Schönforst (noble family)
The noble family Schönforst emerged from the family of the Lords of Schönau and had their ancestral seat at Schönforst Castle in today's Aachen district of Forst . The members made large fortunes through wool trading and financial transactions, among other things, and were considered influential personalities of the time.
coat of arms
The family coat of arms shows nine (3: 3: 2: 1) red balls in silver. A silver cone hat with a red ring at the tip and six natural peacock feathers (in the shape of an arrowhead) is set on the red-crowned pot helmet with red-silver blankets .
history
The family first appears in documents with Henri d'Aix around 1240 and is called "Sconawa", the "Schönauer". This Heinrich (* 1220, † 1290) was treasurer of Aachen and came from the family of Limburg-Haesdal. Documents show that Heinrich and his brother appeared in 1244 at the court of Frederick II the Staufer in Pisa as an envoy of the Aachen citizenship and negotiated successfully there. As a “success bonus” he received the Schönaue area in northern Aachen.
In 1245 Heinrich was knighted . He was a horse breeder and had the right to coin and brew.
Heinrich's son Rasso I. de Fesche , (also) von Schönau, married Nesa von Bylreuelt. From this marriage the three children, Gerardo von Schönau, Rasso II. Von Schönau and Johann von Schönau emerged.
Rasso II von Schönau was Mr. von Schönau, Ülpich, Monschau and married to the noble lady du Jardin. From this marriage came Johann von Mascherel, Amatius (Amel), Gerhard, Jan Hughe, Rasso III. (Raes) von Schönau, the historically significant Reinhard von Schönau (also called Reinhard I. von Schönforst) and the daughter Aleid (Adelheid).
Knight Johann von Schönau (* approx. 1270) was Herr zu Herzogenrath , called Mascharel. In addition to a son Johann, he had a daughter who later married the knight von Brouck (Broich near Aachen).
Reinhard von Schönau (* 1308; † December 27, 1376) was one of seven children of Rassos II. Von Schönau and the noble lady du Jardin and nephew of Johann von Schönau. He was the great-grandson of Heinrich von Aachen. As the first of the sex he called himself Herr von Schönforst, today's Aachen district of Forst, so that he also appears as Reinhard I. von Schönforst in contemporary documents.
Johann I von Schönförst († 1382) was the son of Reinard I and married to Margaret von Merode . The wedding must have taken place before July 14, 1376, since documents already refer to them as a married couple at that time. From the marriage the children Johannes von Schönau-Schönforst as well as the son Rainer, who became a clergyman in Liège between 1398 and 1417, and the daughter Katharina emerged. She married Count Schaffried von Leiningen in 1432 .
From the inheritance of his father, Johann I received the areas in Monschau, as evidenced by a document from July 7, 1369. He was burgrave of Monschau in Agtenrode, Drossard of Brabant and provost of St. Servatius in Maastricht.
Reinard II. († 1419), the son of Reinard I, was a knight and was officially named "Reinard II., Lord of Schönforst and Sichem". The Schönforst and Kornelimünster , which came from the inheritance, belonged to his area . He was also the owner of the castle and manor Stolberg . It has not yet been clarified how the castle , which was previously administered by Emund von Barmen , came into the possession of the Schönforster. Whether Emund wanted to keep himself harmless because of the expansion costs or whether the heirs of Johann von Reifferscheid sold the castle to Reinard II cannot be proven. In 1372 a document documented the new ownership. Despite Reinard's tactical skill, he suffered a defeat when he sided with the Duke of Brabant , who was defeated by the Duke of Jülich on August 22, 1371 at the Battle of Baesweiler . Reinard II was captured here, but was presumably ransomed by his father.
Reinhard II von Schönforst married Johanna von Eschweiler . She was a daughter of Paul von Hückelhoven, whose family had taken over the estate and mayor's office in Eschweiler as a fief from the Cologne canons. From this marriage came two daughters, Katharina and Johanna von Schönau-Schönforst, who married Bernhard Johann von Fleckenstein before 1387. Katharina married Gerhard von Engelsdorf zu Nothberg .
Another decisive event occurred in 1375. The country teams stationed at Stolberg Castle tyrannized the area with raids. Whether Reinard II had to tolerate this or consciously accepted it cannot be said. What is certain is that he did nothing about it. For this reason, the city of Cologne put together a troop of 21 fighters on June 7, 1375 as part of the Maas-Rhine peace alliance , who were to besiege the castle . The siege was expected to last for two weeks. The other allies of the league - Duke Wenceslaus of Bohemia, Friedrich III. von Saar Werden and the city of Aachen - are likely to have deployed armed men of a similar size. Presumably on June 6 or 7, 1375, the troops handed over the feud letter to Reinard II . There is no information about the duration of the siege or the exact course of events. Most likely, however, the castle was destroyed in June 1375 and was uninhabitable.
However, this military process hardly had any serious political consequences, since the local powers could not do without the financial services of Reinard II von Schönforst. In the following year (1376) he was appointed burgrave of the city and country of Dalheim. His financial possibilities were shown, for example, in the fact that a few months after the Battle of Baesweiler he took over a large part of the costs following the war.
In 1386 Reinard II was involved in a murder of the Limburg governor Johann von Gronsfeld by the knight Eustach von Bongard. This was followed by a three-year feud with the Lords of Gronsfeld. In 1394 the disputes between Reinard II and Rainald von Jülich , in which his brother, Duke Wilhelm III. von Jülich switched on. He besieged Schönforst Castle over a period of seven weeks, the residents of which capitulated on September 30, 1396. In 1398 Reinard was forced to pledge Shechem, his most important rule in the Duchy of Brabant. Reinard II died in 1419 without male offspring.
Web links
literature
- Florian Glasses: Schönau - Schönforst. A study of the history of the Rhenish-Maasland nobility in the late Middle Ages . Dissertation at the University of Trier. Trier 1999 ( PDF ; 3.1 MB)
- Helmut Schreiber (Ed.): Stolberger Burgherren and Burgfrauen 1118 - 1909. Contributions to the Stolberg history, volume 25. Burg Verlag Gastinger 2001, ISBN 3-926830-16-6