Ludwig I. (goat grove)

Ludwig I. von Ziegenhain (* around 1167 , † after January 17, 1229 ) from the dynasty of the Counts of Ziegenhain was the ruling Count of Ziegenhain from around 1200 until his death and from 1205 also the ruling Count of Nidda .

origin

Ludwig was a son of Count Rudolf II. (* Around 1132, † after 1188) von Ziegenhain and his wife Mechthild, the only sister and, after his death, heiress of Count Berthold II of Nidda , with whom the family of Counts von Nidda came from the Malsburg house became extinct in the male line. From 1195 Ludwig and his older brother Gottfried II (* 1156; † around 1200) can be found as a witness in various documents, but in 1200 Ludwig and his mother Mechthild testify without Gottfried. (Two other brothers had entered the clergy, Giso as a canon at the Petristift in Fritzlar , Rudolf III as a canon in Hildesheim and provost at the Petersstift in Goslar . Another brother, Gozmar V, only appeared occasionally long after Gottfried II's death as a witness in documents of his brother Ludwig.)

Count of Ziegenhain

Gottfried seems to have died in 1200 or shortly before, and Ludwig succeeded him as the ruling Count of Ziegenhain and Vogt of the Fulda Abbey . Ludwig did not get married until 1205 after he had taken office. His wife was Gertrud (* around 1172; † after 1222), the widow of Count Friedrich II. Von Abenberg († 1201). He used her fortune to redeem a number of pledges his brother had transferred - including the bailiwick of Fulda itself as well as fiefs of income from Fulda in six villages; He then immediately pledged the income from the villages to his wife.

Ludwig was a reliable follower of the Staufer and after the election of Philip of Swabia as king in 1198 he was repeatedly notarized in the surrounding area, for example in Nuremberg in 1205 , in Boppard in 1206 and in Gelnhausen in 1207 . In 1214 he was a witness on a document issued by King Friedrich II in Jülich .

Legacy of the County of Nidda

In 1205, Count Berthold II von Nidda, Ludwig's maternal uncle, died. Since Berthold left no direct descendants, his allodial property came to Ludwig I. von Ziegenhain via his sister Mechthild. Since Abbot Heinrich III. also the enfeoffment with the Fulda Bailiwick over the property of the abbey in Wetterau , the so-called Fulda Mark , was transferred from Berthold to Ludwig, who thus also became Count of Nidda. (The Nidda Castle was an imperial fiefdom, and as a loyal follower of the Staufer, Ludwig probably had no difficulty in receiving this fief as well.) At this time, the county of Nidda extended to around the upper reaches of the Ohm and Felda in Vogelsberg and included free float in the Rheingau at Rüdesheim am Rhein and bailiwicks over the Fulda goods and some Mainz possessions in the Wetterau up to the Main ; however, its exact extent, particularly with regard to free float, is not known. However, through the marriage of his sisters Adelheid and Mechthild, Ludwig and the county of Nidda lost valuable property and bailiwick rights to their spouses Ulrich I von Munzenberg and Gerlach II von Büdingen . B. the Bailiwick of Schotten with all accessories (at Büdingen).

Gifts

In August 1207, Ludwig took part in a meeting of princes in Nordhausen in Thuringia and shortly afterwards at a court day in Würzburg in the presence of King Philip, together with the heads of all other branches of the Reichenbach-Ziegenhain family of counts, which was mainly attended by Count Heinrich III. von Reichenbach († 1250) was responsible for transferring the former (and only short-lived) nunnery in Reichenbach to the Teutonic Order . The order, which was still largely unknown in Germany at that time and almost insignificant , was given its first significant settlement in Germany 27 years before the Marburg Commandery was established ; From 1220 to 1310, the Reichenbach monastery as a commandery was the center of the order's property in the East Hessian area.

Like his uncle Berthold II, Ludwig also made donations to the Johannites in the area of ​​the county of Nidda, for example the Brungesrode estate in 1226 (in the area of ​​today's street name “Am Ruppelshof” in Nidda ).

Marriage and offspring

From Ludwig's marriage to Gertrud (* around 1172; † after 1222), the widow of Count Friedrich II. Von Abenberg, there were five children known by name:

• Gottfried IV († November 15, 1250), Count of Ziegenhain and Nidda in Nidda ; ∞ Luitgard von Dürn
• Berthold I. (* around 1207 † August 6, 1258), Count of Ziegenhain and Nidda in Ziegenhain , Vogt of Fulda; ∞ Eilike von Tecklenburg (* around 1220, † 1286), daughter of Count Otto I.
• Burkhart († August 1247), 1247 Archbishop of Salzburg
• Adelheid (mentioned 1229/1232), ∞ Embricho III., Rheingraf zum Stein (~ 1188–1241)
• Gertrud (mentioned in 1237), canons in the Quedlinburg Abbey

After Ludwig's death in 1229, his sons Gottfried IV and Berthold I ruled the two counties together, with Berthold I residing in the Ziegenhain homeland and Gottfried IV in Nidda . The important and lucrative office of Domvogts von Fulda, since 1108 with Gozmar I. von Reichenbach (* around 1045, † after 1117) hereditary in the hands of the Reichenbacher / Ziegenhainer, went to Friedrich von Ziegenhain in September 1229 , but came after him soon Death in the same year to Berthold I.

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Count Gottfried II and Ludwig I testify to the repurchase of some goods by Abbot Heinrich von Fulda; Regesta of the Counts of Ziegenhain, No. 177. Regest of the Counts of Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
2. ^ ^{A b} Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain, No. 188. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
3. ↑ Gottfried's only descendant known by name, Rudolf IV. (* 1195; † 1250 at the latest), was still very young when his father died and was therefore not his successor. He seems to have lived on his inherited allod property, and in January 1243 he gave all of the goods and legacies bequeathed to him by his parents to his cousin Berthold I and his son Gottfried V ( Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain, No. 698. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).) And is documented as various in 1250 ( Regesten der Grafen von Ziegenhain, No. 246. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).).
4. ↑ Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain, No. 19. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
5. ↑ Henry III. von Reichenbach, Friedrich von Ziegenhain , Burkhard IV. von Falkenstein , husband of Kunigunde von Reichenbach, and Albert / Albrecht I. von Hachborn , husband of Gertrud von Reichenbach ( Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain, No. 17. Regesten der Graf von Ziegenhain. In: State Historical Information System Hesse (LAGIS).)

literature

• Martin Röhling: The story of the counts of Nidda and the counts of Ziegenhain. (Niddaer Geschichtsblätter booklet 9) Niddaer Heimatmuseum eV, Nidda, 2005, ISBN 3-9803915-9-0 .