House of Zähringen
House of Zähringen | |
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Parent family | Alaholfings |
Country | Duchy of Carinthia March of Verona Margraviate of Baden Grand Duchy of Baden |
Founded | 11th century |
Founder | Berthold I of Zähringen |
Final ruler | Berthold V as Duke of Zähringen Frederick II as Grand Duke of Baden |
Titles | Count, Duke, Margrave |
Dissolution | 1218 (ducal branch of Zähringen) |
Cadet branches | Baden (extant) Teck (extinct in 1439) |
The House of Zähringen (
The territories and fiefs held by the Zähringer were known as the Duchy of Zähringen (German:
History
The earliest-known ancestor of the family was one Berthold, Count in the
Count Berthold's great-grandson, the later
Berthold's son Berthold II (c. 1050–1111), who like his father fought against Henry IV, inherited a lot of the lands of Rudolf's son Count Berthold of Rheinfelden in 1090 (though not his comital title, which stayed with the family von Wetter-Rheinfelden). Berthold II is so named both as Duke of Swabia (following Berthold of Rheinfelden, the first duke of Swabia of this name) and as head of the House of Zähringen (following his father, who is counted as Berthold I of Zähringen in spite of not historically having used the name Zähringen). Berthold II did use the name Zähringen, although he moved his main residence from Zähringen Castle to the newly built Freiburg Castle in 1091.
In 1092, Berthold II was elected Duke of Swabia against Frederick I of Hohenstaufen. In 1098, he reconciled with Frederick, renounced all claims to Swabia and instead concentrated on his possessions in the Breisgau region, assuming the title of Duke of Zähringen. He was succeeded in turn by his sons, Berthold III (d. 1122) and Conrad (d. 1152).
In 1127, upon the assassination of his nephew Count
His son and successor,
After the extinction of the ducal line in 1218, much of its extensive territory in the Breisgau and modern-day Switzerland returned to the crown, except for the allodial titles, which were divided between the counts of Urach (who subsequently called themselves the counts of Freiburg) and the counts of Kyburg, both descended from the sisters of Berthold V. Less than fifty years later, the Kyburgs died out, and large portions of their domains were inherited by the House of Habsburg. Bern achieved the status of a free imperial city, whereas other cities (such as Fribourg-Freiburg) only obtained the same status later in history.
Possessions and territories
Berthold I (ancestor of both the House of Zähringen and the House of Baden) held the comital titles of
In 1098, Berthold II, founder of the House of Zähringen proper, received Zähringen Castle and the jurisdiction over Zürich (alongside the Counts of Lenzburg until 1173). Ownership of the county of Rheinfelden and of Burgdorf also dates to c. 1198.
The 'rectorate' of the county of Burgundy was granted in 1127 (inheritance of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy). Ownership of Burgundy was contested, and Zähringer de facto rule was limited to the parts of Upper Burgundy east of the Jura and north of Lake Geneva. The territories south of Lake Geneva were conceded to Savoy and Provence in 1156. In compensation, Berthold IV received the investiture right for the bishops of Geneva, Sion and Lausanne, de facto realised only in the case of Lausanne.
The extinction of the counts of Lenzburg in 1173 strengthened the Zähringer position south of the Rhine, but their territorial expansion was halted following their support of the
Instead of territorial expansion, the dukes of Zähringen from the 1150s focused on attaining more immediate feudal control over the territories they already had. This included their policy of expanding settlements into fortified towns or cities and the construction of new castles, mostly in their territories north of the Rhine. Their encroachment on the rights of the comital nobility south of the Rhine seems to have been resisted, mostly passively, but in the case of the lords of Glâne and Thun in an open revolt in 1191.
The fragmentation of the Zähringer possessions after 1218 was an important factor in the communal movements of the late medieval period in the region, including the imperial immediacy of Bern and Zürich, and the growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century.[1]
Cities
Among the cities founded or expanded by the Zähringer dukes (German: Zähringerstädte) are:
- in Swabia, west of the Black Forest (Baden): Freiburg im Breisgau (1120), Offenburg (before 1148), Neuenburg am Rhein (1175);
- in Swabia, east of the Black Forest (Württemberg): Sankt Peter (1093), Villingen (1119), Bräunlingen (c. 1200), Weilheim an der Teck (Limburg castle c. 1060[clarification needed]);
- in Burgundy (western Swiss plateau):
- on the Rhine: Rheinfelden (c. 1150[clarification needed]);
- Aare basin: Fribourg (Freiburg im Üechtland, 1157) Bern (1191), Burgdorf (castle before 1175), Murten (c. 1180), Thun (c. 1190).
