Heinrich II of Castell

Heinrich II. Count and Lord zu Castell († around 1307 ) was ruler of the County of Castell from 1253 until his death . He founded the line from the Lower Castle, which was to last until the end of the 14th century.

The county before Henry II.

The development of the county is closely linked to the social processes of the High Middle Ages . In the second half of the 11th century, a noble free from Castell Castle was mentioned for the first time. He had probably been compensated for his services by one of the larger rulers in the area, namely the Würzburg diocese, and belonged to the so-called service nobility, the ministerials .

In competition with the other noble families, the Castell accumulated more and more own property and in the course of the 12th century formed an area of ​​dominion in the south and west of the Steigerwald . Around the year 1200, the gentlemen of Castell also assumed the title of Count, soon followed by the formula “ dei gratia ” (Latin: by God's grace). The area that the counts ruled was by no means uniform, but consisted of bailiwicks and whole and half village lords.

Life

Very little is known about the Count's life. He was the child of Count Friedrich and his wife Bertha, who came from the Henneberg family. Heinrich's youth and education are again in the dark. After the death of his father, he came to rule the county around 1250, which he had to share with his brother Hermann . Count Heinrich zu Castell was first mentioned in 1253.

The beginning of the rule of the count's double leadership was marked by the rise of the most important settlement of the dominion, Volkach , to the city. The village had been fortified with walls and ditches in the previous decades and as a result gradually rose to become a town, in 1258 it was first mentioned as such. The county reached with the city as the center of an early peak of its expansion, which has been a critical view of the larger territories around.

In the period that followed, however, there were more and more disputes between the ruling brothers. The reason for this was the different political orientations of the rulers. While Heinrich oriented himself towards the Hennebergers, who came into competition with the increasingly powerful duchy of Würzburg , Hermann was loyal to the Bishop of Würzburg. In 1265/1267 the dispute escalated and the county was split into two lines.

From then on Hermann headed the line from the Upper Castle , while Heinrich resided in the Lower Castle . Before that, in 1266, there was a military conflict between the Würzburgers and the allied Henneberg and Casteller counts. Heinrich fought in the so-called Cyriakus Battle near the town of Kitzingen .

After the defeat, the count reoriented himself and later sided with the Nuremberg burgraves , which was also reflected in his second wedding in 1273. The counts also tried to push back the Würzburg influence on the Main. In particular, the father-in-law Friedrich III. excelled in this. Count Heinrich II zu Castell died around 1307.

Marriages and offspring

Heinrich married Sophie von Öttingen around 1260 . Her family was close to the Hennebergers, and the wedding was primarily intended to demonstrate political affiliation. After his first wife died, Heinrich remarried around 1273. This time it was about Adelheid von Nürnberg, whose father Friedrich III. Burgrave of Nuremberg was. The sources are mostly silent about Heinrich's children. Only the successor Hermann II and his brother Rupert appear in detail in the sources.

• Friedrich (born 1293)
• Berthold († around 1300)
• Konrad (gen. 1301)
• Hermann († around 1328)
• Hedwig († around 1331)
• Rupert († 1334)
• Heinrich (born 1347)

literature

• Wilhelm Engel: House u. Reign of Castell in Franconian history . In: Society for Franconian History (ed.): Castell. Contributions to the culture and history of home and dominion. New Year's Sheets XXIV . Würzburg 1952. pp. 1-19.
• Otto Meyer: The Castell house. State and class rule over the centuries . In: Otto Meyer, Hellmut Kunstmann (ed.): Castell. State rule - castles - status lordship . Castell 1979. pp. 9-53.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In the literature, Heinrich is always referred to as Heinrich II, although no other Heinrich appears in the family tree of the Counts of Castell. Cf .: Meyer, Otto: Das Haus Castell . P. 51.
2. ↑ Meyer, Otto: The Castell House . P. 14.
3. ↑ Meyer, Otto: The Castell House . P. 18.
4. ↑ Engel, Wilhelm: Haus u. Reign of Castell . P. 4.
5. ↑ Worldroots.com: Family Tree ( August 7, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive ), accessed April 23, 2015.

predecessor	Office	successor
Friedrich I.	Count von Castell-Unterschloss 1253–1307	Hermann II.