Reign of Wittem

Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Kingdom of Wittem
coat of arms
Arose from	Duchy of Limburg
Today's region / s	NL-LI
Parliament	Reichsfürstenrat , Secular Bank: Part of a curate vote of the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Count College
Reich register	1 man on horseback, 4 men on foot, 28 guilders (1794)
Reichskreis	Lower Rhine-Westphalian
Capitals / residences	Wittem
Dynasties	Julémont House Corsselaar House Pallandt House Waldeck House Giech House Plettenberg House
Denomination / Religions	Roman Catholic
surface	4 km² (1794)
Residents	2700 (1794)
Incorporated into	1794: France 1815: Netherlands 1839: Duchy of Limburg

Wittem Castle

The rule of Wittem was a direct imperial rule of the Holy Roman Empire .

The rulership consisted of Wittem Castle in what is now the Dutch municipality of Gulpen-Wittem and some surrounding villages.

history

Wittem was originally a fiefdom of the Duchy of Limburg that Theobald van Voeren held around 1100 . After his death in 1106, his widow Guda van Valkenburg moved to the Benedictine abbey of Sint-Jacobus de Mindere in Liège and bequeathed the rule of Wittem to this monastery on her death in 1125. It is unclear whether there was already a castle in Wittem at that time.

In 1206 the abbey sold the rule to the knight Wilhelm (Wychem) von Julémont. His family owned the castle and rule until 1344, when his descendant Gerhard von Julémont Wittem sold it to Johann Corsselaar for 2,300 guilders. This was possibly an illegitimate son of Duke Johann III. from Brabant and Limburg and was married to a distant relative of Gerhard.

Around 1466, the husband of a daughter of Johann's grandson Johann III, Dietrich von Pallandt from the Pallandt family , bought the estate. In 1520, Emperor Karl V. Wittem raised to rule.

With the childless death of Dietrich's great-great-grandson Florence II von Pallant, the rule fell in 1639 to the husband of his cousin, Wolrad IV von Waldeck-Eisenberg from the noble family Waldeck . In 1685 the lordship of Eiß and Schlenacken, whose ownership had often changed, was drawn in as a Wittem fiefdom and united with Wittem. In 1689 Spain ended the feudal sovereignty of Brabant-Limburg over Wittem.

Wolrad's granddaughter Albertine Elisabeth von Waldeck-Eisenberg sold the manor in 1720 to Count Carl Gottfried von Giech from the Giech family , who in 1722 sold it to Ferdinand von Plettenberg-Lenhausen from the Plettenberg family . The latter was in 1724/25 by Emperor Charles VI. elevated to "Count of Plettenberg and Wittem".

In 1794 the rule was occupied by the French and was lost to France through the Peace of Lunéville in 1801 . At the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 the expropriated Maximilian Friedrich Graf von Plettenberg and Wittem received the places Mietingen and Sulmingen in Swabia as compensation, which were raised to the "Grafschaft Mietingen".

List of lords of Wittem

House Julémont

• 1206– ?: Wilhelm von Julémont
• ?: Arnold I of Julémont
• around 1288: Arnold II of Julémont
• around 1322: Arnold III. by Julémont
• ? –1344: Gerhard von Julémont

House Corsselaar

• 1344–1371: Johann I. Corsselaar (1310–1371)
• 1371–1405: Johann II. Corsselaar (1340–1405)
• 1405-1443: John III. Corsselaar (1365–1443)
• 1443–1444: Heinrich I. Corsselaar (1375–1444)
• 1444–1466: Friedrich Corsselaar († 1488)

Pallandt house

• 1466–1481: Dietrich von Pallandt († 1481)
• 1481–1514: Johann von Pallandt (around 1475–1514)
• 1514–1540: Gerard von Pallandt (around 1510–1540)
• 1540–1598: Florence I von Pallant (1537–1598)
• 1598–1639: Florence II by Pallant (1578–1639)

Waldeck House

• 1639–1640: Wolrad IV. Von Waldeck-Eisenberg (1588–1640)
• 1640–1649: Anna von Baden-Durlach (1587–1649)
• 1649–1664: Heinrich Wolrad von Waldeck-Eisenberg (1642–1664)
• 1664–1692: Georg Friedrich von Waldeck-Eisenberg (1620–1692)
• 1692–1720: Albertine Elisabeth von Waldeck-Eisenberg (1664–1727)

House Giech

• 1720–1722: Carl Gottfried von Giech (1670–1729)

House Plettenberg

• 1722–1737: Ferdinand von Plettenberg (1690–1737)
• 1737–1779: Franz Josef von Plettenberg (1714–1779)
• 1779–1794: Maximilian Friedrich von Plettenberg (1771–1813)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Jacob Moser: State law of the imperial count houses von der Leyen, von Plettenberg and von Virmont. Vollrath, Leipzig 1744, p. 12
2. ^ Georg Leopold von Zangen : The constitutional laws of German states in a systematic compilation. First part, Leske, 1828, p. 238

literature

• Gerhard Köbler : Historical lexicon of the German countries. The German territories from the Middle Ages to the present. 7th, completely revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1 .
• E. Janssen: Castle Wittem. Eertijds zetel van een rijksgraafschap. Limburg 1960. ( PDF )