Johann (Nassau-Dillenburg)

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Johann von Nassau († 1328 near Wetzlar ) was the third son of Count Otto I. von Nassau and his wife Agnes von Leiningen († after December 1299), daughter of Count Emich IV. Von Leiningen-Landeck . Johann was a cousin of King Adolf von Nassau .

Legacy of Nassau-Dillenburg

As a younger son, Johann was initially intended for a career in the church and was canon in Worms . After the death of his mother in 1303, however, he resigned from the clergy and denied his brother Heinrich the paternal inheritance. After a long dispute, the county was divided among the three surviving brothers in 1303. The eldest, Heinrich († 1343), received Nassau-Siegen with the Ginsburg and the rule of the Westerwald , Emich († 1334) got Nassau-Hadamar with Hadamar , Driedorf and the Esterau , and Johann received Nassau-Dillenburg with the Herborner Mark , Haiger and Beilstein . A fourth brother, Otto († 1302), had also become canon in Worms, but had already died. As early as 1306, with the consent of Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse , Johann gave his property to his eldest brother Heinrich as a fief , with the stipulation that his sub-county should fall back on his brother when he died.

On November 8, 1308, Johann succeeded in taking the area of ​​the diocese of Worms within the Kalenberger Zent as a fief. Up until now the Lords of Hachenburg - Greifenstein and the Lords of Merenberg were bailiffs of the Worms bishopric , whom Johann now forced out of their rights and possessions there. Soon afterwards, on March 31, 1310, the last male offspring of the Merenberg house, Hartrad VII († 1328), sold him his shares in Kalenberger Zent including the “court in the hall” in Nenderoth and the Heimau court . The son-in-law of the last Lord von Hachenburg-Greifenstein, Count Engelbert I von Sayn, compared himself to Johann von Nassau-Dillenburg on May 3, 1325 because of the wormsy after-fief: Johann enfeoffed him with the consent of his brother Heinrich III. "Zu Mannlehen after Worms feudal law" with the former Greifensteiner fiefs in the area of ​​the counties Diez and Solms , whereas Engelbert renounced his people in the Kalenberger Zent and in the Herborn Mark in favor of the count and Burgmann became Beilstein.

Like his father, including Johann in long and bitter was feuding with the local gentry, against whom he sought to enforce its sovereignty, in particular with the Lords of Dernbach and those of Bicken with whom he has been around for about 1,230 current dernbacher feud to the supremacy in the Herborner Mark continued. He and his brother Heinrich III got into it. in serious disputes with the Landgraves of Hesse , who as feudal lords supported the local nobility against the ambitions of the Nassauer and to whom the Dernbacher Ganerbe had sold their Dernbach Castle in 1309 . However, Johann was also involved in the settlement concluded on June 26, 1312 between Landgrave Otto I on the one hand and Counts Heinrich, Emich and Johann von Nassau on the other, in which both sides pledged not to build any more castles against each other, and the Nassauer conceded that they were not allowed to restrict the rights of the Lords of Dernbach and Wilnsdorf, which they had at the time of Count Otto von Nassau.

Mainzisch-Nassauer field captain

When the Archbishop of Mainz, Matthias von Buchegg , forced his feud with Landgrave Otto from 1324, he initially secured numerous allies among the Counts and aristocratic families of Central Hesse and Wetterau , including the Nassau family. Johann von Nassau-Dillenburg was appointed field captain on March 24, 1327. He commanded the Mainz-Nassau troops, which defeated a landgrave's army in the same year in the battle of Seibertshausen in the Gladenbacher Bergland . Landgrave Otto died in January 1328, but his son Heinrich the Iron continued the war. On August 10, 1328 he inflicted a heavy defeat at Wetzlar on the Mainz-Nassau army under Johann von Nassau. This and the four weeks after the death of Archbishop Matthias led to an end to the feud.

Johann von Nassau-Dillenburg fell in battle. He was unmarried and his inheritance fell to his nephew Otto II , the son of Heinrich III, who later also inherited his father. Johann's brother Emich initially appeared as a co-heir, but later renounced the inheritance in favor of his nephew. With Johann's death, the first line from Nassau to Dillenburg, which consisted only of himself, became extinct.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard II. Von Hachenburg-Greifenstein had a daughter Agnes, who married Count Engelbert I von Sayn.
  2. ↑ Nassauische Annalen: Yearbook of the Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research, volumes 28-30. Verlag des Verein für Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, 1896 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  3. ↑ The Archbishop claimed the Landgraviate of Niederhessen, left behind by Otto's half-brother Johann , who died in 1311, as a failed Mainz fiefdom, whereas Landgrave Otto vigorously defended himself as his brother's heir.
personal data
SURNAME Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nassau, Johann von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Nassau-Dillenburg
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH 1328
Place of death near Wetzlar