Counts of Aarberg
The Counts of Aarberg were a branch of the Counts of Neuchâtel . Around 1220, under Ulrich III. von Neuchâtel both founded the town of Aarberg and built the nearby castle. He is said to have lived temporarily in Aarberg Castle with his son Ulrich IV. The location of the castle on the rock-reinforced knoll on the Aare made the town an important bridgehead and traffic point.
The line of the Counts of Aarberg was founded by Ulrich IV., Who at the death of his father Ulrich III. von Neuchâtel owned the dominions of Arconciel , Illens , Strassberg and Aarberg. Before 1251 he and his brother Berthold exchanged the rulership of Strassberg for the rule of Valangin . Berthold I became the progenitor of the Counts of Strassberg . Under the sons of Ulrich IV, the rule was divided again, which led to the sidelines Aarberg-Aarberg and Aarberg-Valangin.
The great-grandson of the city founder, Count Peter von Aarberg, pledged the city of Aarberg to the Bernese in 1358 , which brought the city into the sphere of influence of Bernese rule and the line of the Counts of Aarberg-Aarberg as the ruling dynasty became extinct. Because of debts, he sold the city in 1367 - together with his pawn debts - to the Count of Nidau . This solution was short-lived as the city finally became the property of Bern in 1379.
People and sidelines
- Ulrich IV. (1226–1276 attested), son of Ulrich III. from Neuchâtel
- Wilhelm von Aarberg (adult from 1270, 1323), son of Ulrich IV., Founder of the Aarberg-Aarberg line
- Dietrich (1270-1304 adults),
- Ulrich (from 1276 adult, 1329), Provost of Basel Cathedral
- Johann (adult from 1270, before 1334), founder of the Aarberg-Valangin line,
- Aarberg-Aarberg
- Peter II. (Aarberg) (around 1300-before 1372) son of Wilhelm,
- Peter von Aarberg (1350–1386) (* around 1350; † July 9, 1386), died on July 9, 1386 in the Battle of Sempach . He was the standard bearer of the Habsburgs at the Battle of Sempach.
- Aarberg-Valangin
- Gerhard (from 1333 ad. 1339), son of Johannes
- Wilhelm (around 1377–1427), grandson of Gerhard
- Johann III. (around 1410–1497), son of Wilhelm
- Claude (around 1447–1517), son of Johann III.
The rule of Valangin was passed on by the descendants of Johann from father to son, without dividing into branches. They often bore the title of count. Through marriage, the Aarberg family joined the great aristocratic families in the region, such as the Montfaucon , Oron , Neuchâtel-Blamont, Neuchâtel-Vaumarcus, Chalon and Vergy.
With Gerhard's marriage to Ursula von Hasenburg , the rule of Willisau came into the possession of the Aarberg-Valangin line. This was sold by the descendants to the city of Lucerne in 1407 . Through the marriage of Wilhelm von Aarberg to Jeanne de Beauffremont, numerous fiefs in Lorraine came into possession of this line.
This sideline was not only in their rule Valangin, but also at the courts in Burgundy and Lorraine . Some of them are buried in Beaufremont ( Vosges ).
As lords of Valangin, they tried to evade the feudal lordship of the Counts of Neuchâtel. They did this by contacting the Prince-Bishops of Basel , to whom they transferred various goods in the Val-de-Ruz in order to then receive them again as fiefs. This triggered a war that the Counts of Aarberg lost. Worth mentioning in this dispute is the battle of Coffrane in 1296 and the destruction of La Bonneville in 1301. Since the balance of power had been clarified, relations between the Aarbergs and their feudal lords improved. As a result, Ludwig von Neuchâtel granted them a substantial increase in their fiefs in 1360 and, from 1373, granted them almost complete autonomy. However, since the Neuchâtel did not comply with the restrictions on autonomy, this led to renewed conflicts at the beginning of the 15th century. Around 1425 the lords of Valangin were forced to restrict their jurisdiction . From 1450 they could evade the oath of homage to the Counts of Neuchâtel .
Claude and his wife Guillemette de Vergy founded the collegiate church Valangin in 1506 . With the death of Claude in 1517, the Aarberg-Valangin sidelines became extinct in the male line . Guillemette de Vergy's grandson, René de Challant Valangin, took over the inheritance.
- Illegitimate sideline
- Charles Philippe Alexandre (1776-1814)
- Paul (1801–83), Knight of Saint-Paul (illegitimate son of Charles Philippe Alexandre)
- Louis (1802–77), Knight of Neuchâtel (illegitimate son of Charles Philippe Alexandre)
Presumably from an illegitimate son of Claude (1541–1559 adults) a sideline started. He lived in the Free County of Burgundy , where he owned the Mandeure rule through his wife . Around 1660, the descendants took the name of the Count of Aarberg on their own initiative, and following a marriage they settled in the Duchy of Limburg . In the 18th century they raised a Walloon regiment that bore their name and was in the service of the imperial army in the Austrian Netherlands . The two illegitimate sons of Charles Philippe Alexandre von Aarberg (1776-1814) , who died unmarried in Brussels, were knighted in 1843 by the Belgian king. With the death of Raoul von Aarberg in 1956, Louis' grandson, this last branch of the Aarberg family died out. No descendants of the two sons are known, so this line is also considered to be extinct with them.
- Neuchâtel ministers from Aarberg
With reference to the city of Solothurn, there was a family of ministerials of the Counts of Neuchâtel, who called themselves von Aarberg . Mention is made of a Minna von Aarberg, daughter of Johann, who was married to the Solothurn mayor Conrad II von Dürrach, known as Murnhart ( adult 1362-1373).
Coat of arms of the Counts of Aarberg
The blazon reads: In red, a golden post covered with three black rafters . The coat of arms is thus a modification of the coat of arms of the Counts of Neuchâtel with a different tinge .
literature
- Jean Grellet: Aarberg (Count of). In: Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz , Volume 1, Neuchâtel 1921, pp. 13-13 pdf
Web links
- Germain Hausmann / AZ: Aarberg, from. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ swisscastles.ch
- ^ Gerhard Köbler : Historical Lexicon of the German Lands. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 7th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1 , p. 4 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ↑ Section Hundred Landvögte ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine, Volume 16, Page 100 Googelbook
- ↑ Hans Sigrist: The Solothurn Schultheissen family of Dürrach . In: Jahrbuch für Solothurnische Geschichte , Vol. 55. Solothurn, 1982. Page 135. Digitized at e-periodica.ch, accessed on August 9, 2016
