Counts of Spiegelberg

Family coat of arms of the Counts of Spiegelberg

The Count of Spiegelberg created during the Middle Ages in Weserbergland a small, consisting of only five villages County .

history

From Poppenburg to Spiegelberg Castle

The Counts of Spiegelberg come from the Swabian region. The Counts of Poppenburg were first mentioned in Swabian in 890. Count Friedrich von Poppenburg was first mentioned in the Weser Uplands in 1068 as "Count in the Gauen der Leine and Haller". At that time the seat was the Poppenburg in today's Burgstemmen . He was followed by his son Konrad (1068/1069), then his son Beringer, Count around 1095. His son Count Albert von Poppenburg (born 1103) came from him, then his son, Beringer Count von Poppenburg (1132–1180), was in charge. the family who was married to the sister of the Bishop of Hildesheim. He was followed directly by his son Albert Graf von Poppenburg (born 1155) and his son Bernhard (* 1185). Around 1200 he built the Spiegelberg castle near Lauenstein in the valley between Ith and Osterwald on Hellweg and called himself Bernhard von Poppenburg and Spiegelberg, from 1217 Count Bernhard von Spiegelberg. The old military and trade route from Aachen to the east (today's B1 ) could be controlled from the castle . The construction of the castle triggered a feud with Bodo von Homburg in 1226 , in which Emperor Friedrich II intervened because he saw the preparations for the fifth crusade in jeopardy. In 1229 Bernhard von Spiegelberg went to Mecklenburg and participated in the eastern colonization . In 1238, Spiegelberg Castle was in the hands of the Homburg resident who built Lauenstein Castle in 1247 . Johann von Brünnighausen handed over his property to the Bishop of Minden in 1260 , with him the noblemen of Brünninghausen died out.

Spiegelberg county

In 1281 Count Moritz I von Spiegelberg and his sons acquired sex mansos in villa Cobbenbrukke sitos from Wunstorf Abbey , from which the county Spiegelberg with the main town Coppenbrügge arose. They thus received feudal lordship over Castle Coppenbrügge and Brünninghausen .

In 1284 the Pied Piper of Hameln appeared in the county . Count Nikolaus von Spiegelberg from nearby Pyrmont was associated with it. Soon afterwards he and his brother Hermann appeared as a witness in documents dated July 8, 1284 of Duke Bogislaw of Pomerania and was referred to several times as a blood relative of the ducal house. They were half-brothers and had the same mother - Princess Margarethe von Mecklenburg Werle. Count Hermann and Nikolaus von Spiegelberg stayed in Pomerania, their brother Count Moritz II von Spiegelberg ran the house in Coppenbrügge until his death in 1309.

A coat of arms from 1507 at the Coppenbrügge Castle

In 1303 Duke Albrecht II of Brunswick speaks of a fiefdom letter issued by Duke Albrecht II of Braunschweig for Count Moritz II von Spiegelberg about a house in Coppenbrügge and a castle that Count Moritz I owned from Duke Albrecht I of Braunschweig zu Manns-Lehen . The sparse surviving sources give no information about the castle complex at that time; From today's building stock it can only be concluded that the oldest components probably date from the time of Count Moritz II. It could have been Hallermund Castle .

Around 1300 the Spiegelbergers donated land to the Carmelites to build their monastery in Marienau . In 1303 the Coppenbrügge Castle was rebuilt. From this base, they succeeded in rebuilding a small territory in the 14th century, including their widely scattered, still existing fiefdom and allodial property. With individual goods it reached as far as the Steinhuder Meer and as far as the cities of Hanover , Goslar , Einbeck and Peine .

Agnes von Spiegelberg (1302) married Bodo von Homburg (1256-1316). Between 1329 and 1370 Johann von Spiegelberg consolidated territorial rule and increased the county's free float. In June 1338 the dukes of Braunschweig and Lüneburg pledged Hachmühlen Castle to him .

