Heinrich Raspe III.

Heinrich Raspe III. (* around 1155; † July 18, 1180 ) was the second son of Landgrave Ludwig the Iron of Thuringia, from the Ludowinger family , and his wife Judith von Schwaben , half-sister of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa .

As is customary in the Ludowinger house, as the younger brother of the Landgrave, he was assigned the Hessian county of Gudensberg for administration. He was therefore known as Count von Gudensberg or Count in Hesse. In addition, he was Vogt of the Hersfeld Abbey , which had extensive possessions in East Hesse and western Thuringia. Heinrich was a loyal supporter of his imperial uncle in his argument with Henry the Lion . Barbarossa strengthened the position of Heinrich and the Ludowinger by, among other things, in 1170 approving the transfer of the Creuzburg from the possession of the imperial abbey of Fulda to that of the county of Hesse, thereby improving the territorial connection between the Thuringian and Hessian parts of the landgraviate.

As Vogt von Hersfeld Heinrich was probably responsible for the alienation of the Hersfeld fief Melsungen at the Fulda crossing of the important road from Gudensberg to Thuringia , where the construction of a castle and the subsequent rapid development of a town ( burgus ) caused a significant break in the Hersfeld property represented.

Around 1170 Heinrich renewed Windeck Castle in the rulership of Rosbach , in the area of ​​the Gisonian allodial inheritance of his family on the Sieg . In 1174 he gave it as a fief to Count Engelbert I von Berg , with the condition that the latter would have to serve him against everyone except the Emperor and the Archbishop of Cologne .

source

Heinrich Raspe III. at www.genealogie-mittelalter.de

literature

• Hilmar Schwarz: The Ludowingers. The rise and fall of the first Thuringian landgrave family , Eisenach 1993.