Langenstein (Swiss noble family)

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Coat of arms of the Langenstain in the Zurich coat of arms roll (approx. 1340)

The barons of Langenstein were a long-established and very wealthy aristocratic family with their headquarters in Melchnau , Canton Bern . There are two generations of the family. In 1194 they founded the St. Urban Monastery , which belonged to the Cistercian order . The family died out in the early 13th century.

history

Origin and Distribution

The Barons von Langenstein had their headquarters on today's Schlossberg near Melchnau in the canton of Bern. During archaeological excavations there, traces of wooden structures were found that can be dated to the 10th or 11th century and which were probably part of the first fortifications in the High Middle Ages. The family's name could be derived from the range of hills on the Schlossberg, which contemporaries may have referred to as the “long stone”.

Their property was in the valley of the Rot and in the neighboring valley of the Langeten . The family's property was probably a result of a clearing rule in the border area between the county of Burgundy in the west and the Alemannic area of ​​influence in the east.

Act

The first tangible generation of the Langenstein consisted of five siblings: Ritter Ulrich, the two clergymen Lütold and Werner I. and the two sisters Willebirk (Willbirgis) and Adelheid. Ulrich is mentioned in 1191 as the owner of a church in Rot, today's hamlet Chlyrot in Untersteckholz . There his two brothers Werner I worked as a canon and Lütold as a priest. Ulrich's wife was Mechtild, the widow of Baron Werner II von Signau, who died in 1178.

Willebirk (mentioned 1197) was married to the baron and knight Arnold von Kapfenberg (mentioned around 1200). Her sister Adelheid (mentioned from 1197 to 1239) had Baron Burkhard von Balm as her husband (mentioned around 1201).

Based on the church in red, which according to unconfirmed statements should have been founded as an Augustinian canon monastery as early as 1148, the three Langenstein brothers founded a Cistercian monastery between 1191 and 1194. Diethelm von Krenkingen , Bishop of Constance , confirmed the donation from the Langensteiners to the Cistercians in 1194, which was also accepted by the General Chapter of the Order in Cîteaux . As a founding convention, the mother monastery Lützel sent twelve monks under the first abbot Konrad from the respected southern Alsatian family of the Biederthan .

Because the red location was apparently not suitable for a monastery, the young convent moved shortly after 1194. The founders of the monastery also helped: the Langensteiners were able to persuade their brother-in-law Arnold von Kapfenberg to leave the monastery two farms in Thundwil. After a small forest chapel dedicated to Pope Martyr Urban I , the monastery took the name “St. Urban ”. Thundwil is the place where the former St. Urban monastery is still located today.

Inherit

Baron Ulrich died in 1212. He left several children, including a daughter Anna (before 1197 to before 1224) and two sons: Werner II. (Mentioned before 1212 to 1214) and Heinrich (mentioned before 1212 to after 1234). The existence of another son named Cuno is questioned.

Ulrich's daughter Anna is probably the wife of the knight Ulrich I (mentioned before 1218 to before 1224) from the family of the Barons von Grünenberg . As an heir, she probably brought the essential components of the Langstein property to the Grünenberg, while the other Langenstein relatives, such as the Balm, had received their Langstein dowries one or more generations earlier. Anna died seven days after the death of her husband, not without having previously made a donation to the St. Urban monastery together with her sons, the founders of the Gruenbergian main lines.

The longstanding conflict over dominance in the market town of Langenthal in the second half of the 13th century was rooted in another family relationship between the Langenstein family, which cannot be documented in a document . Idda von Langenstein brought Langenstein Castle in particular to her husband Heinz von Luternau . The descendants of this Heinz von Luternau as well as the presumed main heirs of the Langenstein, Heinrich II. The Elder and Markwart I of Grünenberg, were involved in the bloody disputes in which the St. Urban monastery was also devastated by the Luternauer.

coat of arms

There are contradicting information about the coat of arms of the Barons von Langenstein. The most likely blazon reads: “A striding, red lion in a blue-white field divided across the way”. This coat of arms does not appear until the 14th century and is missing on the ornate bricks of the St. Urban monastery from the 13th century. Thus, the monastery founders would not appear on the St. Urban coat of arms. For this reason, August Plüss suspected that the Langensteiners also ran the Sechsberg run by the Barons von Grünenberg.

Another depiction occurs in the Zurich coat of arms : a red eagle in silver, with a blue three-pointed baron crown on its tail.

Reichenauer family of ministers

The barons of Langenstein should not be confused with a ministerial family of the Reichenau monastery . This family consisted of Arnold I. von Langenstein (mentioned 1271 and 1272) and his sons Hugo the Younger (mentioned before 1271 until after 1298), Berthold, Arnold II and Friedrich. In 1271 they donated the island of Mainau, a fief of the Reichenau Monastery, to the Teutonic Order. In 1272 the order established a commander there, into which Hugo the Younger and another of his brothers entered. Hugo was a Middle High German poet and wrote an extensive rhyming legend about the life and martyrdom of Saint Martina . The family derived its name from Langenstein Castle in Hegau , whose keep is now part of Langenstein Castle as the basement .

supporting documents

literature

  • Alfred Häberle: The St. Urban Monastery and the Oberaargau 1194-1375 . In: Yearbook of the Oberaargau . tape 7 . Kuert Druck, Langenthal 1964, p. 31 to 77 .
  • Max Jufer: The noble families of Oberaargau . In: Yearbook of the Oberaargau . tape 6 . Merkur Druck AG, Langenthal 1963, p. 39 to 61 .
  • Max Jufer: The earliest castle sites in Oberaargau . In: Yearbook of the Oberaargau . tape 42 . Merkur Druck AG, Langenthal 1999, p. 34 to 68 (with an overview map, plans and photos).
  • Max Jufer: The barons of Langenstein-Grünenberg . In: Yearbook of the Oberaargau . tape 37 . Merkur Druck AG, Langenthal 1994, p. 109 to 214 .
  • August Plüss: The barons of Grünenberg in Kleinburgund . Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate submitted to the high philosophical faculty of the University of Bern. In: Archives of the Historical Association of the Canton of Bern . Volume XVI, Issue 1. Stämpfli, Bern 1900 ( digitized from E-Periodica.ch [accessed on October 20, 2015]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Based on documents from the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern; Jufer 1999: p. 55 (but there dated too early to the 9th to 10th centuries).
  2. ↑ Jufer 1999: p. 41.
  3. ↑ Häberle 1964: p. 32.
  4. ↑ Genealogical note of the Lucerne town clerk Renward Cysat. Plüss 1900: p. 9, note 6.
  5. ↑ Jufer 1994: p. 128; Plüss 1900: p. 17.
  6. ↑ Jufer 1994: p. 134; Plüss 1900: p. 11 note 3.
  7. ^ So in Tschudis Wappenbuch, after Plüss 1900: p. 5, note 2.
  8. ↑ Plüss 1904: p. 280.
  9. ↑ Stripes II, front side 10, coat of arms of LANGENSTAIN (Langenstein); http://gruenenberg.net/gruenenberg?m=H;v=zuercher_wappenrolle_1335#nummer103 [accessed on October 20, 2015].