Walram I. (Nassau)

The coat of arms of the Counts of Nassau

Walram I of Nassau (around 1146 - February 1, 1198 ) was Count of Nassau . He is the oldest Nassau who is certain to be the progenitor of the House of Nassau . During his reign he managed to expand his territory significantly. He took part in the third crusade .

Life

Laurenburg Castle

Arnstein Monastery

Walram was probably the son of Count Ruprecht II von Laurenburg and an unknown woman. Possibly his mother was called Beatrix, it is uncertain whether the mention means the “grandmother” (namely Beatrix of Limburg , a daughter of Count Walram III of Limburg ).

Walram is mentioned between 1176 and 1191 as Count of Laurenburg and then from 1193 as Count of Nassau. It seems to have had its seat at the Laurenburg Castle , one of the old family castles of the family; probably for this reason he initially still bore the name Graf von Laurenburg, while the house had long since begun to use the name von Nassau. In 1198, his widow still sealed the seal of Walrams von Laurenburg. Walram ruled with his cousin Ruprecht III. and later with his son Hermann , whom he finally succeeded.

Expansion of the territory

Walram acquired the Herborner Mark , the Kalenberger Zent (including Mengerskirchen , Beilstein and Nenderoth ) and the Heimau court (including Driedorf and Löhnberg ) as fiefs from the Landgraviate of Thuringia . In this way, Walram was able to establish a connection between the family property, the Vogtei Weilburg (with numerous owners and sovereign rights in the Westerwald and in the Dill area ), the castles Laurenburg and Nassau an der Lahn and the Vogtei in Siegerland . In the same period, the rule of Westerwald was possibly added (including Marienberg , Neukirch and Emmerichenhain ). Walram also bought the Vogtei Koblenz and the Vogtei Ems .

In the south of his property, Walram took over the rule of the Einrichgau , later called Vierherrengericht , with its capital Marienfels . This city had been part of the former County of Arnstein . The last Count of Arnstein , Ludwig III., Had no heir and Arnstein Castle converted into a monastery: Arnstein Monastery . When Ludwig entered the monastery himself in 1139/40, he transferred control of Marienfels to his cousin Reginbold von Isenburg. In 1160 Reginbold sold it to his cousins, the Counts of Nassau and the Counts of Katzenelnbogen . The Counts of Nassau were able to claim part of the inheritance by marrying their ancestor Dudo von Laurenburg with one of the seven daughters of Count Ludwig I. von Arnstein.

In 1179 Walram was connected to Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa during the Peace of the Rhineland . He placed his country under the direct sovereignty of the German king instead of remaining the vassal of the Archbishop of Trier . He would remain a loyal supporter of the Hohenstaufen . Walram's close ties to the imperial family were rewarded with the Wiesbaden royal court . At the same time he also received hunting rights in the forests of the Rheingau (fiefdom of the Archdiocese of Mainz ), so that his rule extended over the Taunus south to the Middle Rhine .

Walram had constant feuds with the neighboring houses Eppstein , Solms and Katzenelnbogen.

Third crusade

Walram and his cousin Ruprecht took part in the Third Crusade under Emperor Friedrich. Presumably Walram took the cross with the emperor on March 27, 1188 at the court in Mainz . With his cousin Ruprecht and Count Heinrich von Diez, he accompanied Bishop Hermann II of Münster, who was deputy to Emperor Isaac II Angelos towards the end of 1188 . The embassy, ​​which did reach Constantinople , was treated with hostility by the Byzantine emperor and held captive. They were released as the crusade army approached. On October 28, 1189, Walram and his fellow sufferers met again with the army of the cross before Philippopel , but from that day on he disappears from the army of the cross. The assumption that he was present at the Foundation of the Teutonic Order in Acre is, as far as is known, untenable. Nor can there be sufficient evidence to support the charge that he left the army at the time in breach of his crusade vows. What is certain is that in 1190, before the news of the emperor's death came to Germany, Walram was a witness in a document issued in Cologne by the archbishop Philip I there.

Last years

Little is known of Walram's subsequent years; a few times he is mentioned as a witness, also in imperial documents, but on the whole he seems to have been distant from the emperor and to have taken no part in his warlike undertakings. It closed on November 6, 1195, with the mediation and approval of Emperor Heinrich VI. , with the bishop Heinrich I. von Worms the contract, which is so important for his house, by which the mutual rights, the landlords of the bishop and those of the count, to the castle, town and rule of Weilburg were determined and delimited. The Weilburg castle and estate appear here for the first time as the property of the Nassau family. When the settlement was issued on November 6, 1195, Walram seems to have remained at the imperial court camp, as he also took part in the Reichstag in Worms, where the emperor negotiated a new crusade. It is not known that he himself took the cross in Worms; It is certain, however, that he did not take part in the march of the German army in 1197. Multiple testimonies in documents from this time prove that he did not leave his homeland.

Walram died on February 1, 1198 and was buried in the Arnstein monastery. He was followed by his sons Heinrich II and Ruprecht IV.

progeny

Walram married Kunigunde († November 8 in or after 1198, last mentioned on March 20, 1198), possibly a daughter of a Count of Sponheim or a daughter of Count Poppo II of Ziegenhain . He had three children with her:

1. Heinrich II the Rich (* around 1180; † April 26, 1247/48/49/50), mentioned as Count of Nassau 1198–1247.
2. Ruprecht IV († after January 1, 1239), mentioned as Count of Nassau 1198–1230.
3. Beatrix, mentioned in 1222 as a nun in Affolderbach monastery near Nastätten .

literature

• AWE Dek: Genealogy van het Vorstenhuis Nassau . Europese Bibliotheek, Zaltbommel 1970 (Dutch).
• HFJ Hesselfelt: De oudste generaties van het Huis Nassau . In: De Nederlandsche Leeuw, Maandblad van het Koninklijk Nederlandsch Genootschap voor Geslacht- en Wapenkunde . No. 11 , 1965, pp. 354-365 (Dutch).
• Alfred Lück: Siegerland and Nederland . 2nd Edition. Siegerländer Heimatverein eV, Siegen 1981.
• Wilhelm Sauer:  Count Walram I of Nassau . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 776-778.
• Kenneth M. Setton, Harry W. Hazard, Robert Lee Wolff, Norman P. Zacour, Marshall Whithed Baldwin: A History of the Crusades: The Later Crusades, 1189-1311 . Revised 2005. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1969 (English).
• AA Vorsterman van Oyen: Het vorstenhuis Oranje-Nassau. Van de vroegste tijden dead . AW Sijthoff & JL Beijers, Leiden & Utrecht 1882 (Dutch).

Web links

• Nassau in: Medieval Lands. A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families , compiled by Charles Cawley.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Dek (1970).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Hesselfelt (1965).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Cawley.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Sauer (1896).
5. ↑ This is mentioned in the article on Walram I on Wikipedia . The article about his son Ruprecht IV in the English Wikipedia says, among other things: 'Walram I had received the Königshof Wiesbaden from Emperor Frederick I in reward for his support of the emperor in the conflicts of 1170-1180.' . In the article about Sonnenberg Castle it says: 'The Nassau were probably enfeoffed with the royal court of Wiesbaden by Friedrich I as thanks for their support in the Roman trains in 1154.'
6. ↑ Lück (1981), p. 18.
7. ↑ Setton, et al. (2005), p. 896.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Vorsterman van Oyen (1882).

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Count of Nassau 1176–1198	Heinrich II. Ruprecht IV.