberg, Gerlach Reiz von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 605 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Martin Mattheis: The relationship between the German princes and counts and King Adolf von Nassau (1892–1298) , in: Mitteilungen des Historische Verein der Pfalz 97, 1999, pp. 353–399 ( PDF )
- Friedrich Wilhelm Schirrmacher: Breuberg, Gerlach von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 320.
- Fred Schwind : The Landvogtei in the Wetterau. Studies on the rule and politics of the Hohenstaufen and late medieval kings. NG Elwert, Marburg, 1972
- H. Simon: The history of the imperial house Ysenburg and Büdingen, second volume: The Ysenburg and Büdingen'sche house history. Heinrich Ludwig Brönner's Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, 1865, pp. 54–67 ( digitized version )
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gerlach von Breuberg |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Bailiff in the Wetterau and state peace captain in Thuringia (1282–1306) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1245 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1306 |