Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession

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The Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession (1247-1264) was the military conflict over the succession of the male line extinct Ludowinger as Landgrave of Thuringia .

With the death of the childless Landgrave Heinrich Raspe in 1247, the Thuringian rulers of the Ludowingers became extinct in the male line. His possessions not only included large parts of Thuringia , but also Hessian counties that had come to the Ludowingers through the female lineage. In 1122, before he became landgrave, Count Ludwig I of Thuringia married Hedwig von Gudensberg , the heir to the Hessian counts of the Gisonen family . The Gisonen, who were initially wealthy on the upper Lahn , had already inherited the considerable inheritance of Count Werner in Niederhessen , and then, through the marriage of Giso IV with Kunigunde von Bilstein, they were also given extensive ownership and bailiff rights of the Bilsteiners Count come.

Claims to the Ludowinger legacy were raised from two sides: on the one hand by Heinrich Raspe's nephew, the Wettin Heinrich III. , Lord of the Margraviate of Meißen , who had received a contingent mortgage with Thuringia from Emperor Friedrich II. In 1242, and on the other hand from the last survivor of the family, Sophie von Brabant , daughter of Landgrave Ludwig IV and niece Heinrich Raspes, who inherited the inheritance for her son Heinrich claimed. Sophie was married to Duke Heinrich II of Lower Lorraine and Brabant . Her sister Gertrud was abbess of the Altenberg monastery near Wetzlar and was therefore excluded from the line of succession.

The war dragged on for 17 years. Sophie did not succeed in winning the entire Ludowinger legacy for her son Heinrich, but she was able to secure the Hessian possessions for him ( Langsdorfer Peace ), although the Archbishopric of Mainz also claimed it. This is how the Landgraviate of Hesse came into being . The Margraves of Meissen acquired Thuringia and from then on also carried the title of Landgrave of Thuringia.

The significance of the dispute and its outcome lies in the fact that an increasingly strong territorial principality of Hesse emerged and that at the same time the attempt started by the Ludowingers and now continued by the Wettins to build a strong territorial power in central Germany by connecting Thuringia and Hesse Ended. This was subsequently achieved by the Wettins in the margraviate of Meißen. With the acquisition of the Electorate of Saxony in 1423, however, the focus of their power was on the Elbe, and Thuringia became a peripheral area that - although ruled by Wettin princes, but increasingly fragmented through inheritance divisions into the Ernestine duchies - until the beginning of the 20th century political insignificance sank.

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