Witigonen
The Witigonen (also Wittigonen ; Witekonen ; Witkowitzer ; Czech Vítkovci ; Latin Vitkonides ; Witegonides ) were a Bohemian noble family that branched into four lines at the end of the 12th century. Her coat of arms was a five-petalled rose. The collective name "Vítkovci" is derived from "Vítek".
history
The progenitor of the Witigonen was the Bohemian nobleman Witiko von Prčice († 1194). He was in the service of the Přemyslid and was 1169-1176 ducal Steward , 1177 Castellan of Glatz and down in 1184 viscount of Prácheň . He acquired large estates in South Central Bohemia and served Adalbert Stifter as a model for his historical novel Witiko . Under his successors, the previously sparsely populated area of South Bohemia was colonized with Germans.
Witiko von Prčice had four sons who became ancestors of the following family branches:
- Witiko II. (Also Witiko the Elder ; Czech Vítek II. , Also Vítek starší ) founded the line of the Lords of Krumlov , which died out in 1302.
- Witiko III. von Blankenberg , founded the line of the Lords von Rosenberg . He or his son Vok built before 1250 above the Vltava, the Castle Rosenberg , where wok first used the title "Rosenberg". After the branch of the Krumlov family died out in 1302, they received their goods from the king and moved their residence to Krumlov Castle . With Peter Wok von Rosenberg this line became extinct in 1611 in the male line.
- Witiko IV. (Also Witiko von Klokoty ; Czech Vítek IV. Also Vítek z Klokot ; † 1234) founded the line of the lords of Landstein and Wittingau , which died out in the 16th century.
-
Heinrich I von Neuhaus founded the line of the Lords of Neuhaus , which went out in 1604.
- From the lords of Neuhaus, the line of the lords of Stráž ( ze Stráže ) split off in 1267, which expired in 1474 with Georg / Jiřík, son of the Oberstlandhofmeister Heinrich / Jindřich von Stráž.
- Witiko also had the illegitimate son Sezema of Ústí , to whom the line of the lords of Sezimovo Ústí is said to go back; it went out around 1630.
The Witigonen held important royal offices and participated in the development of Bohemia with their extensive estates in South Bohemia, which initially stood outside the immediate interests of the Bohemian rulers. They acquired further lands in Eastern Bohemia and Moravia as well as in the Austrian Mühlviertel . At the transition from the 12th to the 13th century, they owned: Prčice, Sepekov , Klokoty, Načeradec , Skalice , the East Bohemian Nechanitz and the Blankenberg Castle, which belongs to Austria, with an area that stretches along the left bank of the Große Mühl to the Danube stretched. Before or around the middle of the 13th century they founded Krumau , Rosenberg , Wittingau , Neuhaus , Wittinghausen and Příběnice and Prudnik , which at that time belonged to Northern Moravia and which came to the Silesian Duchy of Opole in 1337 . In addition, they acquired Landstein and for 1279 they are also documented as the owners of Gratzen .
Due to their important position in southern Bohemia and their possessions in the Mühlviertel , the Witigones maintained various relationships with Austria and Bavaria . The relationship with the Bavarian noble family Schönhering and the Austrian aristocratic families Hardegg , Walsee , the Kuenringern and the Schaunbergers as well as the Bavarian counts Leuchtenberg and Hals played an important role. They promoted the Schlägl and Zwettl monasteries and founded the Hohenfurt monastery under Wok von Rosenberg . This monastery served as a burial place for the branches of the family of the Lords von Rosenberg and von Krumau.
Even before 1237 Heinrich von Neuhaus handed over the patronage of the parish church of Neuhaus to the Teutonic Knight Order . With the founding of the Goldenkron monastery in 1263 and the royal city of Budweis in 1265, King Ottokar II. Přemysl intended to hinder the further expansion of the Witigonen in southern Bohemia. They fought against this with an uprising led by Zawisch von Falkenstein , who belonged to the Krumlov branch of the family. After his execution in 1290, King Wenceslas signed over part of the Witigon property to the Cistercian monastery that he had founded, the Königsaal .
