Merenberg (noble family)
The Merenberg house was a medieval aristocratic family named after the Merenberg castle in Merenberg near Weilburg an der Lahn in the Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse . In the 12th and 13th centuries, the family owned extensive property in what is now Central Hesse . When the male line died out in 1328, their property passed to the Nassau-Weilburg family ; The Grand Duke of Luxembourg still bears the title of Herr zu Merenberg from this family today . In addition, since 1868 a morganatic branch line of the ducal house of Nassau, which became extinct in the male line in 1965 , was given a count by Merenberg.
history
The exact origin of the Merenberg house is unclear. The family may come from the Wetterau . It has also been suggested that Hartrad I might have been a Hungarian baron who married a daughter of Count Ludwig II von Arnstein. This would explain the Merenberg property in the area of the County of Arnstein .
In 1129 Hartrad I, the founder of the House of Merenberg, was mentioned for the first time as Vogt of the Worms Monastery and owner of Merenberg Castle (also Merinberg). The castle was in the Lahr tithe of the Counts of Diez . In the following decades, the Merenberg marriages concluded with members of important families in the region, including the houses of Nassau , Solms and Westerburg . Presumably under Hartrad, the bailiwick of the Limburg Georgsstift was transferred to the Merenberg house via Camberg .
In 1135 the family came into the possession of the Imperial Bailiwick through the city of Wetzlar . In the middle of the 12th century, Hartrad II married Irmgard von Gleiberg from the House of Luxemburg . As a result of this marriage, the Merenberg family inherited the western half of the castle and the county of Gleiberg as well as other rights in Oberlahngau in 1163 . Hartrad II later managed to acquire the eastern half of the castle. He then moved his residence to Gleiberg and took the title "Graf". The county of Gleiberg was the starting point for further acquisitions between Wetzlar and Marburg .
Giso von Merenberg, a brother of Hartrad II, supported the Arnstein monastery in founding the Hachborn monastery near Marburg (1186) and later joined the Hachborn monastery himself . The Merenberg estates in Marburg, Gießen and Weilburg left the Teutonic Order , and several members of the family joined the order.
In the middle of the 13th century, in the course of the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession, there was a dispute between the new House of Hesse and the Merenbergers. In the course of this conflict, Sophie von Brabant had Blankenstein Castle captured and destroyed in 1248 . It was not until 1265 that the Merenbergers recognized the sovereignty of Hesse, and Hartrad V. von Merenberg was accepted into the retinue of Landgrave Heinrich von Hessen . He received Vetzberg Castle as a fief, but had to open his castles to the Landgrave.
The eastern half of the county of Gleiberg, secured by the moated castle Gießen, went to the Count Palatine of Tübingen , who founded the city of Gießen in 1248 , but sold the area to Landgrave Heinrich von Hessen in 1264/65 .
In 1292 the Merenberg family came back into the possession of the imperial bailiwick of Wetzlar and the castle administration at Kalsmunt Castle . The loan was made by King Adolf von Nassau in return for Merenberger's support against Albrecht of Austria .
Probably around 1297 the Merenbergers founded the Dorlar Monastery after the Speyer canon Eberhard von Merenberg had transferred the church to Dorlar to the widow of his late brother Hartrad V in order to secure the foundation economically.
Hartrad VI's successor was Hartrad VI. (VII.), Who was initially under the tutelage of the Wetzlar provost Hartrad (VI.) Von Merenberg. In 1310 Hartrad VI sold. the Calenberger Zent and the court Löhnberg to Johann von Nassau-Dillenburg .
With the death of Hartrad VI. in 1328 the male line died out. By the will of King Ludwig IV of Bavaria in 1326, Hartrad's daughters became heirs to the rule. Count Gerlach von Nassau was appointed as guardian. The House of Westerburg asserted inheritance claims, and a lengthy feud broke out in which the claims of the Westerburgs could be rejected.
Lisa, the younger daughter of Hartrad VI, went to a monastery and renounced her inheritance. Gertrud, the older daughter, married Johann I von Nassau-Weilburg in 1333 , with the result that the claims to the Merenberg rule, including the Gleiberg county, finally fell to the House of Nassau. Since then, Johann has called himself "Nassau-Merenberg" until it was renamed "Nassau-Saarbrücken" with the inheritance of the County of Saarbrücken .
coat of arms
The coat of arms shows a golden collar in a blue or green shield. The former color appears on many representations from the 17th century, the latter was definitely adopted in the 19th century for the Merenberg shield appearing in the Nassau coat of arms. The slope appears alone or in every corner accompanied by a little cross or by three little crosses or by a four-petalled flower, or it stands in a field sprinkled with standing or lying crosses. In 1234 Konrad carried two boards with a tray and a Hartrad on the helmet, Provost zu Wetzlar, and in 1316 an umbrella board with shield figures. In the Nassau coat of arms, a diamond-shaped shield board decorated with red tassels, otherwise drawn like the shield, was adopted.
