Thietmar (Ostfalen)

This article deals with the count. For the bishop of the same name see Thietmar von Merseburg .

Thietmar I. († June 1, 932 ) was a count (probably in Northern Thuringia and Harzgau ) and as such initially educator of the later King Heinrich I (* 876) and then his adviser. He also worked for Heinrich I as a military leader and courtier.

Surname

In 906 at the latest, significant parts of the Merseburg county fell to him through his wife, so that he is sometimes mentioned in the literature as Thietmar von Merseburg . However, since Heinrich I never surrendered the goods of his first wife Hatheburg again at the same time, a designation of Thietmar as Count of Merseburg is questionable, because more than one East Westphalian count, also wealthy in Hassegau , is not documented.

Its unhistorical name as Thietmar von der Ostmark , which is often used, is also difficult . Due to the expansion of Heinrich I over the Elbe-Saale border, Thietmar's "Ostmark" is so fundamentally different from the only slightly later (also unhistorical) Saxon Ostmark that from today's perspective this name is misleading.

Life

Thietmar's ancestors are unknown. He was married to Hildegard. Donald C. Jackman considers her to be a sister of King Konrad I. Hildegard's sister was married to the influential Count Erwin von Merseburg . It is therefore also assumed that this Hildegard was a wealthy heir daughter of an East Westphalian aristocratic family that had recently died out in the male line.

Around 885 Hildegard gave birth to a daughter Hidda , the first child to reach adulthood. In 886 Thietmar was placed in Liudolfingian service as the tutor of the future first German king Heinrich I. Since Brun's death in battle against the Normans in 880, Otto the Illustrious Count, Heinrich's father, was there . In 894 Otto accompanied Kaiser Arnulf on his Italian campaign. Thereupon Arnulf married his son Zwentibold in 897 to Heinrich's sister Oda (* around 875/880), who was about the same age. Since Zwentibold was installed as King of Lorraine in 895, there was royal blood with the Liudolfingers as early as 24 years before Henry's coronation. Since this time at the latest, the Liudolfingers themselves strived for the crown in Eastern Franconia, and Thietmar rendered them excellent service.

After the trip to Italy, Hildegard gave birth to two more children who will reach adulthood. This time there were two sons: Siegfrid (* around 895), the later legate, and Gero (* around 900), the later Margrave of the Saxon East Marks. Around the year 900 the first grandson, Gero , was born through Hidda , who later became Archbishop of Cologne. Shortly before, she had married the Count of the Schwabengau, Christian . The Liudolfinger profiled themselves more and more in an exposed position: Otto the Illustrious 902 became lay abbot of the imperial abbey of Herford , which was important in Eastern Franconia , a unique event in the East Franconian-Saxon area. However, the lofty plans were dampened again by the victory of the Konradines in 906 in the East Franconian feud of Babenberg , because they now acquired proximity to the king at court. The Liudolfingers reoriented themselves: While they had until then directed their marriage policy towards Franconia, they now turned completely to the east. In 906 Heinrich was courting the then widowed and veiled Hatheburg , Thietmar's niece and one of two heir daughters of Count Erwin von Merseburg . And in 906 the wedding took place.

In his imperial abbey in Herford, however, the lay abbot Otto the Illustrious discovered another woman for his son: Mathilde, born around 895, daughter of Count Dietrich from Saxony , an Immedinger and a descendant of Widukind. The Herford Imperial Abbey was founded by Mathilde's grandmother. As early as 909, with Christian arguments, Heinrich's first marriage was annulled and Thietmar, of all people, the uncle of Hatheburg, who had been relegated to the monastery, was sent to Herford Monastery with the job of courtship - a task that he solved with flying colors in the spirit of Otto the Illustrious. In 909 Heinrich and Mathilde got married.

After the death of Ludwig the child in 911, Otto the illustrious was offered the East Franconian royal dignity, which he had to refuse on the grounds of his age. He died the following year. The king was instead the East Franconian Konrad I , the first non-Carolingian to sit on the royal throne of Eastern Franconia. Thietmar not only stood firmly on the side of his master in the battles between Heinrich and the new king, but also turned the decision in favor of Heinrich in 915 before the Liudolfingian property of Grone . Konrad died in 919. Before that, he had proposed his powerful adversary as his successor.

In 927 Thietmar besieged and destroyed Salfurt Castle on the east bank of the Saale, which was then called Brandanburg (the burned castle), today's Bernburg. This also gave him hegemony in Schwabengau.

In the battle of Lenzen against the Redarians in August 929, Thietmar was assigned to the legate Bernhard as military leader.

literature

• Gerd Althoff : Noble and royal families in the mirror of their memorial tradition. Studies on the commemoration of the dead of the Billunger and Ottonians (= Münster medieval writings. Volume 47). Fink, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7705-2267-2 . ( Digitized version )
• Gerd Althoff: The Ottonians. Royal rule without a state. 3rd revised edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 2013, ISBN 978-3-17-022443-8 .
• Gerd Althoff: Unexplored sources from a time with few sources (III). Necrology transcripts from Saxony in the Reichenau fraternity book. In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine 131, 1983, 92–94.
• Helmut Beumann : The Ottonen (= Kohlhammer Urban pocket books. Volume 384). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1987, ISBN 3-17-016473-2 (5th edition, ibid. 2000).

Web links

• Widukind's report on the siege of Grone 915, in: Regesta Imperii Online (accessed January 22, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Widukind II, 9.
2. ↑ Donald C. Jackman : King Konrad, the last Carolingians and their Saxon relatives. In: Hans-Werner Goetz (Ed.): Konrad I. - On the way to the “German Reich”? Winkler, Bochum 2006, ISBN 3-89911-065-X , pp. 77–92, here p. 90. ( Review ; PDF; 111 kB)