Wevelinghoven (noble family)
The Wevelinghoven house was one of the most important Rhenish aristocratic families alongside the von Hochstaden family . The Wevelinghoven Castle is located in the district of Wevelinghoven in Grevenbroich in the Rhine district of Neuss in North Rhine-Westphalia .
Due to their long history, the gentlemen of Wevelinghoven are counted among the ancient Rhenish nobility. Its origins lie in the time of the Carolingian emperors. The line of their ancestors looks back on a multitude of significant worldly as well as spiritual personalities. Up until the 13th century, the family helped determine the fate of the region.
The families of the high, low and official nobility
The gentlemen of Wevelinghoven
The ancestral home of the Lords of Wevelinghoven can be located between the small medieval town of Hülchrath (now part of Grevenbroich ) and the Roman city of Neuss . Only the fortified castle belonging to the von Lievendahl family (see below) has been pictorially handed down as the seat of the nobility within the former Wevelinghoven rulership. Over the centuries, however, the family was able to expand their property. Most recently, it extended over the larger villages and smaller towns such as Langwaden, Wyngarten, Zumbusch, Grebbe, Bergen, Meschede, Bracht, Born, Welde, Gresbend, over the customs on the Maas to Venlo and the hamlet of Wevelinghoven to Sittard in Gelderland. The family is distinguished with counts and baronial kinship branches. Due to the intense marriage policy of the Middle Ages and other political successes of its masters, it was very widespread in the Cologne, Jülich and Gelder areas. Through the mentioned marriages with ruling houses such as Hesse, Katzenellenbogen, Nassau, Schauenburg and other dynasty families that still exist today, she was able to use the family relationships.
According to tradition, an ancestor of the family is said to have distinguished himself as early as 809 in the Münsterland during the establishment of the diocese of Münster under Bishop Richard with great prudence and great courage. Christian I. von Wevelinghoven - also called the Brave - founded the old Premonstratensian Abbey of Langwaden around 1145, which was in the immediate vicinity of his ancestral home. As a result, he secured himself within the limits of his rule on the spiritual side against the Lords of Hochstaden , who had the right to occupy the pastoral position in Wevelinghoven. Because of his courage and bravery, Christian was just as well known and feared as his ancestor of the 9th century. In this context, his participation in the crusades under Pope Eugene III has been handed down. and in the battles against the Saracens under King Conrad III. His brother Bernhard von Wevelinghoven was the prelate of Werden Abbey from 1125 to 1141. From Christian's children, his daughter Kunigunde became abbess at St. Quirinus-Stift in Neuss. She died in 1172. Her successor was her sister Sophia, who laid the foundation stone for the Münster or Quirinus church that still exists today. These official activities of the female offspring of the von Wevelinghoven family indicate a high level of ambition in the family line. In the High Middle Ages, the office of abbess was the highest political level for a woman to work at eye level with the powerful in the empire. The office even secured her a seat in the Reichstag .
The most famous offspring of the von Wevelinghoven family is the late medieval Munster bishop Florence von Wevelinghofen (1364–1379). He was born as the youngest of three sons in the reign of his father Friedrich I von Wevelinghoven . In addition to many military and economic successes for the dioceses of Utrecht and Münster, his term of office was mainly characterized by the turmoil surrounding Pope Urban VI. and the antipope Clement VII .
The well-known equestrian general Johann von Wevelinghoven was from Emperor Ferdinand III. on May 6, 1642 appointed baron and Bartnerlherrn of the empire . This non-hereditary title was lost to the family after his death in 1659 as a result of an injury. He is buried in St. Gundula in Brussels .
In Wevelinghoven, the von Wevelinghoven family died in 1446 with the death of Wilhelm II von Wevelinghoven . He had previously married Ricarda, his heir daughter from Alfter, around the year 1418 and thus acquired the castle and glory of Alfter, including the Hereditary Marshal's Office in Cologne. His daughter Irmgard von Wevelinghoven married Count Johann VI in 1433. von Salm- Reifferscheid and Dyck. In 1461 the Alfter rule and the Hereditary Marshal's Office went to this. This transfer was preceded by an agreement between Irmgard and Johann, which ensured the widespread offspring of their family (including the Sittard family branch in today's Nettetal) a good living. The title of Herr von Wevelinghoven and the feudal right came to the Lords of Gemen through the marriage of the older daughter Anna after Wilhelm's death and finally to the Counts of Steinfurt in 1492 when they died out . The Counts of Bentheim lead after the acquisition of the title of Lords of Wevelinghoven in 1582 this until today.
These smaller aristocratic families, which later took the name of Wevelinghoven , go back to the official nobility of the late Middle Ages. The origin of all these noble families can be seen in the context of the customary late medieval practice of elevating capable servants and peasants to the status of non-hereditary administrators. In the further course of time and the increasing spatial distance between landlord and landlord (fiefdom, extinction of the sex), this circumstance let the latter rise to a kind of knighthood, which resulted in the hereditary transfer of name, function and later property. Today some of their goods are managed by the Droste-Vischering von Nesselrode house (Busch house and Langwaden monastery ), and some are used by the Catholic and Protestant parishes.
