Nassau-Eppstein feud

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The Nassau-Eppstein feud was a dispute from 1280 to 1283 between the House of Nassau and the House of Eppstein . The feud flared up around the district court of Mechtildshausen near Wiesbaden . In the course of this feud, the city of Wiesbaden was destroyed.

The exact course of the feud is unknown. The most important source is the peace treaty of August 30, 1283.

course

In 1255 the house of Nassau was divided into two lines. Count Walram II of Nassau (* around 1220; † January 24, 1276) received the southern parts of the country in the Taunus . The most important areas were the rule Wiesbaden and the rule Idstein . Walram and his son Adolf von Nassau , the future German king, tried to unite these two dominions. To do this, they tried to curtail the rights of the local nobility. This policy was particularly detrimental to the Eppstein family. The trigger for the feud was Adolf's attempt to pull in the Mechthildhausen district court from the Eppstein house. The district court of Mechthildshausen was part of the Nassau Reichslehen Wiesbaden and was loaned by this to the House of Eppstein.

Gottfried III. von Eppstein (* around 1227, † 1293) took advantage of Count Adolf von Nassau's absence and attacked Wiesbaden. During the fighting, the city of Wiesbaden was captured and destroyed. Gottfried had almost certainly conquered Sonnenberg Castle in Nassau beforehand . Adolf von Nassau then attacked Eppstein Castle from Idstein Castle and forced Gottfried to withdraw from Wiesbaden. Presumably villages were also looted and devastated in the feud.

Negotiations took place between the two parties, in which the Archbishop of Mainz, Werner von Eppstein, mediated. In an extensive contract on August 30, 1283 in Aschaffenburg, the legal relationships between the House of Nassau and House of Eppstein were reorganized. The Nassau rulers Idstein and Wiesbaden were connected by the new border. The Nassau house, however, had to transfer most of the fiefdom back to Gottfried von Eppstein. After the peace treaty, the House of Nassau rebuilt the city of Wiesbaden and provided the city with massive fortifications. The Sonnenberg Castle was expanded and served as the residential castle of the Walram line of the House of Nassau. Gottfried von Eppstein was heavily in debt after the feud. To settle his debts, he had to pledge the town of Braubach to the County of Katzenelnbogen .

literature

  • FW Th. Schliephacke: History of Nassau . W. Kreibels Verlag, Wiesbaden 1867, p. 156-167 .