Lords of Merenberg
The exact dates of life of the Merenberg dynasts are not known. It is not always possible to assign the documents to specific persons, as most of the Merenberg dynasts were called Hartrad. The specified periods relate to the mention in documents:
- Hard wheel (1090–1129)
- Hartrad II. (1135/63)
- Hartrad III. (1163/89)
- Hartrad IV. (1182-1215)
- Conrad I (1140/1233)
- Conrad II (1224/56)
- Hartrad V. (1249-88)
- Hartrad (VI.), Lord von Merenberg and Provost zu Wetzlar (1297–1316 in office), is the guardian of his nephew Hartrad VI, who is still underage.
- Hartrad VI. (VII.) (1288-1328)
- Gertrud (1328–1333), ⚭ Johann I of Nassau-Weilburg
Family list of the Counts of Merenberg
In 1868 von Merenberg created a count's title as a married name for Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm zu Nassau and his inappropriate wife Natalya Alexandrovna Pushkin, a daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin , as well as for their children.
The couple had the following offspring:
- Countess Sophie von Merenberg , Countess von Torby (1868–1927) ⚭ 1891 Grand Duke Michail Michailowitsch Romanow (1861–1929)
- Countess Alexandra von Merenberg (* Wiesbaden December 14, 1869, † Buenos Aires September 29, 1950), ⚭ London 1914 Maxime de Elia
- Count Georg Nikolaus von Merenberg (born February 13, 1871. † May 31, 1948), raised in 1907 claim to the throne in the Grand Duchy Luxembourg and heirship of the Duke of Nassau family fortune, as was to be expected that with the death of his cousin Grand Duke William IV. The House Nassau would expire in the princely male line, and since the Nassau Hereditary Association of 1783 contained a provision in Article 26 that after the princely agnates died out, the non-princely agnates would be called to the throne before the princely heir daughters. The claim to the succession to the throne was rejected by the Luxembourg Chamber in 1907, when the Nassau family statute issued by the Grand Duke, which secured the succession to the throne for the princely heirs, was adopted as a state law. The claim to the ducal Nassau family property was also rejected by a Wiesbaden court in the first instance, but on the advice of the grand ducal family council, the proceedings were ended in 1909 before all instances were exhausted by a settlement with Count Georg von Merenberg for an annual pension of 40,000 marks renounced all rights for himself and his descendants in the firstborn line; ⚭ May 12, 1895 in Nice Princess Olga Alexandrowna Jurjewskaja (* November 8, 1873; † August 10, 1925 in Wiesbaden) daughter of Tsar Alexander II , ⚭ January 2, 1930 in Wiesbaden Adelheid Moran-Brambeer (* October 18, 1875 in Wiesbaden; † May 12, 1942 in Zurich), from 1st marriage:
- Count Alexander Nicolas Adolph Michel Georges von Merenberg (1896-1897)
- Count Georg von Merenberg (born October 16, 1897 in Hanover; † January 11, 1965 in Mainz), ⚭ January 7, 1926 in Budapest Paulette von Koyer de Györgyo-Szent-Miklossy, divorced July 13, 1928, ⚭ July 27, 1940 in Schroda Elisabeth Anne Müller-Uri (* July 1, 1903 in Wiesbaden; † November 18, 1963 ibid), from 2nd marriage:
- Clotilde Elisabeth Countess von Merenberg (* May 14, 1941 in Wiesbaden), specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy, chairwoman of the German Pushkking Society and the Hessian-Russian Intercultural Exchange and Humanitarian Aid eV, ⚭ May 25, 1965 in Wiesbaden Enno von Rintelen (* 9 November 1921 in Berlin-Charlottenburg)
- Countess Olga Katharina Adda von Merenberg (born October 3, 1898 in Wiesbaden; † September 15, 1983 in Bottmingen near Basel) ⚭ November 14, 1923 in Wiesbaden Michael Graf Loris-Melikow (born June 16, 1900 in Tsarskoje Selo; † 2. October 1980 in Bottmingen)
swell
literature
- H. von Goeckingk, A. von Bierbrauer-Brennstein, A. von Grass, J. Siebmacher's grosses und generales Wappenbuch, VI. Volume, 7th Division; The dead Nassau nobility, 1882 p. 8
- Christian Spielmann: History of the city and rule Weilburg; City of Weilburg . 1896 (new edition 2005) without ISBN.
- Hans von Frisch: The rights of Count Georg von Merenberg to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , Verlag E. Wertheim 1907
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ H. von Goeckingk, A. von Bierbrauer-Brennstein, A. von Grass, J. Siebmacher's grosses und generales Wappenbuch, VI. Volume, 7th Division; The dead Nassau nobility, 1882 p. 8