Ulrich III. (Hanau)

Ulrich III. Hanau (* 1310, † 1369/70, buried in the monastery Arnsburg ) was 1346 to 1369/70 Lord of Hanau and bailiff in the Wetterau .

origin

Ulrich III. was born around 1310 as the eldest son of Ulrich II von Hanau and his wife, Agnes von Hohenlohe . The year of birth is based on the marriage date of his parents on the one hand and the fact that he should marry in 1327.

Pedigree of Ulrich III. from Hanau
Great grandparents	Reinhard I. von Hanau (* before 1243; † 1281) ∞ Adelheid von Hagen-Münzenberg († 1291)	Ludwig von Rieneck -Rothenfels († 1289) ∞ Udehilt von Grumbach and Rotenfels († 1300)	Gottfried von Hohenlohe , Count of Romagna (proven: 1219–1266) ∞ Richza von Krautheim (proven: 1224–1263)	Count Friedrich von Truhendingen - Dillingen († 1274) 2nd ∞ vmtl. Margaretha of Andechs-Meranien († 1271)
Grandparents	Ulrich I. von Hanau (* 1250/60; † 1305/06) ∞ Elisabeth von Rieneck -Rotenfels (* around 1260; † around 1300)		Kraft I. von Hohenlohe -Weikersheim (proven 1260–1312) 2. ∞ vmtl. Margarethe von Truhendingen -Dillingen
parents	Ulrich II. Von Hanau (* 1280; † 1346) ∞ Agnes von Hohenlohe -Weikersheim (* before 1295; † 1346)
Ulrich III.

For the family cf. Main article: Hanau (noble family)

family

Grave slab Adelheid Countess von Hanau 1344, Arnsburg

Ulrich III married in 1327 or later. Countess Adelheid von Nassau († August 8, 1344), daughter of Count Gerlach I of Nassau. Her tombstone is preserved in Arnsburg Monastery . Five children are known from this marriage. The order of the sons results from their worldly and spiritual position. How the daughters relate to this is unknown. The sons are therefore prefixed:

1. Ulrich IV. (* Around 1330; † 1380), follows his father in 1369/70
2. Reinhard (* around 1330; † early 15th century), canon
3. Elisabeth von Hanau (* around 1330; † after 1384), married to Wilhelm II. Von Katzenelnbogen
4. Agnes is mentioned in 1346 as a nun in Klarenthal Abbey near Wiesbaden. She died on August 4th of an unknown year.
5. In 1396 Anna was abbess in the Patershausen monastery

government

Even before his father's death in 1346, Ulrich III. politically active. Since 1343 he and Kuno von Falkenstein assumed the guardianship in Falkenstein-Münzenberg.

In the years 1349 and 1357 the first of the great medieval plague waves raged . There is no news from Hanau. In neighboring Frankfurt am Main , 2,000 people are said to have died within 200 days. Ulrich III. and his family were evidently not personally affected. There is no evidence of deaths in his family that could be linked to the plague. In connection with the plague, a pogrom took place in the city of Hanau against the Jews , who were completely expelled. You have been charged with arson.

Domestic politics

Fiscal policy in the reign of Hanau was under his government obviously very successful. Despite the costly war campaigns and feuds , he always had enough money to grant allies loans, redeem pledged territories and purchase pledges himself.

1368 he gained for his villages Bruchkoebel and Marköbel the city charter from the king, which in practice but had no impact on their development. He received the right to mint for his city of Babenhausen .

During his reign there were more and more disputes and comparisons between him and other territorial rulers on the one hand, and especially the city of Frankfurt on the other hand, as a noticeable migration from the country to the city began and thus withdrew subjects and taxes from the gentlemen.

Politics in the Empire

Ulrich III. pursued the politics of his predecessors close to the king. This enabled him to strengthen his rights around Frankfurt, especially in the area of ​​the Bornheimerberg office . He managed to get hold of the office of the Reichsschultheissen of Frankfurt am Main (1349) and the Frankfurt Stadtwald (1360) as a pledge by lending to the emperor. In doing so, he threatened to enclose Frankfurt from the outside and to undermine its independence from the inside, especially since a permanent conflict between patricians and craftsmen had developed there. He worked as an arbitrator between the parties as early as 1358.

The location of the Ulrichstein (formerly part of the Frankfurt city fortifications ) is marked today by a stone ring embedded in the road surface.

Probably Ulrich III. In connection with this "encirclement policy" he also built the Ulrichstein as a fortress or customs tower in front of Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen , with which he sought to protect his interests against the city. (Occasionally, a building by Ulrich I. von Munzenberg (1217–1240) is suspected.) The tower was first mentioned in 1391 in the register of the Frankfurt gates and towers, so it was already in the possession of the Sachsenhausen city wall at that time City.

In order to end this encirclement, due to his excellent relationships with the imperial court, the Frankfurt patrician and later Frankfurt mayor Siegfried zum Paradies released the two pledges for the emperor in 1363 and 1366 and took them over himself. In the long term, the king was probably more interested in a wealthy city than in a powerful territorial lord.

