Henry III. (Plauen)

Henry III. von Plauen (* around 1284 ; † between February 16, 1347 and May 8, 1348 ) was Vogt of Plauen .

He was first mentioned in a document dated August 24, 1302 together with his grandfather, Vogt Heinrich I von Plauen and his cousin Heinrich II. Reuss . Because of his wife Margarethe von Seeberg (* around 1288; † before February 20, 1322) he was called Heinrich von Seeberg from 1302 . It is unclear whether this is the daughter of Albrecht von Seeberg, the burgrave of Kaaden , who died around 1292 . From 1312 Heinrich was nicknamed "the Tall One".

On March 20, 1304, the bailiffs of Plauen and Gera stayed with King Albrecht I in Nuremberg , where he placed them under his protection and secured their help against the Wettins and against King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia . In the same year Heinrich was appointed district judge of Eger .

Division of 1306

His father Heinrich II von Plauen had already died in 1302. After the death of his grandfather Heinrich I and about three years of joint government with his cousin Heinrich II. Reuss, the two grandchildren shared the inherited territory in 1306, with the Vogt of Plauen and the Reuss of Plauen zu Greiz finally emerging from the Plauen Vogtline . When the two cousins ​​split up, Heinrich III. the rule of Plauen with Auerbach , Pausa , Gefell , Hirschberg , Selb , Asch and Graßlitz .

In the contract of December 31, 1306 from Bobenneukirchen , all bailiffs agreed on their conditions in the Regnitzland . Heinrich acquired the Mühltroff office from the Gera bailiff . According to the genealogy of Berthold Schmidt , he rounded off his property with the purchase of Vogtsberg Castle near Oelsnitz from Otto von Berga.

Conflict with the Wettins

On January 7, 1312, Heinrich III appeared. and all other bailiffs personally in Prague with King John of Bohemia in order to conclude a war alliance with him as imperial administrator against the Margrave of Meissen. When on August 14, 1314 armed conflicts broke out between Margrave Friedrich the Free and the Burgrave of Nuremberg against Heinrich von Gera over the rule of Schleiz , Heinrich III., Known since 1312 the Long, stood on the side of the Geraer, while Heinrich II. Reuss fought at the Wettiner's side. On April 8, 1315, the new German king, Ludwig IV , the Bavarian, intervened in the dispute in favor of the bailiffs and appointed Heinrich the Langen, Heinrich II. Reuss and the two Gera bailiffs as judges over the Pleissner region and the cities Altenburg , Zwickau and Chemnitz . In addition, on May 17, 1316, the king confirmed all the rights, proofs of grace and freedoms bestowed on the bailiffs by his predecessors.

Of the two younger brothers of Henry III. Heinrich von Plauen, first mentioned in a document on March 21, 1316, entered the Teutonic Order , the second became a monk.

On May 12, 1317, Margrave Friedrich on the one hand and the bailiffs Heinrich the Long, Heinrich II. Reuss and the two Gera bailiffs signed a contract about the Hohenforst mine near Kirchberg , in which the bailiffs received shares in the mine .

Fief of Bohemia

The power struggles in the empire, the claims of the Wettins, the business of his cousin Heinrich II. Reuss, which was not entirely transparent to him, and the good relations with the Bohemian king, on the other hand, prompted Heinrich III. 1327 to swap the loose feudal relationship with the Counts of Everstein for that to the mighty King of Bohemia and to abandon the rule of Plauen and Voigtsberg and then take it from him as a fief.

The Vogtland Golden Bull

On June 24, 1329 Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian gave Heinrich III a gift. von Plauen and the bailiffs von Greiz, Gera and Weida with a regalienbrief issued in Pavia in northern Italy , a certificate written on parchment with a gold seal. In this the emperor called the bailiffs "principales ministeriales" (prince-like servants). With this document, the bailiffs received the rights for the state army ban , the blood ban , for tax collection, for escort, hunting, fishing, mining and the right to coin. This document formed the foundation for the sovereignty of the bailiffs.

Heinrich's wife Margarethe von Seeberg died on February 20, 1332, nothing is known about a new marriage. The last documentary mention of Heinrich III. dated February 16, 1347, shortly afterwards he died.

See also

• Reuss family list
• ( House Reuss )

literature

• Werner Querfeld: Greiz. History of a city. Mediatect-Verlag, Greiz 1995.
• Berthold Schmidt : History of the Reussland. Half volume 1. Kanitz, Gera 1923.
• Berthold Schmidt: Document book of the bailiffs of Weida, Gera and Plauen as well as their house monasteries Mildenfurth, Cronschwitz, Weida and the Holy Cross near Saalburg. Volume 1: 1122-1356 (= Thuringian historical sources . NF Vol. 2, 1 = Vol. 5, 1, ZDB -ID 548596-4 ). G. Fischer, Jena 1885.
• Friedrich Schneider: Selected documents on the general history of the Reußenland (= publications of the Thuringian State Archives Greiz. Issue 2, ZDB -ID 1149301-x ). Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1924.
• Volkmar Schneider (Red.): 800 years of Greiz City of Greiz in the Vogtland. 1209-2009. Festschrift of the city of Greiz on the return of the 800-year first mention and the 650-year naming as a city. The Lord Mayor, City of Greiz in Vogtland 2009.
• Hilmar Schwarz: The Wettins of the Middle Ages and their significance for Thuringia (= small series of publications of the Wartburg Foundation. Vol. 7). Special edition. Kranichborn-Verlag, Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-930040-05-0 .