Sonneberg (noble family)

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The coat of arms of the Lords of Sonneberg

The Lords of Sonneberg were a noble family who, in the late phase of the Frankish colonization in the east in the 12th and 13th centuries, set up and maintained a lordly administration on the lands in the Coburg area in the wake of the Dukes of Andechs-Meranien . The rule extended from the Thuringian Slate Mountains in the north to the episcopal possessions in Volkfeldgau am Obermain in the south. The seat of the family was the Sonneberg Castle on the Schloßberg in today's city of Sonneberg .

history

Origins

The earliest mention of castrum sonneberg is together with that of castrum schaumburg , allod of the burgraves of Meißen from the Sterker von Wohlsbach family and later ancestral seat of the close relatives of the Sonnebergs, the Lords of Schaumberg , in connection with the foundation of the Banz monastery 1069– 1071 in a treatise that Heinrich, the abbot of the monastery, wrote only after 1295. It is unclear whether Heinrich was referring to castles that actually existed at the time the monastery was founded or only given the location of the castles as a point of orientation. Therefore, this mention cannot be taken as evidence of the existence of Sonneberg Castle and the noble family in the 11th century. Nevertheless, the source suggests that the beginning of a systematic settlement from Main Franconia and thus certainly also the establishment of a rule on the imperial estate in the Coburg and Sonneberg area is to be set in the era of the margraves of Schweinfurt from around 980. At the beginning of this colonization, however, the Lords of Wildberg , who ruled in the neighboring Untergau of the eastern Grabfeldgau ("grapfeld orientalis"), where at the same time also Main Franconian settlements emerged, also came into question as a regulatory power .

The first documentary mentions were made in various sources in the 12th century, but their assignment to the Sonneberg family is not unequivocally certain due to different spellings. In 1135 a “Poppo de Sconnenberg” appeared, in 1144 a “Craft de Suineburc” as a vassal of the Count of Andechs and dynast of Plassenburg Berthold II. , 1172–1177 an “Oudalricus de Sconenberch” and 1173–1204 finally an “Oulricus de Sunenberc” whose affiliation is extremely likely. At the beginning of the 13th century, when the rule of the Dukes of Andechs-Meranien was consolidated in the region, there were quite frequent mentions in Meranian documents. In 1204 a "Hainricus" appeared, in 1207 an "Eberhardus" as a witness for the Langheim monastery , in 1231 a "Kunemundus" and in 1244 an "Arnoldus" in the spelling "de Sunnenberc" or "de Sunnenberg" as witnesses or acting persons in various treaty texts .

Sonneberg Castle

Authentic sources clearly located the seat of the family around 1260 in connection with an inheritance dispute on the Schloßberg (502 m above sea level), above today's city of Sonneberg. The Sonneberg House was probably more of an administrative seat than a medieval defense system. The exposed location on the spur of the castle hill should have ensured adequate protection of the castle complex, even with simpler enclosing walls and defensive structures. Below the castle, at the foot of the castle hill, there was a manor on which, in addition to various courtyard buildings, the actual aristocratic seat, the bower and a baptistery built as a rock church were located.

development

The gentlemen of Sonneberg are only as vassals of the Counts of Andechs , then as a tournament enabled Burgmannen and ministerials proven or vassals in the service of the Dukes of Andechs-Meran, responsible for the management of the lands on the meranischen Reichslehen and two of the manor farm and hamlets existing settlement below the Sonneberg Castle were responsible. The imperial estate was endowed with exceptional sovereign rights such as jury control, escort, customs, mining law, high wild ban and church patronage. In addition, the Sonnebergers were in feudal relationships with the County of Orlamünde and the Lords of Lobdeburg because of some goods in the Coburg area and on the edge of the Orlagau .

