Johann III. (Sponheim-Starkenburg)

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Grevenburg , October 1734.

Count Johann III. von Sponheim, the Elder (around 1315 - December 30, 1398 ) ruled the county of Sponheim for 67 years. He was also nicknamed "the noble one" and because of his eyesight, which dwindled with age, "the blind one".

Life

Johann III. von Sponheim was the first son of Count Heinrich II. von Sponheim and his wife Loretta von Salm . He had two brothers, Heinrich and Gottfried. In 1331 he was married to Mechthild von der Pfalz , Ludwig the Bayer's niece. Important events that took place during his reign include the establishment of the Heilig-Geist-Hospital in Enkirch and a war with the Archbishop of Trier Boemund II of Saarbrücken with great damage on both sides. Count Johann III. Like his mother, von Sponheim had frequent quarrels with the Trier church. Johann led a feud against Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg ; this was tolerated by atonement of April 13, 1347. Archbishop Balduin appointed him on January 4, 1351 as the highest bailiff of the Trier region on the right bank of the Moselle . Balduin's successor, Boemund, got into a dispute over customs at Enkirch with Johann and his brother-in-law, Elector Ruprecht I of the Palatinate . This other feud was ruined by robbery and fire in many places in Trier, but Boemund destroyed Starkenburg , Kirchberg and cornered Sponheim so much that Johann had to plead for peace in 1360. The subsequent feud between Johann and his cousin Walram was of no great importance as it was soon settled. On May 9, 1368 he gave the inheritance marshal's office, which was completed by the death of Simon von Waldeck , and the village of Sevenich, which was connected to this fief, to Friedrich von Ehrenburg . In 1330 he acquired city rights from Emperor Ludwig for Winterburg , Koppenstein and Birkenfeld . In Trarbach he built a church; in which year is not known; but early in the morning he put an abbot from the Himmeroder monastery to Traben, who had to read mass in Trarbach every day, and in the absence of the count, three times a week. It is uncertain whether he took part in the procession that Count Kuno II von Falkenstein and Count Walram von Sponheim undertook in 1362 against the British devastating the left bank of the Rhine. Johann III. is the builder of the Grevenburg (Grafenburg) over Trarbach, which is first mentioned by name on October 3, 1357. He was buried in the Himmerod monastery.

family

Johann III. was married in 1331 to Mechthild von der Pfalz († 1375). Mechthild was a daughter of Count Palatine Rudolf I near Rhine and Mechthild von Nassau . On her father's side she was therefore the great-granddaughter of King Rudolf von Habsburg , and on her mother's side she was the granddaughter of King Adolf of Nassau . The later Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian , who ruled from 1314, was a brother of her father. With the extinction of the two Sponheim lines in 1437, their two daughters Mechthild and Loretta finally became the posthumous heiresses of the entire county of Sponheim between Baden and Veldenz . Children:

literature

  • Karl von Damitz: The Moselle with its banks and surroundings from Koblenz up to Trier: in [30] steel engravings [with map of the Moselle course]: with the accompanying text and some episodes from the modern world , Schumacher, Cöln 1838 ( digitized )
  • Winfried Dotzauer: History of the Nahe-Hunsrück Area from the Beginnings to the French Revolution , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001 ( digitized )
  • Hans Immich-Spier: Anchiriacum - Enkirch 733–1983 , published by the municipality of Enkirch, Enkirch 1983.
  • Upmann: Contributions to the history of the principality of Birkenfeld. Annual report of the Society for Useful Research on Trier for the years 1861 and 1862, published by the Secretair Schneemann, Trier 1864 ( digitized )
  • Christofer Herrmann: residential towers from the late Middle Ages on castles in the Rhine-Moselle region. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 1995, ISBN 978-3-924734-14-5 .

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Hans Immich-Spier: Anchiriacum - Enkirch 733–1983 , published by the municipality of Enkirch, Enkirch 1983
  2. ^ Reinhard Düring: Customs tower on the Moselle. Retrieved February 27, 2016 (private website).
  3. ↑ October 16, 1413 or April 12, 1414
  4. ↑ after April 18, 1395
  5. ↑ 1407 or November 1, 1410
predecessor Office successor
Loretta Graf von Sponheim
1331 - 1398 		Johann IV.
personal data
SURNAME Johann III.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES John the Noble; John the Blind
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Count of Sponheim
DATE OF BIRTH after 1315
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1398