Gentlemen von Geroldseck

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Coat of arms of the imperial-free lords of Geroldseck

The lords of Geroldseck were a noble family of the Middle Ages in the Ortenau in Baden-Württemberg . Their ancestral home was initially Alt-Geroldseck Castle , then Hohengeroldseck Castle in the Seelbach community .

Standing quality, origin

The hohengeroldseck among the free pin-compatible high nobility and are after a first mention in a witness list in the 1080s years since 1139 in the Ortenau detectable. Its origins are obscure, but suspicions lead to integration with the from the Alsace acting leadership of the Carolingian and Ottonian time. Basis of the rule formation in the Ortenau likely the one hand, the mining in the region, on the other hand not be titled closer to advocacies about Schuttern Abbey , possibly also on the convent Ettenheimmünster , have been. Both monastery bailiffs are only documented in the 13th century.

The Geroldsecker in the 13th century

Rise in the struggle for Hohenstaufen possessions

Written tradition does not begin until the middle of the 13th century and shows a gender that purposefully exploited the political situation of the interregnum after 1245 to create a respectable power base between the Hunsrück and Neckar . The Rieddörfer between Mahlberg and Ichenheim , occupied as an imperial fief since 1312 , came to the family from Hohenstaufen inheritance . However, claims to the Kinzig valley between Zell am Harmersbach and Hausach could not be enforced. Around 1252, the family inherited the core area of ​​the county of Sulz am Neckar , to which the Black Forest lordships of Schenkenzell and Lossburg , perhaps also Romberg , belonged under circumstances that could not be further clarified .

The Strasbourg Episcopal War

Coat of arms of the Geroldsecker in the Vosges and the Hohengeroldsecker

In 1260, rich silver finds in Prinzbach made it possible for Geroldsecker Walther to be elected Bishop of Strasbourg ; his brother Hermann was able to secure the bailiwick of the imperial estate between Selz and Basel . Thanks to financial donations, the Bailiwick of the St. Gregor Monastery in the Alsatian Münstertal could also be seized by the Bishopric of Basel , for whose control Schwarzenbourg Castle (first mentioned in 1261) was built. Family ties led to a coalition with Archbishop Heinrich von Trier and opened political connections in the Hunsrück area. The power structure that was built in this way, expressed in a coalition of the Geroldsecker with the archbishop of Trier, the abbot of the Murbach monastery , the Strasbourg bailiffs of Lichtenberg , the margraves of Baden , the landgraves of Werd , the lords of Eberstein , von Landsberg , von Andlau , von Hüneburg , von Wolfach and von Üsenberg against the city ​​of Strasbourg and its allies, collapsed in the Battle of Hausbergen in 1262, in which the Strasbourg citizens rejected the bishop's claim to power. Although this defeat ended the great power dreams of the Geroldsecker, it had no impact on their class quality, which was regarded as count-like until well into the 14th century.

The Geroldseckian Lines

House divisions 1277–1309

The division of the house from 1277 between Walter von Geroldseck's grandsons Heinrich I and Walter II on the one hand and his son Heinrich Graf von Veldenz on the other hand installed two lines with the lower and upper rulers, which became independent in the further time regardless of the maintenance of a "general rule" .

The upper lordship comprised the clearing estates in the Schuttertal as well as all possessions in the Kinzigtal and the Sulz lordship as well as the bailiwicks over the monasteries Schuttern and Ettenheimmünster . To the Upper rule next castle belonged Hohengeroldseck Castle Lossburg that Schenkenberg Castle , Castle Wittichenstein that Rauen castle and the Romburg and half of the castle Gippichen (1391) and Castle Rheinberg . The county of Veldenz , acquired through marriage in 1270 , remained with the upper rulership. The counts there called themselves, however, von Veldenz-Geroldseck and soon only von Veldenz . Geroldseck descendants of the first generation were Count Georg I von Veldenz and Bishop Walram von Speyer .

The Bottom rule consisted of the possessions in the Ried, the Breisgauer goods, the free float in the northern Ortenau , the estates in Alsace and the fortifications Tiefburg Lahr (family seat of the Lower domination) Castle Mahlberg , Mörburg , Burg Landeck and part of Ganerbenburg Heidburg (1416).

