Werdenberg county
The county of Werdenberg included the castle of the same name and the town of Werdenberg , today's Swiss communities Buchs and Grabs and the upper Thur Valley near Wildhaus . On the right side of the Rhine, the Counts of Werdenberg owned the lordships of Schellenberg , Bludenz with the Montafon , the Lustenau court and, in Graubünden, the bailiwick of the Disentis monastery .
Emergence
The progenitor of the line, Hugo I († 1280), was closely associated with Rudolf von Habsburg and was able to acquire the bailiwick of Upper Swabia and Churwalden in 1274 and the county of Heiligenberg in 1277 . Count Hugo III. added the castle and town of Rheineck , Hohentrins with Tamins , Reichenau GR and, through his marriage to Anna von Wildenberg, the dominions of Freudenberg and Greifenstein .
Division of the county
Albrecht I was provincial bailiff around Lake Constance in 1327, and in 1331 of the countries of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden. He added the Reichsvogtei over Altstätten and the Rhine Valley and Wartau to the property . Albrecht I was in a feud with Count Rudolf III. of Montfort-Feldkirch, which heralded the decline of the family and enabled the Habsburgs to gain a foothold in Vorarlberg. The four grandchildren of Albrecht I shared the inheritance in 1377/78 and 1387 and established four subsidiary lines:
- Werdenberg branch line
- Rheineck branch line
- Branch line Bludenz
- Heiligenberg branch line
Fall of Werdenberg
In 1402 they pledged the County of Werdenberg to the Counts of Montfort-Tettnang , from whom it came to the Counts of Sax-Misox in 1483 . In 1485 the city of Lucerne acquired the county and in 1493 passed it on to the barons of Kastelwart . However, through a castle law with Lucerne, the county remained connected to the Swiss Confederation, even when in 1498 the county again changed hands to the barons of Hewen . In the Swabian War, Werdenberg also fought alongside the Confederates. In 1517 the barons of Hewen sold Werdenberg to the canton of Glarus for 21,500 guilders.
Werdenberg administered Glarus very strictly as a bailiff - the Glarus lords were anything but popular in the Rhine Valley . Because of the confused legal situation between the counties of Werdenberg and Sargans in the rule of Wartau , there were repeated disputes between the provincial bailiffs, which in the " Wartau trade " in 1694/95 were carried up to the federal diet .
With the fall of the old Confederation and the establishment of the Helvetic Republic in 1798, Werdenberg became part of the canton of Linth . When this was dissolved again by the enactment of the mediation constitution of 1803, Werdenberg came to the canton of St. Gallen .
Web links
- History of Werdenberg
- Mathias Bugg: Werdenberg (county, Landvogtei). In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein .
Coordinates: 47 ° 10 ' N , 9 ° 28' E ; CH1903: 753 474 / 226124