Other towns owned by or under the jurisdiction (Reichsvogtei) of the Zähringer include: Solothurn (acquired 1127), Zürich (acquired 1173), Schaffhausen (acquired 1198) and Stein am Rhein.[year needed]
The city of Morges on Lake Geneva is not a Zähringer foundation (having been founded in 1286 by Louis I of Vaud) but shared the characteristic layout of the Zähringer cities.
Genealogy
House of Zähringen
Berthold II, Duke of Carinthia, Margrave of Verona (c. 1000–1078, r. 1061–1077), is also known as "Berthold I of Zähringen". Therefore, the succession of dukes of Zähringen begins with his son as Berthold II:
Dukes of Zähringen:
- Berthold II (c. 1050–1111), Duke of Swabia from 1092 to 1098 (against Frederick I of Hohenstaufen), then Duke of Zähringen from about 1100. The numeral II carried by Berthold refers to both the House of Zähringen (succeeding his father Berthold I) and the Duchy of Swabia (succeeding Berthold I, Duke of Swabia of the House of Rheinfelden).
- Berthold III (c. 1085–1122), son, Duke of Zähringen from 1111
- Burgundyfrom 1127
- Berthold IV (c. 1125–1186), son, Duke of Zähringen from 1152, rector of Burgundy
- Berthold V (1160–1218), son, Duke of Zähringen from 1186, rector of Burgundy
Other notable Zähringer:
- Gebhard of Zähringen (d. 1110), son of Berthold I, became Bishop of Constance
- Clementia of Zähringen (d. 1175), daughter of Conrad I, married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony in 1147
- Rudolf of Zähringen (d. 1191), son of Conrad I, became Archbishop of Mainz and Bishop of Liège
House of Baden
The
Now more commonly known as the
Heads of the House of Baden since 1918:
- Leopold I, Grand Duke (1790–1852)
- Friedrich I, Grand Duke (1826–1907)
- Friedrich II, Grand Duke 1907–1928 (1857–1928)
- Prince William of Baden (1829–1897)
- Maximilian, Prince and Margrave, 1928–1929 (1867–1929)
- Berthold, 1929–1963 (1906–1963)
- Maximilian, 1963–2022 (1933–2022)
- Bernhard, 2022–present (born 1970)
- Leopold, (born 2002)
- Friedrich (born 2004)
- Karl-Wilhelm (born 2006)
- Leopold (born 1971)
- Michael (born 1976)
- Bernhard, 2022–present (born 1970)
- Ludwig (born 1937)
- Berthold (born 1976)
- Maximilian, 1963–2022 (1933–2022)
- Berthold, 1929–1963 (1906–1963)
- Maximilian, Prince and Margrave, 1928–1929 (1867–1929)
- Friedrich I, Grand Duke (1826–1907)
Dukes of Teck
Adalbert I (d. 1196) was a son of Duke Conrad I of Zähringen. Upon the death of his brother Berthold IV in 1186, he inherited the family estates around Teck Castle and, from 1187, adopted the title of Duke of Teck. His descendant Conrad II of Teck (1235–1292) allegedly was designated King of the Romans shortly before his assassination. The line became extinct in 1439 with the death of Louis of Teck, Patriarch of Aquileia.
In 1871, a ducal title with the same name was granted by King Charles I of Württemberg to Prince Francis of Teck (1837–1900), a morganatic son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg. Francis' daughter Mary of Teck (1867–1953), as the wife of King George V, became Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India.
Francis's surviving children ceased using their German titles during World War I and (aside from Queen Mary) took the name Cambridge, with his eldest son (Adolphus) being made Marquess of Cambridge and his youngest son (Alexander) being made Earl of Athlone. This branch of the family died out in the male line in 1981 and in its entirety in 1994 with the death of Francis's granddaughter, Lady Mary Abel Smith.
See also
Notes
- ^ Erwin Eugster: House of Zähringen in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2015.
- ^ August Freiherr von Berstett, Münzgeschichte des Zähringen-Badischen Fürstenhauses (1846), p. 3.
- ^ The shield with heraldic eagle visible in this seal (from a document at Fraumünster, Zürich, dated 1187) is the only contemporary attestation of a Zähringer coat of arms. Franz Zell, Geschichte und Beschreibung des Badischen Wappens von seiner Entstehung bis auf seine heutige Form (1858), p. 7 and plate I.
References
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). Encyclopedia Americana. .
External links
- Media related to House of Zähringen at Wikimedia Commons
- Zähringen Castle – original castle of the Zähringer