Gottfried VI. (Goat grove)

Gottfried VI. of Ziegenhain (* 1262 , † 30th November 1304 ) from the family of the Counts of Ziegenhain was from 1272 until his death Graf von Ziegenhain .

origin

Gottfried was the only son of Count Gottfried V († 1272) von Ziegenhain and Nidda zu Ziegenhain and his wife Hedwig von Castell († after 1291), daughter of Count Heinrich I von Castell. He had three sisters: Hedwig, Jutta and Berta.

Count of Ziegenhain

Gottfried was only 10 years old when his father died and therefore initially ruled under the tutelage of his mother. Her most important official act in her first years of reign was the engagement of her son to the then seven-year-old Mechthild, the second daughter of Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse . The contract concluded in November 1274 contained, as is customary with marriages between wealthy houses, very detailed information on the ownership rights and transfers that were to become binding in the event of various deaths. The marriage itself was celebrated eight years later, in 1282, after the young Mechthild had come of age.

Like his predecessors and his successors, Gottfried VI. claim in the field of tension between two more powerful and struggling neighbors who on the one hand could use him as an ally, but on the other hand would have liked to incorporate his county into their own domain. While balancing - initially under the tutelage of his mother, then on his own responsibility - on the tight line between the two, he occasionally got into trouble when he was too maneuverable.

In March 1278 Hedwig von Ziegenhain and her son Gottfried VI. as Burgmannen von Amöneburg , Archbishop Werner von Mainz and his church against Landgrave Heinrich - by engagement contract of 1274 Gottfried's future father-in-law - to provide advice and assistance. When Archbishop Werner then went into the field against the Landgrave in the spring of 1280, Gottfried was there as his ally with his husband and horse. However, the campaign turned into a disaster: At Fritzlar , Heinrich's troops defeated the troops of the archbishop and his allies so decisively that the archbishop had to make peace on conditions that were extremely favorable for Hesse. The Landgrave did not make peace with Gottfried until 1282, four months after the Count's marriage to the Landgrave's daughter. Even then, it took until June 29, 1283 for the two to finally come to an agreement on their outstanding disputes, in particular also on the goat grove castle in Gemünden an der Straße , which Heinrich destroyed because of the goat grove support for Kurmainz in 1273 , and at the same time mutual aid against everyone except against the kingdom vowed.

When, in July 1291, Archbishop Gerhard II signed Gottfried again as Burgmann of Mainz in Amöneburg - payable for 150 Mark Aachen denarii by the next Martin's Day or 15 Mark annual income - he had become more cautious: the contract expressly included support and the opening of castles against Landgrave Heinrich out.

On June 5, 1288 Gottfried fought along with Count Otto I von Waldeck , who was married to Sophie, the eldest daughter of Landgrave Heinrich I, during the Limburg succession dispute on the side of Duke Johann I von Brabant in the battle Worring against the Archbishop of Cologne Siegfried von Westerburg ; the defeat and capture of the archbishop put an end to the expansion efforts of the Cologne archbishops.

The reason for Gottfried's victory over "the Westphelinge " in a battle near Geismar (probably Hofgeismar ) in autumn 1293 is not entirely clear. It is possible that Gottfried acted as an ally or field captain of Archbishop Gerhard or Landgrave Heinrich when troops of Duke Albrecht II of Braunschweig-Göttingen invaded the disputed area on Reinhardswald , because the archbishop and landgrave had allied against the duke on January 31, 1293.

Despite contracts, agreements and feudal relationships with Mainz, there were repeated disputes. On September 29, 1297, it was announced that all the quarrels that Gottfried and his wife Mechthild had with Archbishop Gerhard II since he took office had been settled. In atonement, they gave the archbishop their villages Frankenhain , Schönau and Treisbach as castle fiefs, and Gottfried pledged to help and to open his castles.

Gottfried also got crossed again with Landgrave Heinrich, his father-in-law, when his son Otto , Gottfried's brother-in-law, prematurely announced his father's death in 1302 when he became aware of his father's serious illness and received homage in parts of Lower Hesse . On May 25, 1302, Otto concluded an agreement with Gottfried at Rauschenberg Castle regarding the inheritance of his sister Mechthild, a pledge of Merlau Castle to Gottfried, Gottfried's right to rebuild the castle in Gemünden an der Straße ( Burg-Gemünden ) that had been destroyed by Otto's father. , and Gottfried's promise to support Otto until the end of the war of succession against his half-brother Johann , the designated Landgrave of Niederhessen, and his stepmother Mechtild von Kleve . When Landgrave Heinrich soon recovered and forced his insubordinate son to submit, Gottfried found himself in the wrong camp.

Marriage and offspring

From June 25, 1282 at the latest, Gottfried was married to Mechthild (* around 1267, † 1332) von Hessen , a great-granddaughter of St. Elisabeth and daughter of the Hessian Landgrave Heinrich I. The marriage had the children known by name:

• Hedwig (mentioned 1323 to 1355), ∞ Count Poppo II. Von Eberstein († 1329)
• Eilika (mentioned 1304 to 1361), Abbess of Altenberg
• Adelheid (1315, 1321 mentioned), ∞ Count Heinrich II. Von Rieneck
• Johann († December 15, 1359), from 1304 Count von Ziegenhain, from 1333 also Count von Nidda
• Otto (around 1304, † March 31, 1366), canon , canon of Mainz and Cologne , 1333–1366 provost of the Petristift in Fritzlar
• Heinrich (mentioned by Rauschenberg, 1330)

Gottfried's heir and successor as Count von Ziegenhain was his son Johann, who was first mentioned in a document in 1304, the year his father died. Johann was still a minor at this time, and until 1309, when she had a second marriage to Philip III. von Falkenstein- Munzenberg, his mother Mechthild appears in documents as regent in front of or next to him.

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 339. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
2. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 81. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS) .; and Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 232. Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). and Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 233. Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
3. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 364. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
4. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 373. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
5. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 374. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
6. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 84. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
7. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 402. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
8. ^ Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 355. Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
9. ^ Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 347. Regest of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
10. ^ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 87. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
11. ↑ Ziegenhainer Regesten online No. 422. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). and Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 435. Regesta of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). and Regests of the Landgraves of Hesse, No. 436. Regests of the Landgraves of Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
12. ↑ Ottmar Friedrich Heinrich Schönhuth, August von Bayer: The castles, monasteries, churches and chapels of Baden and the Palatinate with their stories, legends and fairy tales. Volume 2. Verlag JH Geiger, Lahr 1862, pp. 131–179 (here p. 150)
13. Jump up ↑ Family Tables: Counts of Ziegenhain and Nidda, Ziegenhain line - Gottfried VI. .  Regesta of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

literature

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