Gottfried V. (goat grove)

Gottfried V of Ziegenhain († 1272 ) from the family of the Counts of Ziegenhain was from 1258 until his death Graf von Ziegenhain .

origin

Gottfried was the second son of Count Berthold I († 1258) of Ziegenhain and Nidda zu Ziegenhain and his wife Eilike (Eilika) von Tecklenburg († 1286), daughter of Count Otto I of Tecklenburg . An older brother, Berthold, is mentioned in 1258, but then no longer, and probably died as a child.

Count of Ziegenhain

Entry into government and separation of the counties of Nidda and Ziegenhain

After the death of his father, Gottfried followed him as the ruling Count of Ziegenhain and Nidda zu Ziegenhain. In Nidda, Gottfried's uncle Gottfried IV was followed by his son Ludwig II († 1289) in 1250 . There was an argument almost immediately between him and his cousin Gottfried V. This led to the formal division of the two counties and an exchange of territory in 1258, mediated by Archbishop Gerhard I of Mainz, Bishop Simon I of Paderborn and Abbot Heinrich IV of Fulda , who at the same time was also Abbot of Hersfeld and with it Ziegenhain was the feudal lord for both Nidda and Ziegenhain. Ludwig received the county of Nidda and the Neustadt office , gave up the bailiwick in Gemünden (Felda) in exchange for the court in Rodheim and Widdersheim , and had to give up his claims to Staufenberg , Rauschenberg , Treysa , Gemünden Castle , Schlitz and Lißberg . Gottfried was to be free to redeem the Fulda bailiwick with 175 marks of silver from Ludwig, and Gottfried was allowed to build in Nidda and Ludwig in Ziegenhain, but none of them hurt the other.

The separation of the two counties lasted until 1333, when Count Johann I , grandson of Gottfried V, reunited them in one hand.

Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession

When Gottfried took office, the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession for the Ludowinger legacy, which had been going on since 1247, was still in full swing. Like his father, Gottfried V had to operate flexibly and carefully between Kurmainz on the one hand and Duchess Sophie von Brabant and her son Heinrich I , who was proclaimed Landgrave of Hesse . On June 2, 1262, Sophie von Brabant succeeded in getting Gottfried V into an alliance with her son against Archbishop Werner von Mainz and the Counts of Waldeck, allied with Mainz, for a payment of 400 marks . Since Gottfried's cousin Ludwig was on Archbishop Werner's side in Nidda, the alliance agreement contained careful exception clauses to avoid direct fighting between the cousins. When the Langsdorf Peace between Mainz and Hesse was concluded in September 1263 and Sophie and Heinrich undertook to pay Mainz 2,000 marks, Gottfried V was listed first among the 30 guarantors named for the payment.

The fact that Gottfried tried to maintain good relations with Mainz at the same time is evident from a document from Archbishop Werner dated April 28, 1265. In it the Archbishop confirms that Gottfried canceled his debts of 400 marks because Gottfried had not fulfilled the duties he had taken on from his father to the Archbishop, at the same time renews the alliance with Gottfried and assures him that he will never punish him with excommunication .

Relationships with other neighbors

Due to the geographical location of his county, Gottfried found himself in tense relationships with his powerful neighbors Hesse and Mainz, between whom he sought to maintain his independence. The Landgraviate of Hesse was cut into two parts by the Ziegenhainers' territory and tried to connect them with each other by gaining territories. The Archbishopric Mainz, on the other hand, challenged the landgrave for supremacy in Upper and Lower Hesse and wanted to establish territorial connections or at least bridgeheads to his Lower Hessian possessions and to Eichsfeld . For both of them, Ziegenhain was on the one hand an important ally, but on the other hand it was also a desirable bite - with the landgraves being the more dangerous neighbor. In this situation, and in view of the peace between Hesse and Mainz, which was concluded in September 1263, Gottfried entered into an alliance with Albrecht II to protect and defend against Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse and his brother-in-law, Duke Albrecht of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , in May 1265 . , Landgrave of Thuringia and Count Palatine of Saxony , for which he was to be paid with a sum of money still to be determined by Count Hermann I von Henneberg .

The relations between the Counts of Ziegenhain as hereditary monastery bailiffs were also increasingly controversial with the abbots of the imperial abbey of Fulda, which was elevated to a prince abbey by Emperor Friedrich II , as the interests of abbot and bailiff were often conflicting. Gottfried's father Berthold I was already in a feud with Abbot Heinrich IV from 1252 , and the dispute also lived on between the two successors, Gottfried V and Abbot Bertho . Bertho took active action against robber barons and rebellious knights and ministerials in the area of ​​his monastery and did not spare the vassals and allies of the Ziegenhainers. He also used Gottfried's financial shortage to expand his and to reduce the Vögtic influence in the area of ​​the monastery: in 1263 he paid Gottfried V 210 marks Cologne pfennigs for his renunciation of Schlitz Castle . In 1265, Bertho had Wartenberg Castle destroyed because its owners had allied themselves with Gottfried against the abbot. It was not until April 1266 that Gottfried V and Abbot Bertho II concluded peace on the mediation of Count Hermann I von Henneberg.

A dispute with Count Ulrich I of Asperg († 1283), from the house of the Count Palatine of Tübingen , the owner of the city of Gießen , was settled in 1264 after a meeting of the two counts near Gießen, and was then resolved by the sale of the town in the same year to Landgrave Heinrich von Hessen, irrelevant.

City founder

After the settlement of Rauschenberg burned down almost completely on May 8, 1266, Gottfried granted the place special powers to rebuild it and on May 22, 1266 granted it city rights .

Marriage and offspring

Gottfried was married to Hedwig von Castell († after 1291), daughter of Count Heinrich I von Castell , at the latest since March 26, 1262 . There are four children known by name from the marriage:

• Hedwig (mentioned 1270, † before 1276)
• Jutta (mentioned in 1275 and 1283)
• Gottfried VI. (* 1262, † November 30, 1304), ⚭ 1282 Mechthild von Hessen (* around 1267, † around 1332)
• Berta, ⚭ Konrad von Hohenlohe-Brauneck-Brauneck

Gottfried V. died in 1272 at the latest. In that year Friedrich von Schlitz certified that he was Gottfried's widow Hedwig and her son Gottfried VI. wanted to help against their enemies, for which they assigned him appropriate income and castle loans. His son and successor Gottfried VI. was only 10 years old at the time and therefore ruled under the tutelage of his mother.

literature

• Martin Röhling: The story of the counts of Nidda and the counts of Ziegenhain. (Niddaer Geschichtsblätter booklet 9) Niddaer Heimatmuseum e. V., Nidda 2005, ISBN 3-9803915-9-0 .

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online no. 78. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
2. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online no. 290. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
3. ^ Landgrave regest online No. 88. Regest of the landgrave of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
4. ^ Friedrich Küch:  Sophie, Duchess of Brabant . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 661-665.
5. ^ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 712. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
6. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 311. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
7. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 709. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
8. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 714. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
9. ^ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 711. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
10. ↑ Röhling, p. 33
11. ↑ Konrad von Teck is also mentioned as a husband. ( Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 396. Regests of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).)
12. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 665. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).