In 1354 he gained control of the Schelmenburg , ancestral seat of the Schelme von Bergen in Frankfurt-Bergen-Enkheim . In addition, Ulrich III succeeded. to acquire shares in the Ortenberg court , the Altenhaßlau office and the Jossgrund office for his rule . He rounded off the Hanau property through acquisitions and pledges. These included 1357 fiefdoms in the Fulda monastery , shares in Somborn, Alzenau, Wilmundsheim vor der Hart and Hörstein - all villages in the Alzenau free court , one sixth from Münzenberg and Assenheim and shares in Gronau . He also succeeded in increasing Hanau's share in Rodheim , which was shared with Falkenstein, by half in 1367 .

Ulrich III. took part in the Reichstag in Metz and Nuremberg in 1356 , at which the Golden Bull was finally issued. From the king he received customs privileges in Steinau an der Strasse ( trading route Frankfurt - Leipzig ), Sterbfritz (Fulda-Würzburg) and Kesselstadt ( Main ). In 1363/64 he took part in military actions of the Teutonic Order in Prussia.

Landvogt in the Wetterau

Ulrich III. actively participated in the peace policy of his time. King Karl IV appointed him on June 8, 1349 as governor in the Wetterau. From this position he fought several times in the years 1356-1366 against other regionally important lords, for example against Philipp von Isenburg - Grenzau , whose Villmar Castle he captured in 1359 and against Philipp the Elder of Falkenstein 1364-1366, in this so-called Falkensteiner feud his allies were the four imperial cities of Frankfurt, Friedberg , Wetzlar and Gelnhausen and the Archbishop Kuno von Trier .

coat of arms

Hanau coat of arms

→ Main article : Coat of arms of the County of Hanau

Under Ulrich III. the coat of arms of the Hanau rulership received its final form. The similarity of the Hanau coat of arms with that of the Counts of Rieneck and the identical helmet decorations led to the dispute, which was ended in 1367 with a comparison: Rieneck now had a whole standing swan, but Hanau a growing half swan as a helmet decoration. The coat of arms was preserved in this form and is still used by the city of Hanau today.

literature

• Walter Czysz: Klarenthal near Wiesbaden. A women's monastery in the Middle Ages, 1298–1559. Seyfried, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-922604-10-2 .
• Klaus Peter Decker: Clientele and competition. The knightly von Hutten family and the Counts of Hanau and von Ysenburg. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Vol. 38, 1988, ISSN  0073-2001 , pp. 23-48.
• Reinhard Dietrich : The state constitution in Hanau. The position of the lords and counts in Hanau-Münzenberg based on the archival sources (= Hanauer Geschichtsblätter. Vol. 34). Hanau History Association, Hanau 1996, ISBN 3-9801933-6-5 .
• Karl Ebel: The Imperial War against Philipp the Elder Ä. von Falkenstein 1364-1366. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association. Vol. 23, 1915, ISSN  0342-1198 , pp. 129-142.
• Friedrich Rehm: Diplomatic history of the lords and counts of Hanau up to the division into the lines Minzenberg and Lichtenberg. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Vol. 13 = NF Vol. 3, 1871, ISSN  0342-3107 , pp. 114-261, here pp. 197-200.
• Heinrich Reimer :  Ulrich III. from Hanau . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, p. 221 f.
• Fred Schwind : The Landvogtei in the Wetterau. Studies on the rule and politics of the Hohenstaufen and late medieval kings (= writings of the Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies. Vol. 35). Elwert, Marburg 1972, ISBN 3-7708-0424-4 (partly also: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1965–1966), pp. 139–161 [Ulrich III. von Hanau as governor under Emperor Karl IV] .
• Reinhard Suchier : Genealogy of the Hanauer count house . In: Festschrift of the Hanau History Association for its 50th anniversary celebration on August 27, 1894 . Hanau 1894.
• Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau city and country. Cultural history and chronicle of a Franconian weatherwave city and former county. With special consideration of the older time. Increased edition. Self-published, Hanau 1919 (Unchanged reprint. Peters, Hanau 1978, ISBN 3-87627-243-2 ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Adelheid Countess von Hanau 1344, Arnsburg Monastery. Grave monuments in Hesse until 1650 (as of December 14, 2011). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on August 30, 2013 . 
2. ↑ Czysz names differently: Klarenthal near Wiesbaden. 1987, p. 170, August 4, 1344.
3. ↑ Otto Gärtner: The Arnsburg monastery in the Wetterau. Its history - its buildings. = Arnsburg Monastery. Langewiesche, Königstein im Taunus 1989, ISBN 3-7845-4050-3 , p. 10, with illustration.
4. ^ Czysz: Klarenthal near Wiesbaden. 1987, p. 170.
5. ^ Zimmermann: Hanau city and country. 1919, p. 849.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ulrich II.	Lord of Hanau 1346–1369 / 70	Ulrich IV.
Walter von Kronberg	Reichsschultheiß of Frankfurt am Main 1349-1366	Siegfried to paradise