The one from Wevelinghoven to Sittard
Outside Wevelinghovens, the family from Wevelinghoven zu Sittard near Nettetal-Lobberich continued the old title through the relationship of the 15th century with the house of the Lords of Gemen (see above) . The last Baroness von Wevelinghoven zu Sittard died in 1955. The place where she settled still bears the name An Wevelinghoven to this day and is thus a post-establishment through a title hike. All other sexes died out before the French Revolution.
coat of arms
The family coat of arms of the von Wevelinghoven shows two silver bars in a red shield. On the helmet with red and silver blankets, a silver eagle head looking right with a golden beak and a golden crest down the back.
Simple coats of arms are typical of the early high nobility. We find it in its pure form, for example on many depictions of the Munster bishop Florence von Wevelinghofen . Over time and through use by the official nobility, it was supplemented by a black swan on a helmet and green tendrils. The later city of Wevelinghoven carried this richly decorated coat of arms until 1938. In the GHdA , the coat of arms of the ancient Rhenish family “von Wevelinchoven” is emblazoned like this: “Like that of the noble lords of Wevelinghoven, who died out in 1460: two silver bars in red. On the helmet with red-silver covers a gold-reinforced black gooseneck. "
The Wevelinghover aristocratic seats
In and around Wevelinghoven, families of the lower nobility still carried the nickname of Wevelinghoven until the 19th century . These were in detail:
- the to and from Hundt based on Haus Busch ,
- that of Deutz , based in the remains of the former outer bailey of the Lords of Wevelinghoven,
- that of Lievendahl , based in southern Wevelinghoven in the so-called Wölkersburg on today's city park island ,
- that of Kerpen , based in northern Wevelinghoven (Beesterhöfgen?),
Of these seats which today is home Busch of from Hundt conveniently obtained as abgegangenes moated castle in eastern Wevelinghoven.
One of the most impressive contemporary witnesses of local history, however, is the moth in the Zubend. As an abandoned escape and moated castle with high defensive strength, it testifies to the far-reaching political importance of the place in the Middle Ages. After its destruction in the Truchsessian War in 1583 , over the centuries, your complex has been the subject of constant structural changes. It was last given a garden pavilion at the beginning of the 19th century - presumably in the Napoleonic era - and set in the classical garden. The location within extensive remains of an extensive moat system suggests the high medieval defenses. Its importance is largely historically secured by being mentioned in connection with the Jewish Crusade in 1096. However, it is questionable whether it could actually have been the seat of the Lords of Wevelinghoven. Its proximity to the old Catholic Church, whose parish rights were held by the Lords of Hochstaden, suggests that it was built by this noble family. The connections of both families of the high Rhenish aristocracy to the archbishop's chair in Cologne in the course of history give no decisive indication of this. The founding of the Langwaden monastery by Christian I von Wevelinghoven at the end of the 12th century does not allow any firm conclusion about the affiliation of the castle in the Zubend .
The completely destroyed moated castle of the von Lievendahl (also known as the lords ) existed as a ruin at the beginning of the 19th century. Today you can only recognize its location by the rising ground formation and wall remnants on the city park island in the underground. The original age of the underlying castle, however, is likely to be significantly higher than that of Lievendahl (until 1428). This is generally justified with the similar structure as that of the castle in the Zubend. The only pictorial representation is on a picture from 1649. The palace hall of the castle can also be seen well on a representation of the lands of the Teutonic Knights in Elsen from the 18th century. Following these representations and the floor plans on the Tranchot map from 1806/07, one can imagine the buildings in a similar formation and use as Hülchrath Castle . Popularly known as Wölkersburg and still located on an Erftinsel in southern Wevelinghoven, the complex was used as a residence and castle by the successors of the extinct Lords of Wevelinghoven. For the Archbishop of Cologne, it was always a so-called open house as a feudal lender . That means he could have it obtained personally or with his troops at any time. The founding of the Protestant community of Wevelinghoven by the then Count von Bentheim also emerged from this castle in 1685. As a Protestant prince, he had allowed Protestant Christians to hold their services in his castle chapel for years.
Those from Kerpen can no longer be located. However, the course of Roman and medieval streets as well as ditches and medieval buildings with exposed remains of foundations suggests that the castle was located in northern Wevelinghoven behind the so-called Beesterhöfgen . Due to her proximity to the monastery, she was initially assigned the role of ancestral castle of the Lords of Wevelinghoven.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max von Spießen: Book of arms of the Westphalian nobility, with drawings by Professor Ad. M. Hildebrandt, p. 131, 1st volume, Görlitz 1901-1903 - digitized
- ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume XVI, Volume 137 of the complete series, pp. 145–146, CA Starke Verlag , Limburg (Lahn) 2005