In contrast to the other Bohemian noble families, the Witigonen were mentioned as early as 1276 with the collective name "Vitkonides". Their political and economic advancement was largely promoted by the solidarity among the family branches.
The view taken by Matthias Pangerl in his essay "Die Witigonen" in 1874 that the Witigones were of German descent and had spread from the Mühlviertel to southern Bohemia was later rejected. The thesis cited as evidence that they initially had properties in the Mühlviertel could not be confirmed. While the progenitor Witiko of Prčice already for the year 1179 in Prčice is detected, presumably acquired only his son Vítek of Prčice and Blankenberg to 1,192 estates in Upper Austria.
coat of arms
The coat of arms of the Witigonen represented a five-petalled rose. After splitting into several branches they all kept the five-petalled rose on their coat of arms, whereby each branch chose its own color scheme of the coat of arms:
- Lords of Krumau: Green rose on a silver background
- Herren von Rosenberg: Red rose on a silver background
- Herren von Landstein: Silver rose on a red background
- Herren von Neuhaus: Golden rose on a blue background
- The Stráž branch line: blue rose on a golden background
- Sezema from Ústí branch line: black rose on a golden background
Legend
The descent of the Witigonen from the Roman Orsini family is not documented and belongs to the area of legend. It came about because Ulrich II von Rosenberg forged several documents to increase the prestige of the Rosenbergs, which were only recognized as falsified in the 19th century . I.a. he constructed a fictional genealogical descent of the Witigonen from the princes Orsini, which was confirmed in 1469-1481 by three members of this family. The legend was picked up again after 1594 by the Rosenberg court chronicler and archivist Václav Březan in his "Monumenta Rosenbergica" and thus spread. Although the Rosenberg Chronicle is considered lost, its content has been preserved in a German translation by the Wittingau provost Norbert Heermann , which Matthäus Klimesch published in 1897 under the title "Norbert Heermann's Rosenberg'sche Chronik".
genealogy
Branch of the Český Krumlov family
The progenitor of this line was Witiko II. (Also Witiko the Elder ; Czech Vítek II. , Vítek starší ), documented 1213-1236. For his descendants see the line of the Lords of Krumau
Branch of the Rosenberg family
The progenitor of this family branch was Witiko von Purschitz and Blankenberg ; his son Wok († 1262) was the first to call himself “von Rosenberg”. For his descendants see Rosenberg's family list
Branch of the Neuhaus family
Founded by Heinrich I. von Neuhaus . For his descendants see the lineage of the von Neuhaus family
Landstein family branch
Founded by Witiko IV. (Also Witiko von Klokoty ; Czech Vítek IV .; Also Vítek z Klokot ; † after 1236). For his descendants see the line of the von Landstein family
literature
- Jörg K. Hoensch : History of Bohemia . ISBN 3-406-41694-2 , pp. 80, 92, 98, 101, 105-107.
- Vratislav Vaníček: The family policy of the Witigonen and the structural changes in the South Bohemian region in the state union of King Přemysl II Ottokar . In: Bohemian-Austrian relations in the 13th century . Prague 1998, ISBN 80-85899-42-6 , pp. 85-105.
- Anna Kubíková: Rožmberské kroniky. Krátky a summovní výtah od Václava Březana . České Budějovice 2005. ISBN 80-86829-10-3 .
- Josef Žemlička: Počátky Čech Královských 1198–1253 . Nakladatelství Lidové Noviny 2002, ISBN 80-7106-140-9 , pp. 181, 227f., 356
Web links
- House Witigonen pp. 161–163 ( does not correspond to the latest research on the Witigonen ; PDF file; 51.4 MB)
- Witigonen (German)
- Genealogy Witigonen