County of Diepholz

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Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor with haloes (1400-1806) .svg
Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
County of Diepholz
coat of arms
Diepholz-Grafschaft-Wappen.jpg
map
Hochstift Minden 1500.png
Location of the county (Orange) around 1500


Arose from Formed in 1160 from the Duchy of Saxony
Form of rule monarchy
Ruler / government Count
Today's region / s DE-NI


Reichskreis Lower Rhine-Westphalian
Capitals / residences Diepholz
Dynasties 1160–1530 noblemen of Diepholz, since 1530 counts of Diepholz, from 1585 Calenberg or Kurhannover
Denomination / Religions Roman Catholic , Protestant from the 16th century
Language / n German


Incorporated into as Diepholz office in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg


The County of Diepholz was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Empire .

The area of ​​the county lay east of the Dümmer See and the Hunte and roughly comprised the present-day communities of Altes Amt Lemförde , Barnstorf , Rehden , Diepholz and Wagenfeld . The former county of Grafschaft Diepholz was named after her.

The noblemen and counts of Diepholz

In 1109 Gottschalk von Diepholz was bishop in Osnabrück . Cono and Wilhelm von Diepholz are mentioned in documents from the Diocese of Osnabrück in 1160. From 1177 nobleman Gottschalk von Diepholz appears in documents who are said to have gone into exile with Henry the Lion in England. After Henry the Lion was exiled, smaller territories could develop in Saxony . So in the 13th and 14th centuries they expanded their territory from Diepholz to the north and south. Due to the location between moors and powerful neighbors such as the diocese of Minden and the county of Hoya , this expansion came to an end quickly. Originally the territory of the noblemen of Diepholz was Allodium , from 1512 it was an imperial fief . The Reformation was introduced in 1528. From 1530, the Diepholz family of dynasties carried the title of count .

His marriage relationships were essentially limited to the Lower Saxony-Westphalian neighborhood (to Oldenburg, Rietberg, Hoya, Sternberg, Waldeck, Wunstorf, Lippe, Regenstein; however, not to the Welfs, who were at least occasionally entrusted with guardianship). Deviating from this marriage habit was an early marriage connection to the Swedish royal family: Rudolf II von Diepholz (1262–1303) married Maria, daughter of King Waldemar of Sweden († 1302), and a marriage alliance with a Dutch noble family (Otto IV von Diepholz) married in 1441 Hedwig Bronkhorst ) through which the house claims to the local gentry Bronkhorst and Borkelo acquired, which is also in an enlarged titulature "Graff to Diepholz and Brunckhorst Lord to Borkelohe " and heraldic , in a coat of arms Mehrung with the respective claim crest to Bronkhorst and Borkelo, struck down.

The last Count of Diepholz, Friedrich II., Died in 1585. The county fell to the Dukes of Braunschweig Lüneburg , since they had a feudal entitlement , with the exception of the Auburg office, which Hesse acquired and retained until 1816.

After the death of Frederick II of Diepholz, the Princely House of the Welfs had initially considered a marriage between a Brunswick-Lüneburg duke and the Diepholz heiress Anna Margaretha, but since she was only five years old in 1585, the Welfs did not want a firm promise do it and wait to see if she will even reach marriageable age. Since her grandmother, the old countess widow von Diepholz, negotiated with the Hessian dynasty about a marriage with Anna Margaretha, it came about that in 1610 she finally gave Landgrave Philip III. von Hessen-Butzbach married and received compensation from the Welfenhaus for the waiver of her possible claims to the paternal county of Diepholz. She died of malaria in Butzbach in 1629 as a Hessian landgrave . Their marriage had remained childless.

Governing noblemen and counts of Diepholz

Diepholz Castle
  • around 1160 Cono I. (Konrad) and Wilhelm I.
  • from 1177 Gottschalk I.
  • from 1219 Rudolf I.
  • 1233-1265 Johann II.
  • 1265-1300 Conrad VI.
  • 1300–1350 Rudolf IV.
  • 1350-1378 Conrad VIII.
  • 1378-1422 Johann III.
  • 1422–1426 Conrad X.
  • 1426–1462 Otto IV.
  • 1462–1473 Conrad XII.
  • 1473–1510 Rudolf VIII.
  • 1510–1545 John VI. (calls himself Count von Diepholz from 1530)
  • 1545–1560 Rudolf IX.
  • 1575–1585 Friedrich II. (1560–1575 under guardianship)

Noblemen of Diepholz on bishop's chairs

Grafschaft Diepholz (left) in an engraving from 1794

Palaces and castles

See also

literature

  • Heinrich Gade : Historical-geographical-statistical description of the counties Hoya and Diepholz. Nienburg 1901.
  • Willy Moormeyer: Diepholz County . Göttingen 1938.
  • Museum Nienburg: The counties Bruchhausen, Diepholz, Hoya and Wölpe. Nienburg 2000.
  • Klaus Giesen: The coins from Diepholz. Osnabrück 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm von Hodenberg: Diepholzer Urkundenbuch , Hannover 1842, p. 127 and p. 131.
  2. ^ Wilhelm von Hodenberg: Diepholzer Urkundenbuch , Hannover 1842, p. 127.
  3. ↑ a b Georg Schnath: "Diepholz, v." in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957), pp. 652–653 ( online version )
  4. ↑ Armin Schöne: Diepholz County, which is immediately part of the empire, in the 16th century , 2018, p. 193 ff.