Johann IV. (Teschen-Auschwitz)

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. John IV of Auschwitz (also John IV of Cieszyn Auschwitz. , Hanuš IV of Cieszyn Auschwitz. , After the other counting and John III of Cieszyn Auschwitz. * 1426/ 1430 ; † (28 October 1495/21 February. ) 1497 ) was 1433 / 34-1457 Duke of Auschwitz , which he sold in 1457 to the King of Poland. 1465–1482 he was Duke of Gleiwitz . He came from the Teschen branch of the Silesian Piasts .

Origin and life

Johann's parents were Casimir I and Anna († 1426/33), a daughter of Duke Henry VIII of Glogau .

In 1465 Johann married Katharina NN. After her death in 1475 he married Barbara († 1510), a daughter of the Jägerndorfer Duke Nikolaus V. The marriage had their only daughter Helena. She was born around 1478/80 and died after 1524.

When their father died in 1433/34, Johann and his brother Primislaus III. not yet of legal age. Therefore, her older brother Wenceslaus I took over the guardianship of them and the government over the inherited areas. When the division took place in 1445, Primislaus received the Duchy of Tost and Gleiwitz, while for Wenceslaus I the area of Zator was spun off, which became an independent duchy. The duchy of Auschwitz, reduced in size, was given to the youngest brother Johann IV.

In the armed conflict over the Bohemian succession to the throne after the death of King Sigismund in 1437 between the mostly elected Habsburg Albrecht II and the not yet eleven-year-old Casimir IV , a son of the Polish king Władysław III. , a Polish army devastated Upper Silesian areas in order to force the Silesian princes to recognize Kasimir IV. Thereupon Primislaus' brother Wenceslaus I declared himself ready at the same time on behalf of his brothers for a conditional recognition of Kasimir IV. However, in November 1438 all the Silesian princes and estates in Breslau paid homage to the elected King Albrecht II. After his death in 1439, the struggle for the Bohemian succession flared up again. They were from the Polish King Władysław III. against Elisabeth von Luxemburg and her followers, who upheld the claims of their son Ladislaus Postumus , who was born in early 1440 . On their side were also John IV and his brothers, but they were led by King Władysław III. were defeated. Subsequently they had to cede a castle to Poland and have the fortifications razed by Zator . In addition, Primislaus had to pay homage to Zator's brother Wenceslaus I in 1447 and recognize Polish sovereignty, which made him, and after his death in 1465 his sons, vassals of the Polish Crown .

Also in 1447 a conflict between John IV and his brothers with the Polish King Casimir IV was settled, the cause of which was the sale of the Duchy of Severien in 1443 by Duke Wenceslas I from Teschen , with whom John IV and his brothers did not agree .

The attacks on Polish merchants tolerated by John IV on his territory as well as his own raids to Lesser Poland and Cracow also led to a long-term conflict with the Polish king Casimir IV. His troops attacked Auschwitz in 1453 and besieged it. Probably because of this, the Auschwitz nobility, Casimir IV, took the oath of allegiance. In 1454 Johann IV had to undertake to sell his Auschwitz area to Casimir IV. It was not until May 1462 that the Bohemian King George of Podebrady, at a meeting with King Casimir IV in Glogau, gave his approval for the sale of the Bohemian fief of Auschwitz to Poland. Only then was it legally detached from Silesia and incorporated into Poland. For the proceeds of 50,000 marks, Johann acquired the Duchy of Gliwice from his brother Primislaus in 1465 , which had fallen to him when it was divided in 1445. In 1466 he acquired the episcopal estate Ujest from Bishop Jodok von Rosenberg from Breslau , which had previously been pledged to the Dukes of Opole and which his brother Primislaus had received from his father-in-law Nicholas I of Opole as a dowry from his wife in 1463.

After the death of King George of Podebrady, John IV and his brother Primislaus supported the election of the Jagiellonian Vladislav II at the end of July 1471, along with other Silesian princes on his way from Krakow to the coronation of the king in Prague. Since both the Opole region and Moravia were devoted to the opposing king Matthias Corvinus , they had to take the detour via Auschwitz , Troppau , Neisse and Glatz . Subsequently Primislaus and his brother Johann IV were fought by Matthias Corvinus. During a meeting in Ratibor , Johann IV was arrested on February 27, 1475 and only released after he had ceded half of Gleiwitz to him. Finally, John IV and his brother Primislaus paid homage to King Matthias Corvinus in Olomouc in 1469 . Presumably under Corvin's pressure, Johann IV sold the second half of Gleiwitz in 1482 to the governor of Upper Silesia, Johann Bjelik von Kornitz , who had already obtained the first half and Hultschin with royal help . As a result, Johann, who resided in Gleiwitz after the loss of Auschwitz , had to make do with Ujezd. Although he was to inherit the Duchy of Tost after his brother Primislaus in 1484, Matthias Corvinus withdrew this as a settled fief and handed it over to his son Johann Corvinus .

After the death of her brother Johann IV. D. Ä. In 1483 Johann's wife Barbara obtained a promise from Matthias Corvinus that after his ( Corvins ) death she would get back the Duchy of Jägerndorf , which Corvin had cruelly wrested from her brother. Presumably it actually came to the reign of Jägerndorf in 1490, but the Bohemian King Vladislav II transferred it to his chancellor Johann von Schellenberg a short time later. An agreement was reached by the fact that Schellenberg's son Georg was married to Helena, the daughter of Johann IV and Barbaras.

Johann IV's death date and place of burial are not known. It is possible that he spent the last years of his life with his daughter in Jägerndorf .

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann IV of Auschwitz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Žáček: Dějiny Slezska v datech. 2004, p. 104.
personal data
SURNAME Johann IV.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johann IV of Teschen-Auschwitz; Hanuš IV of Teschen-Auschwitz; Johann III. from Teschen-Auschwitz; Jan IV. Osvětimsko-Zátorsky (Czech)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Teschen, Auschwitz and Gleiwitz
DATE OF BIRTH between 1426 and 1430
DATE OF DEATH between 1495 and 1497