Welf VI.

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Welf VI., Ideal portrait in the Weingartener Stifterbüchlein, around 1500 ( Württembergische Landesbibliothek , Cod.hist. Q 584, fol. 38v)
Steingaden Monastery

Welf VI. (* 1115 ; † December 15, 1191 in Memmingen ) from the family of Guelphs , also called the Mild Welf , was Margrave of Tuszien ( Tuscany ) and adversary of the Staufer King Konrad III.

Life

Welf was born in 1115 as the third son of Henry the Black , Duke Heinrich IX. from Bavaria, born. After his father's death in 1126 , his brother, Heinrich the Proud , became head of the Guelph noble family. Heinrich the Proud married Welf VI. with Uta , the daughter of the sonless Count Palatine at Rhine Gottfried von Calw . As a result, after the death of his father-in-law in 1131 or 1133, he acquired claims to his property - including Castle Weinsberg - which he had to enforce in the so-called Calw hereditary feud against Adalbert IV von Calw , Gottfried's nephew. Within the Guelph family, Welf also managed the possessions in Upper Swabia .

After the election of the Staufer King Konrad III. In 1138 there was an open conflict between the Hohenstaufen and Guelphs. Konrad withdrew the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony and Welf VI from his opponent Heinrich the Proud . the Margraviate of Tuscany . Heinrich the Proud died in 1139; his son Heinrich the Lion was not yet of legal age. Welf VI. represented, in addition to the mother and grandmother of Henry the Lion, the Guelph claims and defended them, especially in Bavaria, against the Babenbergs newly appointed as dukes by Konrad . 1140 Welf hit the Babenbergs at Valley at the Mangfall, but lost shortly afterwards at the battle of Weinsberg near Heilbronn the Castle Vineyard Konrad III.

In 1142 the Guelph side achieved their first political victory: In view of the tenacious resistance of the Guelphs and their allies, Saxony was returned to Heinrich. At the Hoftag in Frankfurt there was a first rapprochement through a marriage alliance, with Welf VI. however, was not taken into account. His most important area of ​​action, Bavaria, was again awarded to the Babenbergers. This regulation did not last long, however. In March 1147, Heinrich the Lion officially raised a legal claim to the Duchy of Bavaria at another court day in Frankfurt. In the same year Welf went under Konrad III. on the Second Crusade to Palestine and arranged his circumstances beforehand. In this context, his son Welf VII, born around 1140, was first mentioned. It was also at this time that Welf founded the Steingaden Monastery (above the Lech Valley near Peiting), which was to become his grave. The crusade was not very glorious. After heavy fighting in Asia Minor , the crusaders reached Acre in the summer of 1148 , where Conrad decided to besiege Damascus . Welf refused to participate in the siege and returned home. Shortly after his return, Welf appears to have taken military action against Konrad again. After a defeat at Flochberg , the uprising collapsed in 1150. From this point on, Heinrich the Lion finally took over the leadership of the Guelph party and in the following years finally also prevailed in Bavaria.

Welf VI. and Friedrich I. Barbarossa

Welf VI. with his son Welf VII and the Steingaden Monastery which he founded (illustration from the 16th century)

In 1151 it came through the mediation of his and the king's nephew, Friedrich III. von Swabia , the future emperor Barbarossa, to an agreement between Konrad and Welf. In the course of this agreement Welf received from Konrad III. awarded the important imperial fief of Mertingen .

After Konrad's death in February 1152, Welf VI supported. the candidacy of his nephew Friedrich von Schwaben, who was elected the new king in Frankfurt on March 4, 1152, against the underage son of Konrad, who would later become Duke Friedrich IV of Swabia . During this time, the relationship between Welfs and the head of the empire was extremely good and so he was enfeoffed by the king with the Duchy of Spoleto in Italy, the margraviate of Tuscia (today's Tuscany ) and other Italian goods , at the latest on the Würzburg Court Conference in October 1152 .

Welf VI. was thus master of most of central Italy; in addition to Spoleto and Tuscia, he also owned Sardinia, among others . This Guelph rule lasted a good twenty years. The Tübingen feud (1164–1166), in which he fought almost the entire Swabian nobility against Count Palatine Hugo von Tübingen and his most important supporter, Duke Friedrich IV of Swabia , showed that Welf also attached importance to his possessions in Swabia applied. In this conflict between the Guelphs and the Conradin Staufer Line, Emperor Barbarossa had to intervene as a mediator. And here too he preferred Welf VI.

