Wigger I.

Count Wigger I. (* before 968; † 981 ) was the progenitor of the later (from 1145) after their new ancestral seat, the Bilstein Castle west of Albungen (a current district of Eschwege ) on the Werra , called "Counts of Bilstein" Family that played an important role in Thuringia from around 967 to 1301. His line was next to the Ekkehardins and the Weimar the third large and influential count line in Thuringia at that time.

Wigger I was probably the second son of Count Siegfried von Merseburg from the clan of Margrave Gero . He had extensive possessions and countial rights in Eichsfeld and on the central Werra; the Thuringian estates of Empress Theophanu , including Eschwege, Frieda , Mühlhausen and Schlotheim, were also subject to his count's jurisdiction . He was Count of Germarmark (east of Mühlhausen), Count in Weitagau and Ducharingau (Zeitz-Naumburg area), and Vogt of the Zeitz diocese . In the document from 968, in which Emperor Otto I.the foundation of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg and its suffragan dioceses Merseburg , Zeitz and Meißen decreed, Wigger is called Margrave; otherwise he is only mentioned as a count.

Wigger was a loyal follower of the Ottonians , took part in their wars against the Slavic tribes, and was also a count in the districts of Plisni and Puonzowa .

Wigger I. and his older brother Dedi were probably the founders of the Drübeck nunnery near Wernigerode , which Wigger gave to the king in 980; however, their role as a sponsor cannot yet be reliably proven.

Wigger died in 981. His son Wigger II only partially inherited his father, for example as a count in Westgau (Germarmark) and in Weitagau , while other large parts of his rule fell to the Margraves Rikdag and Ekkehard I of Meissen .

Web links

• Wigger I., at Genealogy Middle Ages ( Memento from October 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Ruth Schölkopf: The Saxon Counts 919-1024 (Chapter 4: The Clan of Margrave Wigger)