The struggle that was fought with the Guelph dukes for new areas on the Weser and in the Hamel Valley in 1409–1435 ended with a complete defeat for the Spiegelbergs. On June 8, 1432, the Spiegelberg feud began (or 1433/34 or 1434/35). On November 4th Wallensen , today a district of Salzhemmendorf , was conquered by the Spiegelberg and episcopal besiegers and destroyed by pillage. The castle was also badly damaged. The county of Spiegelberg was retained. In 1434 Wilhelm the Victorious destroyed Spiegelberg Castle in Hachmühlen. Hallermund Castle, which the counts owned , was also conquered and razed in 1435 .

The impoverished Count von Spiegelberg turned to their pawn castle, Burg Ohsen on the Weser. From 1417 to 1435 Moritz von Spiegelberg was Abbot of Corvey as a boy (see list of Abbots of Corvey ).

Early modern age

In 1494 the Spiegelberg family inherited the county of Pyrmont . In 1512 the old moated castle was converted into a modern fortress for the time. The builder was Count Friedrich VI. von Spiegelberg, who also became lord of the county of Pyrmont in 1525. On August 10, 1557, Count Philipp von Spiegelberg and Pyrmont fell in the battle of Saint-Quentin . With that the gender in the male line died out.

The fiefdom fell to Braunschweig- Calenberg and, subject to the sovereignty of the state, was inherited in the female line to a branch line of Lippe, Count Simon von der Lippe. After his death in 1583, the fief was inherited by Count Georg von Gleichen-Tonna and in 1631 Nassau-Diez . It was not until 1819 that Nassau-Orange sold the county of Spiegelberg to the Kingdom of Hanover .

Today only the name of the domain Hof Spiegelberg near Salzhemmendorf indicates the family.

Noteworthy is an illegitimate, highly respected "bastard" line of the Counts von Spiegelberg, to which the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel council and former dean of St. Blasius in Braunschweig, Dr. Johann Spiegelberg (* Northeim, † 1612 zu Herzberg) counted. His father Andreas Spiegelberg (1512–1587) was Braunschweig-Grubenhagenscher Chancellor of Herzberg.

However, a large number of descendants in Western Pomerania, Stettin and Western Pomerania can be traced back to Count Nikolaus and Hermann von Spiegelberg, as Rudolf Spiegelberg's research on the Spiegelberg family shows. Nikolaus was mentioned in 1328 as councilor of the city of Strasburg id Uckermark . See: Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Volume 57, Starke-Verlag. The traditional Spiegelberg family has survived over the centuries to this day.

literature

• Ernst Friedrich Mooyer: To the genealogy of the counts of Spiegelberg . In: Journal of the historical association for Lower Saxony, 1856
• Georg Schnath: The gentlemen Everstein, Homburg and Spiegelberg. Foundation for the historical geography of the Hameln and Holzminden districts . Goettingen, 1922

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Hartmann: The Counts of Poppenburg-Spiegelberg , In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Volume 18, 1941, pp. 117–191
2. ↑ August Seidensticker: Legal and Economic History of North German Forests, especially in the Land of Hanover , Vol. 1, 1896, p. 352.
3. ^ Wilhelm Havemann: History of the Lands Braunschweig and Lüneburg . Herold and Wahlstab, 1837 ( google.de [accessed February 4, 2020]).
4. ↑ New Year Books of Forestry, p. 340 .
5. ↑ Johann Feuerberg : Fons Sacer, that is: Description of the miraculous and world = famous Holy Bruñen: /: Heil = fountain / Located in the rulership Pyrmont , Lemgo 1597, reissued by Andreas von Keil / called Cunæus D. 1688 (p. 18).
6. ↑ Joachim Lehrmann : Helmstedter and Räbker Book and Paper History , Lehrte 1994, ISBN 978-3-9803642-0-1 (pp. 77-80).
7. ^ Rudolf Spiegelberg: About the Spiegelberg family: Family history studies In: Year books of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Antiquity , Volume 88 (1924), pp. 1-46

Web links

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