In 1167 Welf's only son, Welf VII, who had taken part in Emperor Frederick's campaign against the Pope, died of malaria in Italy. His death hit his father deeply. He did nothing against the massive expansion of the Staufer possessions in Upper Swabia from this point onwards. He lost almost all political interest; He sold his Italian possessions to Emperor Friedrich for a considerable sum. However, they do not seem to have passed into the possession of Barbarossa immediately, because a few years later Welf again raised a formal protest when the emperor redistributed his possessions as part of his Italian urban policy. Welf held the Tuscan margrave title until 1173. He seems to have financed his new passions with the proceeds from the Italian sales: he promoted poetry, historiography and church building as a patron; he celebrated lavish, well-attended festivals at which important political decisions were made. The Historia Welforum , the first medieval chronicle that is exclusively dedicated to the history of a noble family and was perhaps written on behalf of Welfs, was also created during this time .

Contract of inheritance and death

After taking over Welf's Italian possessions, Barbarossa began negotiations on the entire heritage in 1171. Welf VI. was almost 60 years old at the time. Although his son was dead, he had two nephews: Heinrich the Lion and Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. According to the line of succession, the lion would have been entitled to the inheritance. However, by this time the contact between the new Welf power center in Braunschweig and the Swabian tribe of the family had largely died down. Nevertheless, between Pentecost 1175 and autumn 1176 there was an inheritance contract between Welf VI. and Henry the Lion. Heinrich was supposed to pay a substantial sum to his uncle and receive inheritance rights for it. Heinrich owed the payment, however, and Friedrich again tried harder to get Welf. Shortly before Christmas 1178 he bought his possessions north of the Alps from Welf. The official handover took place in January 1179 on the Worms Hoftag, on which the final dismissal proceedings against Henry the Lion were initiated. Welf immediately received a large part of the territories again as fiefs from the emperor. Welf died in 1191, "reconciled with the people and repentant", as it is called in the Historia Welforum (Steingadener continuation), in "his city" Memmingen . He was buried in the Steingaden monastery, which he founded, in the monastery church of St. Johannes Baptist .

progeny

  • Elisabeth (* around 1130/35; † 1164/80), who married Rudolf von Pfullendorf around 1150 . Her daughter Ita was with Count Albrecht III. von Habsburg married and ancestral mother of the Habsburg kings and emperors.
  • Welf VII (* around 1140; † September 11/12, 1167 in Siena), with whose death this southern German branch of the Guelphs died out in the male line.

monument

An equestrian statue of Welf VI has stood in the Fuggergarten below the Schweizerberg in Memmingen since 2010 . , which was created in 2003 by Helmut Ackermann .

photos

  • Welf VI. in the Acta Sancti Petri in Augia; Cantonal Library of St. Gallen

  • Welf coat of arms (around 1200) from the grave of Welf VI. and Welfs VII. in the Welfenmünster in Steingaden, today in the Bavarian National Museum , Munich

  • Fountain figure in front of the Welfenmünster (end of the 20th century): Welf VI. as the founder of Steingaden Monastery

  • Welf genealogy in the lobby of the Welf minster (around 1600)

  • Welf VI. with his ancestors Welf V. and Heinrich the Black (Welfenmünster)

  • Welf VI. with his son as the founder of Steingaden Monastery on a fresco above the organ of the Welfenmünster

  • Equestrian statue Welf VI. in the Fuggergarten in Memmingen

swell

literature

Web links

Commons : Welf VI.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ KM Setton / MW Baldwin (eds.): A History of the Crusades. The first hundred years . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1969, p. 507.
  2. ↑ Armin Wolf: Welf VI. - Last of the Swabian Guelphs or progenitor of the kings? In: Rainer Jehl (Ed.): Welf VI. Scientific colloquium for the 800th year of Welf's death VI. in the Swabian education center Irsee from October 5th to 8th, 1991. Sigmaringen 1994, pp. 43-58, passim.
predecessor Office successor
Ulrich von Attems Margrave of Tuscany
1152–1162 		Chistian di Magonza
personal data
SURNAME Welf VI.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Welf of Spoleto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Margrave of Tuscany, Duke of Spoleto; Founder of the Steingaden Monastery
DATE OF BIRTH 1115
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1191
Place of death Memmingen