Not only the Duchy of Merania claimed the imperial fief for themselves. As early as 1056, Archbishop Anno II of Cologne had acquired the former imperial domain around Saalfeld , in southern Orlagau and around Berg Coburg from the inheritance of Richeza , the daughter of Count Palatine Ezzo of Lorraine , through a dubious donation. Subsequently, starting from the Abbey of St. Peter and Paul in Saalfeld, Benedictine monks from the Archdiocese of Cologne, from the exemplary abbeys of St. Michael on the Siegberg and St. Pantaleon in Cologne in the sense of the reform of Cluny , from 1075 with the comprehensive Christianization the autochthonous Urthuringian or Elbe-Germanic and Slavic inhabitants and the Main Franconian settlers. Therefore, the Sonnebergers also held the protective bailiff over the provosts of St. Peter and Paul and the goods of the church in Coburg.

This was by no means undisputed among the regional clergy . At least Heinrich von Sonneberg was asked by a visitor of the Holy See in 1225 to renounce the bailiwick rights. But he obviously successfully resisted this request. In the same year the church of St. Johannis Baptistae, the first modern church building in the settlement under the Sonneberg Castle, was mentioned for the first time. Heinrich retained jurisdiction over the provost's subjects. In any case, Otto von Meranien in 1232 called Eberhard, son of Heinrich von Sonneberg, expressly in his capacity as advocatus of the Church of Coburg because of an encroachment on the rights of the Banz monastery . Eberhard II von Sonneberg had created the clearing settlement Ebersdorf on the edge of the Banzer Forest . The fiefdom of Rodeland for the Sonneberg manor was only confirmed in 1262 by Bamberg Bishop Berthold von Leiningen Eberhard's nephew, Eberhard III.

In 1252, four years after the end of the Duchy of Merania, Heinrich II von Sonneberg acquired extensive property from the Saalfeld Benedictine abbey in the Sonneberg and Coburg area, including the villages of Oberlind , Unterlind , Malmerz , Weidhausen , Schierschnitz , Hofstädten , Kleingarnstadt and Turwigestatt, probably one associated with early mining standing Wüstung above the Haselbach ground . In 1260 he and his wife Kunigunde founded the Sonnefeld monastery (campus solis) on the Ebersdorfer Rodeland , in 1264 they obtained the consent of the bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg to found the nunnery and applied to the General Chapter of the Cistercians to be accepted into the Cistercian order. The monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary had to be rebuilt again after a major fire in 1287, this time near Hofstädten in today's Sonnefeld. The monastery was settled from the Maidbronn monastery , when its abbess Jutta von Sonneberg was named in 1260. In the same year Heinrich II gave the village of Frohnlach to the monastery. Heinrich's son of the same name later furnished it with further goods, and his daughters were in all probability the first abbesses of the monastery . In 1279, Heinrich II appeared in the list of witnesses in the founding document of the Himmelkron monastery , whose first Cistercian women were probably from Sonnefeld.

Extinction at the beginning of the 14th century

In the period that followed, there seems to have been a steady economic decline, which was exacerbated by the costs incurred for the necessary equipment for the Sonnefeld monastery. The last documented mention of the family dates from the year 1306. After the Sonnebergers died out, the small lordship fell to the Counts of Henneberg in 1317 , who had already taken over Coburg and Rodach from the Andechs inheritance in 1248 and from these and the neighboring territories of their “newcomers Herrschaft ”formed the Coburg care . The village that emerged below the castle in the 13th century was then still called "Stätlein zu Rötin under the Sunnenberg house and (the village) Alt Rötin".

coat of arms

The coat of arms showed three red rafters on a silver background. This meant that the Sonnebergers had the same coat of arms as the Lords of Eppstein , which suggests that the family came from the Rodgau . Conspicuous similarities in names with epitaphs in Langheim Abbey indicate a close family relationship with the Lords of Lichtenfels .

The municipal coat of arms of Ebersdorf still reminds of the influence of the Lords of Sonneberg. The coat of arms of the Lords of Sonneberg is depicted in the coat of arms of the Principality of Saxony-Coburg. In the coat of arms scrolls from the 18th to 19th centuries, the meaning of this coat of arms was transferred to the coat of arms-like county of Ravensberg .

