Otto IV. (Oldenburg-Delmenhorst)

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Otto IV. Von Oldenburg – Delmenhorst (* 1367 ; † 1418 ) was Count von Delmenhorst from the House of Oldenburg .

Origin and Regency

Otto's parents were Count Christian the Younger of Oldenburg – Delmenhorst (1335–1367) and his wife, Countess Heilwig von Hoya .

Since his great uncle Count Otto III. von Delmenhorst was childless, Otto was designated as his successor at an early age. After the death of his father, his mother and Otto III acted. and his great uncle Christian, canon in Bremen , as guardian, for example in 1371 when the Delmenhorst town charter was notarized .

Around October 1380 he took over the reign of the county of Delmenhorst, which at that time was heavily in debt. Otto, who was now in conflict with his great-uncle Christian and the Hoya Counts who supported him, allied himself with the city of Bremen, to which he had to pledge a quarter of the Delmenhorst rule and half of the castle and the cityscape . For the administration of the pledged property he was then appointed as Bremen bailiff himself and was thus initially able to secure his rule. As a result, he was through another, costly feud with Count Otto III. temporarily ousted from Delmenhorst by Hoya . Again in order to pay off a high debt burden, Otto was forced in 1404 to pledge further parts of his rule to his distant relative, Count Moritz II of Oldenburg . Since Otto also married his daughter Adelheid († 1407) to Count Dietrich von Oldenburg († 1440), he was initially able to strengthen the connection to the Oldenburg parent company. Later Otto politically approached the Archdiocese of Bremen . Together with his son Nikolaus (around 1401–1447), who had entered the clergy, on January 7, 1414 he pledged his rule Delmenhorst to the Archbishopric of Bremen for 3,000 marks, which they owed him. In return for the pledge, after the death of the then incumbent, Otto pushed through the election of Nikolaus as Archbishop of Bremen by the cathedral chapter, which finally took place on January 16, 1421.

Otto represented the fourth generation of the so-called Elder Line Delmenhorst , whose members had been in charge of the county of Delmenhorst since 1278 as an independent branch line of the Oldenburg Count's House. Despite considerable debts, family disputes, claims by related counts and neighboring financial powers, Otto succeeded again in securing his small territory for his reign.

family

Otto married Richarda von Tecklenburg . From the marriage came the son Nikolaus , who initially succeeded his father, but then finally transferred the county of Delmenhorst to the Archbishopric of Bremen on December 20, 1420, in order to receive it back as a fief . The independent branch line therefore ended with Nikolaus.

literature

predecessor Office successor
Otto III. Blason Comtes de Delmenhorst.svg
Count of Delmenhorst
1380-1418
Nicholas