The imperial estates of Friesenheim , Heiligenzell , Oberschopfheim and Oberweier , the village of Ottenheim and Schwanau Castle on the Rhine remained joint property.

Another division of the estate at the beginning of the 14th century split up the upper lordship and set up its own line in Sulz in the core area of ​​the old county, the county of Veldenz became independent.

In 1279 the partial rule of the Geroldseck cousins ​​on Diersburg (Tiersberg line) passed to the brother-in-law of the last Tiersberger and was lost to the family. Likewise, the lower lordship suffered a significant loss through a - basically illegal - sale of the Breisgau property in 1300.

The Lower Lordship of Lahr in the 14th century

The center of the Lower Lordship was the city of Lahr with the city castle of the Geroldsecker. The city was able to experience an economic boom thanks to a clever policy of privileges , which was to continue into the 19th century. Essential elements of Baden liberalism in the 19th century can be traced back to the disputes between the citizens of Lahr and their (now foreign) city lords .

The Upper Lordship of Hohengeroldseck

While the lower rulership was able to develop quietly throughout the 14th century and also found approaches to a written form of the rulership, the upper rulership was shaken by inheritance disputes around 1370. Nevertheless, with the (unexplained) pledging of the ducal-teckish Schiltach (around 1370), the territory was once again significantly enriched .

Lahrer succession and loss of rule

In 1428 the Geroldsecker in Lahr died out in the male line. The actually legitimate transfer to the heir, Count Johann von Moers-Saar Werden , was disrupted by the inheritance claims of Hohengeroldsecker Diebold. In the course of the resulting inheritance disputes, both parties ruined each other economically, so that Moers-Saar Werden had to pledge half of the rule to the Margraviate of Baden . After the Reformation and the transition of the Moers-Saarwerden half to Haus Nassau , the real division was carried out on a denominational basis in 1628, Lahr with the Protestant Ried became Nassau, Mahlberg with the southern, Catholic Ried was Baden-Baden .

The ultimately unwise tactics of Diebold von Hohengeroldseck between Upper Austria and the Electoral Palatinate in the 1480s led to the palatine conquest of Hohengeroldseck Castle in 1486, only its defeat in the Landshut War of Succession in 1504 brought it back to the family via the interlude of a Baden administration. In the meantime the entire Kinzig valley property had been sold.

Resurgence in the 16th century

The Hohengeroldseck family then flourished for a short time and was able to regain reputation in the service of Habsburg and the Holy Roman Empire . An expression of this newly won family self-confidence is the writing of a family chronicle as one of the rare examples of noble “ tradition ” under the sign of humanism . However, the family castle Hohengeroldseck had to be assigned to Austria as a fief . In 1519, following the execution of the Swabian Confederation against Württemberg, the Sulz rule, which had been lost in 1478, was regained, although it had to be returned to Württemberg in 1534. What remained was the claim to a title “von Hohengeroldseck und Sulz”.

The rule in the 17th and 18th centuries

After the sonless death of Jacob von Hohengeroldseck in 1634 at Dautenstein Castle , Austria transferred the hereditary claims of daughter Anna Maria to the allodies of rule and gave the whole complex to the Counts of Kronberg as a fief. Anna Maria married the Margrave Friedrich von Baden-Durlach in order to better enforce her inheritance claim. Although this endeavor was unsuccessful, Baden-Durlach was able to convert the inheritance claim, which Jakob von Hohengeroldseck had enforced against the Count of Nassau from the inheritance of 1428, into a pledge of the Nassau half of the lower lordship. Nassau could only redeem this pledge in 1725.

In the possession of the lords, later the Imperial Count von der Leyen , the then so-called " Grafschaft Hohengeroldseck " survived the land consolidation of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and became a sovereign member of the Rhine Confederation as the " Fürstentum von der Leyen " and "Grafschaft Hohengeroldseck" . However, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 put an end to this special case, which went back to Napoleon 's protection . In 1819 the dwarf state with the main town of Seelbach finally became Baden .

Personalities

literature

swell

Web links

Commons : Herren von Geroldseck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Château de Schwartzenbourg. j57oihy.blogspot.com, April 17, 2015, accessed on July 12, 2020 (French).
  2. ↑ a b Entry on Geroldseck , mortenau.de, accessed on June 26, 2019.
  3. ^ Entry on Mahlberg in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute