Duchy of Merania
The Duchy of Merania is a product of the Hohenstaufen power politics of the 12th century. The ducal dignity over the feudal area of Meranien was given to different noble families.
history
prehistory
In order to secure the royal rule of their sex, it was necessary for the later so-called Staufer to secure their livelihood, to push back the power of the Guelphs within the German kingdom, the Regnum Teutonicorum . The disempowerment of Guelph happened while also reducing age at the same time creating new fiefdom - divide and rule as a principle his own power conservation.
The first of the Hohenstaufen kings, Konrad III. (1137–1152), had given the Guelphs Heinrich the Proud as early as 1139 an imperial ban and lost his ducal dignity of Bavaria as well as of Saxony . As someone who had lost their rights through the eight, the Guelph also lost other imperial, church and monastic fiefs and bailiffs , which at the same time resulted in a diverse shift of aristocratic rule in the empire - loyal followers were rewarded and rose, new masters became strong and powerful .
After the death of King Conrad III. his nephew Friedrich von Schwaben was raised to rex in 1152 . This Friedrich I , known as Barbarossa, sought a balance with the Guelphs who were related to him by marriage. He gave them back parts of their lost fiefs and imperial estates and thus power, also in Bavaria. However, Heinrich the Lion received only parts of the previous Duchy of Baiern back as a fief from his cousin Friedrich in 1154. The previously Bavarian Ostmarken were given to the Babenberg family as a new flag loan and territorial duchy of Ostarrichi (1156, privilegium minus ).
Tyrol was also withdrawn from the Duke of Bavaria as an imperial immediate county ( dominium comitis Tyrolis ), whereby the first counts of Tyrol were closely related to the diocese of Freising (after Fr. Prinz).
With this reorganization in the south-east of the empire, loyal and deserving partisans of the king in the fight against the papacy were rewarded and at the same time enabled them to rise to high imperial nobility.
Dachau-Meranien
The dismemberment of Bavaria also marked the birth of the Duchy of Merania . In connection with the downsizing of the Bavarian Ducatus , a Wittelsbacher , Count Konrad II of Scheyern-Dachau , was made the first Duke of Merania by Friedrich Barbarossa around 1153 . He was therefore no longer obliged to serve as a vassal to the Guelph lion in Bavaria . An inner connection between that privilegium minus for Austria of 1156 and the Barbarossa privilege for Würzburg of 1168 already appears here.
Simultaneously with the elevation of Conrad II († 1159) to Duke of Merania , he was named as Dux for Dalmatia and Croatia . This Wittelsbacher Konrad , from the county of Scheyern - Dachau , was the first of this dynasty to rise from the count to the highest imperial nobility.
The Ducat Meranien was no longer Bavaria and no longer part of this Ducat. The (remaining) duchy of Bavaria , which the Welf Heinrich the Lion (back) received in 1156, was much smaller than the one that had been withdrawn from his “proud” father Heinrich in 1139.
The origin of the name Meranien is still an object of speculation. Erwin Herrmann names a terra Marani in Friuli as the namesake, but mostly a bathing place on the Dalmatian Adriatic coast ( area “by the sea” ) is preferred. The question of whether the Duchy of Merania only represented an ideal titular principality or a flag fief when it was founded , which was endowed with real and tangible rights, goods and fiefs , is assessed differently by history.
Conrad I († after 1135), as Count of Scheyern -Dachau, was already a wealthy and influential regional prince in western Bavaria. After the Guelphs had also lost all fiefs and bailiffs on the Lechrain due to their ostracism , the Counts of Dießen and Andechs as well as the Scheyern-Wittelsbachers and their "Dachau" line benefited most from the decline of the Guelphs. So Earl and Conrad of Dachau. a. documented as Vogt of the right-lech empire monastery of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg and of St. Andrä in Freising. The zone of influence and thus the zone of power of the Wittelsbachers from Dachau had thus reached the Lech - the Lechrain as a whole and the goods, fiefs and rights of the Augsburgers located there, however, became an object of rivalry between Dießen-Andechs and Scheyern-Dachau as well as Scheyern-Wittelsbach. With his elevation to Duke and thus into the high nobility of the empire, Konrad II of Dachau-“Meranien” had now achieved a space advantage.
The first Duke of Merania , Konrad II of Dachau , was a potent territorial prince through property, bailiwick rights and fiefdoms between Lech and Isar, whose new ducat was endowed with real power and property, especially if one takes into account that his cousin Otto von Scheyern was already Count Palatine of the King for Bavaria. Thus the House of Wittelsbach was now completely withdrawn from the (pre-) rule of the Bavarian Duke.
After the death of the first Meranier in 1159, his son Konrad III. Heir and successor. It is noticeable that he is only mentioned as the Duke of Merania , Croatia and Dalmatia have obviously disappeared. In the book of history, however, this last Duke of Dachau- Meranien is hardly considered anymore , he mostly spent his days in Dachau, calling himself Duke of Dachau . He died in 1182 without leaving a male heir. His family property was bought by his cousin Otto von Wittelsbach , who in 1180 had become Duke of the now very shrunken Bavaria. The new Bavarian Dux Otto also moved in the county of Dachau.
The sister of the late Dachau-Meranier Konrad III, Hedwig, had previously become the wife of the third Berthold von Andechs - who in turn had received the Istrian margrave dignity from King Rotbart in 1173 through his margravial mother Sophie from Istria . Now Hedwig von Dachau- Meranien, as the only heir, brought the blood law claim to the still young Duchy of Merania to the Andechs. A new era in Merania began.
Istria-Merania
Ulrich von Weimar-Orlamünde was from 1058-1070 Margrave of Carniola and at the same time acting Margrave of Istria . Around 1063 he tore a narrow strip of coastal land from Croatia in the extreme tip of the Gulf of Quarnero . The strip lay between Rijeka / Fiume and Brseč (Croatia). Since this strip was by the sea, this land was henceforth called Merano (not Tyrol) or Merania (located by the sea ). The two brands went nominally to the Patriarch of Aquileia in 1077 , but Ulrich's descendants continued to own the ancestral territories, including Istria and Merania. Poppo II (from Weimar-Orlamünde) from Istria was a descendant of Ulrichs. Poppo's daughter Sophie († 1132) married Count Berthold II of Andechs († 1151). She brought the majority of the inheritance - including Meran or Meranien - as a dowry into the marriage. With this, Berthold II laid the foundation for the possessions of his house in Carniola, Lower Styria (today's part of Styria in Slovenia) and Carinthia . His grandson, Berthold IV. († 1204), called himself Duke of Dalmatia, Croatia and Merania .
Berthold III. († 1188), son of Berthold II. And Sophie of Istria (Weimar-Orlamünde), was married to Hedwig, most likely a Wittelsbach girl , in her first marriage .
Andechs-Meranien
After the final fall of the Guelph Heinrich the Lion in 1180, the balance of power in Bavaria was reorganized - loyal followers were rewarded. The Styrian mark on the Mur was separated from Bavaria and given as a new Duchy of Styria to the local Traungau margraves. The rest of Bavaria was given to the previous Count Palatine Otto von Wittelsbach as the new Duke. And Meranien also got a new master. Count Berthold IV of Andechs , whose father had become Margrave of Istria in 1173, was made the new Duke of Merania by Emperor Friedrich I.
Berthold's family, the Counts of Dießen and Andechs , originally came from Dießen on the opposite bank of the Ammersee . But his grandfather, Count Berthold II. , Had already moved from there to Andechs, built a new castle high on the mountain above the lake and married the daughter of Sophia of Margrave Poppo II of Istria. At that time the connection between Andechs and a presumed Meranien on the Istrian bank of the Adriatic was established. This Sophia, however, had only given the Count of Andechs the right to margravial office for Istria, not a Meran name.
Around 1173, their son Berthold III was the Count of Andechs . to the successor of the late Margrave of Istria, Engelbert III. von Spanheim , ascended. As such, he took the aforementioned Hedwig from the House of Wittelsbach / Dachau and Meranien, the daughter of the first Duke Konrad I of Meranien, as his wife. A fourth Berthold arose from the marriage , a Count of Andechs by birth as well as Margrave of Istria, through his mother Hedwig at the same time a presumptive of Meranien, with blood rights to this still young duchy. This claim was redeemed in 1180 after the final overthrow of the Welfisch-Bavarian lion by Emperor Barbarossa. Apparently during the lifetime of the “Dachau” Meranier Konrad II, the red beard awarded “Meranien”, including Croatia and Dalmatia, to the fourth Berthold from the Andechs family.
As loyal followers of the emperor, the former Counts of Dießen and Andechs now remained firmly anchored as Dukes of Andechs-Meranien . As an imperial dynasty, they soon owned estates and fiefs in Burgundy, Franconia, Lower Bavaria, Istria and Slovenia as well as their ancestral county Andechs with the surrounding duchy of Merania. A continuous land bridge of own possessions stretched from Lechrain and Mering via Innsbruck ( Ambras Castle ) to Merano on the Adige and to Meransen in the Puster Valley. The Duchy of Merania had become a territorial state that made the western part of the old Duchy of Baiern between Augsburg and Bolzano its own feudal principality and sovereign rule .
The basis of their rise to high imperial nobility can be clearly seen in the ducal coat of arms of the Meranians. The fourth Berthold, who was the first of the Andechs to be promoted to Duke of Meranien, had the imperial eagle in his coat of arms, which also adorned the imperial flag of Barbarossa at the symbolic handover of a princely fief (so-called flag fief). The walking lion of the Guelphs, whose property and rights on the Lechrain and elsewhere the Meranians had taken over after the fall of Henry the Lion, was a second heraldic animal of the Meranians. The eagle of the red beard and the Guelph lion formed the foundation of the meran ducal power of the Andechs - as their coat of arms shows.
The daughters of this royal family became coveted objects of marriage for the European nobility of that era.
End of the duchy
In 1208 King Philip of Swabia was stabbed to death by Otto VIII von Wittelsbach in the residence of the Andechs-Meranian bishop Ekbert in Bamberg . He and his brother Heinrich , Margrave of Istria, came under suspicion of being involved in the attack. Philip was the last living son of the emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, who had already become a political myth at that time . After the Staufer was murdered , Otto von Braunschweig , the Welf antagonist and son of the lion, became German king. Although the historical facts clearly show that no Andechs-Meranier was involved in this regicide, the two members of the still young ducal clan lost their possessions and titles in connection with the accusation of complicity and complicity. The possessions of the Margrave of Istria fell to the Duke of Bavaria, Ludwig den Kelheimer from the Wittelsbach family. He had come to an arrangement with King Philip's rival and former anti-king, the Guelph Otto IV, in good time and was now a beneficiary of the Bamberg regicide. The Duke Otto VII of Andechs-Meranien , also Count Palatine of Burgundy and brother of the Margrave Heinrich, remained unmolested by these allegations. In the following decades he was a respected supporter of the emperor, who played a leading role in the negotiations between the emperor and the pope, against whom Kelheimer took up the struggle for the Andechs inheritance and in 1228 was able to conclude partially successfully. From 1234 onwards, his son Otto VIII fought for the rest of the goods that remained to the Wittelsbach duke in 1228, and when the Wittelsbach family came to terms with the emperor, he switched to the papal side. This step led to his being ostracized by the emperor in 1247. He finally died without rights and ostracized in 1248. With him, the "imperial noble family" of the Meranians became extinct. The Imperial Principality of Merania no longer existed. The Meranians' estates either inherited the daughters or sons-in-law of the last duke or they became part of the now Wittelsbach duchy of Bavaria . The monastery bailiffs of the Andechs-Meranier in the country also fell to Wittelsbach and let their duchy become the Bavarian sovereignty.
The title of Duke of Merania was no longer awarded. It had only existed for a total of nine decades, from 1153 to 1248.
In the medieval sagas of Hug- and Wolfdietrich, a notion of Meran also has a heroic effect. In the legend, the memory of Meranien was inextricably linked with that of the Counts of Dießen and Andechs and became part of the veneration of saints by the blessed Rasso von Grafrath , St. Hedwig of Silesia and St. Elisabeth of Thuringia . It is probably thanks to these saints' lives that the memory of Meranien was preserved at all.
Another memory of Merania is the name of the Counts of Merano . This is the noble family of the House of Habsburg , whose first parents are Archduke Johann of Austria and his wife Anna Plochl .
Dukes of Merania
- Konrad II (Scheyern-Dachau) around 1153 to 1159
- Conrad III. (Scheyern-Dachau) probably from 1159 to 1182
- Berthold IV. Von Andechs 1180/82 to 1204
- Otto VII von Andechs 1204 to 1234
- Otto VIII von Andechs 1234 to 1248
Noble families
The following noble families were enfeoffed with the Duchy of Merania over time:
literature
- Bernd Ulrich Hucker : The Andechs-Meranians in Franconia - European Principality in the High Middle Ages . Historisches Museum, Bamberg 1998 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Historisches Museum Bamberg , June 19 to September 30, 1998).
- Hubert Glaser (Ed.): The time of the early dukes. From Otto I to Ludwig the Bavarian (Wittelsbach and Bavaria; 1). Hirmer, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7774-3210-5 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, June 14 to October 5, 1980).
- Contributions to Bavarian history and art .
- Catalog of the exhibition at Trausnitz Castle .
- Josef Kirmeier (ed.): Dukes and saints. The Andechs-Meranians . House of Bavarian History, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-927233-29-3 (catalog of the state exhibition of the same name in Andechs Monastery , July 13 to October 24, 1993).
- Karl Jordan : Henry the Lion. A biography . 4th edition Dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04601-5 .
- Johannes Lehmann: The Hohenstaufen. Splendor and misery of a German imperial family . Gondrom Verlag, Bindlach 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0903-5 .
- Bernd Schneidmüller : The Guelphs. Reign and memory (819–1252) . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-17-014999-7 .
- Milko Kos: Srednjeveška kulturna družbena in politična zgodovina Slovencev, izbrane razprave (The history of culture, society and politics of the Slovenes in the Middle Ages, selected treatises). Slov. Matica, Ljubljana 1985.
- Majda Smole: Graščine na nekdanjem Kranjskem ( Lords and Gülten in the former Carniola). DZS, Ljubljana 1982.
Individual evidence
- ↑ in: Die Plassenburg vol. 36.1975, pp. 208 ff.