Magnus (Saxony)

Magnus (* around 1045; † 23 August 1106 on the Ertheneburg ) from the Billunger dynasty was a duke in the tribal duchy of Saxony .

Life

Magnus was the eldest son of Duke Ordulf and his wife Wulfhild of Norway , a daughter of King Olav II Haraldsson . Magnus was married to Sophia of Hungary († June 18, 1095) since 1070/1071 , a daughter of the Hungarian king Béla I ( Arpaden ) and Tuta von Formbach , and widow of Ulrich I of Weimar , Margrave of Carniola and Istria . Both Magnus and Sophia were buried in the St. Michaelis Church in Lüneburg . The couple had two daughters:

• Wulfhild († December 29, 1126 in Altdorf , buried in Weingarten ) ∞ Heinrich IX. the Black († December 13, 1126), 1120 Duke of Bavaria ( Welfen )
• Eilika († January 18, 1142) ∞ Count Otto the Rich von Ballenstedt († February 9, 1123), 1112 Duke of Saxony ( Ascanians )

Magnus was a bitter enemy of Archbishop Adalbert von Bremen , whose monastery he raided with repeated raids. In 1070 he supported Otto von Northeim's outrage against King Henry IV , was arrested after its termination and not released after Ordulf's death in 1072 because he refused to buy the exemption by renouncing the ducal dignity.

Only after a prisoner exchange initiated by his uncle, Count Hermann , during the Saxon War in 1073, he was released on August 15, 1073 from custody at the Harzburg . Just two years later, after Henry IV's victory in the Battle of Homburg an der Unstrut , Magnus was re-elected. Already released in 1076, he fought in the ranks of the supporters of the opposing king Rudolf in the battle of Mellrichstadt (1078), where he barely saved his life. Later he reconciled himself with Heinrich and fought against the Liutizen . In 1093 he helped the allied ruler of the Abodrites Heinrich von Alt-Lübeck in the battle of Schmilau to secure his power against his pagan population, who neither wanted to accept Christianity nor pay taxes according to the new law.

Magnus died in 1106 without sons. With him, the Billunger dynasty died out in the male line, whose duchy passed to Lothar von Süpplingenburg , while the family estates were bequeathed to the Ascanians and the Guelphs via his two daughters .

Grave slab in the St. Michaelis Church in Lüneburg

Magnus was buried in the Church of St. Michaelis in Lüneburg .

literature

• Lutz Fenske:  Magnus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 666 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Otto von Heinemann:  Magnus, Duke of Saxony . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 69-72.
• Bernd Schneidmüller : Magnus, Saxon Duke . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 6, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-7608-8906-9 , column 100 f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ordulf	Duke of Saxony 1072–1106	Lothar