Heinricus and Chunemundus von Sonneberg carried a seal according to documents from the Sonnefeld monastery, which are now lost, showing the rafters on one half and sheep or cloth scissors in the other. The motif of the sheep shears can be traced back to the coat of arms of those von Giech , who can be traced back to the region after 1200 and who also administered the Meranian properties in the Upper Franconian area between Bamberg, Bayreuth and Kulmbach as ministerials in the service of the House of Andechs. In any case, the coat of arms is a clear indication of a connection with the Anglo-Saxon clan of the founders of the Scherinburg family , who also brought the main name Cunemund into the family. A branch of this family is likely to have married into the Sonneberg house at that time. This seal, in a different form, with a silver rafter on a red background and as a sign of recognition of the Hennebergers and the Wettin feudal sovereignty, now carried black sheep shears on a golden background, the barons of Schaumberg-Rauenstein as the family coat of arms. Today it can be found in the former community coats of arms of Rauenstein and Effelder-Rauenstein (today community of Frankenblick ) and with two rafters in the coat of arms of the district of Sonneberg.

Considering the gemehrte Schaumberger arms used for comparison, the crest consisted of a helmet crown and a grating as a symbol of the Holy Lawrence of Rome , who is also the patron saint of 1116 set up as a house of prayer, and in 1225 the first time occupied with a provost provost cell of Saalfeld Benedictine abbey in their extensive forests in southern Orlagau. The end of the grate is decorated with three balls each with three black cock feathers. The helmet cover is golden with a black underside. This helmet gem is not secured for the Sonneberg family coat of arms.

Tribe list

This root list is based on a reconstruction by Paul Oesterreicher in: Geschichte der Herrschaft Banz , Volume II, Appendix, Bamberg 1833, which however does not contain any sources.

  1. Poppo de Sconnenberg (1135)
  2. Craft de Suineburc (1144)
    1. Udalrich de Sconenberch (1172–1177)
    2. Ulrich de Sunenberc (1173–1204)
      1. Heinrich I. (1204–1232) ∞ Richeza ( from Giech or from Kölleda ?) (1238)
        1. Jutta (1260), Abbess of Maidbronn
        2. Eberhard II. (1223-1238)
        3. Heinrich II. (Before 1249–1288) ∞ Kunigunde
          1. Henry III. (before 1263)
          2. Eberhard III. (1263-1288)
            1. Henry IV (1274)
          3. Kunemund II. (1263–1306) ∞ Adelheid († probably around 1310)
          4. several daughters, probably Agnes († 1306) and Irmengard († 1305), abbesses of the Sonnefeld monastery
        4. Kunemund zu Lichtenfels (1231–1272) ∞ Mechthild von Burgdorf
          1. Mechthild († 1303), Abbess of the Sonnefeld Monastery
        5. Arnold (1244–1271), Canon of Bamberg
      2. Eberhard I (1207)

literature

  • August Schleicher : Folk things from Sonneberg in the Meininger Oberlande - phonology of the Sonneberg dialect . Weimar, H. Böhlau (1858)
  • Books of the Homeland Volume 1: History and stories around 650 years of Sonneberg. , Editors: Dyba-Werbung and J. Luthardt; Offizin Hildburghausen GmbH, Sonneberg 1998
  • 650 years of the city of Sonneberg. 1349-1999. Sonneberg, City of Sonneberg 1999

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ August Schleicher: Folksy from Sonneberg in the Meininger Oberlande - phonology of the Sonneberg dialect. H. Böhlau, Weimar 1858, p. XV.
  2. ↑ Jochen Haberstroh : The rice mountain at Scheßlitz-Burgellern in the time of the migration. Thoughts on the 5th Century AD. in Northern Bavaria. With a contribution by Jörg Faßbinder . GERMANIA 81-1, 2003 Summary ( Memento from February 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 109 kB)
  3. ^ Prof. G. Brückner: Landeskunde des Herzogthums Meiningen , Volume 2: The topography of the country , Verlag Brückner and Renner, Meiningen 1853, p. 442 f.
  4. ↑ Christian Schoettgen and Georg Christopher Kreysig: Diplomataria et scriptores Historiae Germanicae medii aevi , Tomus III, Henricus Gottlieb Francke, Altenburg 1762, Appendix, SIGILLA SONNEFELDENSIA Tab. 1, 1. - 3.

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