Ludwig the Junker

Ludwig the Junker (* 1305 ; † February 2, 1345 ) was the third son of Landgrave Otto I of Hesse and his wife Adelheid von Ravensberg , daughter of Otto III. from Ravensberg .

After his brother Heinrich II came to power in 1328, Ludwig received Grebenstein Castle with the corresponding land as a paragium . Pope John XXII. had promised him an ecclesiastical benefice in 1326, when Landgrave Otto I with his wife and large entourage paid him his respects in Avignon , but Ludwig did not keep the promised celibacy , renounced his ecclesiastical career and decided to rule Grebenstein , and on October 15, 1340 married Elisabeth (also Elise), daughter of Count Simon II of Sponheim and widow of the Swabian Count Rudolf I of Hohenberg, who died in 1336 . They had three children:

• Otto (* 1341; † 1357), was destined for the clergy, was brought up in Magdeburg , where he was canon and was to become archbishop as successor to his uncle Otto . He died at a young age, allegedly as a result of a poison attack by Abbot Heinrich VII of the Fulda monastery .
• Hermann II of Hesse , "the learned" (* approx. 1342; † 1413), followed his uncle Heinrich II. As landgrave.
• Agnes (* approx. 1344; † December 25, 1394), was abbess in the Cistercian monastery of Sankt Katharina in Eisenach , where she also died.

Ludwig died in 1345. His son Hermann was appointed co-regent and successor in 1367 by Landgrave Heinrich II, following the death of his son Otto der Schütz the previous year.

literature

• Eckhart G. Franz : The House of Hesse. Kohlhammer Urban, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 978-3-17-018919-5 , pp. 23-25.