| 1. The Reeves (= 'die Vögte') in Vogtland |
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The family 'von Vogtsberg' is documented for the first time under this name in the year 1248 and for the last time in the year 1322. They had branched themselves from the family of those “von Strassberg”. A detailed history of castle and district Vogtsberg is published in the essay from Dr. Curt von Raab, published in the reports of the Antiquity Association to Plauen in Vogtland volume 18 in Plauen 1907. I rely essentially on his essay.
In the year 1122 bishop Dietrich von Naumburg confirmed as new foundation the church St. Johannis in Plauen referred in “our” document. At that time we find the counts 'von Eberstein', coming from Lower Saxony, as rulers in Plauen. They were owners of rich and extended fiefdoms in the area Dobena (= later Vogtland), without to be however exclusive owners of the whole area. The 'von Eberstein' were feoffed by the landgraves of Thuringia, and the latters were feoffed by the emperor. Still in the 12. century they gave their properties in the Dobena area as fiefdom to the Reichsministerialen -imperial servants- 'von Strassberg' and 'von Weida'
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The 'von Strassberg' had their ancestral seat in the village Straßberg, located three kilometers away southwest from Plauen at the white Elster river. The gentlemen and later reeves 'von Weida' (respectively 'von Gera' and 'von Plauen', after they had branched themselves) descend from a Ministerialen-family 'Ministerialer is a servant of an aristocrat' from northern Thuringia. They called themselves after a “Wide” (= Weida), that is located between Windeberg and Kaiserhagen northeast from Mühlhausen in Eichsfeld, today a devasted settlement. In the further one I will show that the Vogtland bears its name after the reeves 'von Weida'. The English word "reeve" means in German "Vogt", therefore means Vogtland "country of the reeves".
Both families, the 'von Vogtsberg' and the 'von Weida', bore the designation "Vogt" means reeve, which is derived from latin word “advocatus”. However before we turn again to the reeves 'von Weida' and to the reeves 'von Strassberg', the constitutional terms of the Middle Ages “Lehen -fiefdom- ”, “Reichsministerialer -imperial servant- ” and “Vogt -reeve- ” shall be explained briefly. Without knowledge of these terms the following seems to me only with difficulties understandably. It remains to consider that the content of these terms through the centuries of German emperor era was subject to a political change. I try to explain the situation during the period of the Staufer in 12. /13. century.
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| 2. What means LEHEN -fief/benefice- and what are REICHSMINISTERIALE -imperial servants- about 1281? |
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'Lehen -fief-benefice' is connected to the German word 'leihen' and the English word 'fief' is coming
from the Germanic feofum which comes from the Frankish "fehu" and "od" meaning live stock and movable possessions or property "chattel". I beg for pardon all linguists, I'm only a math teacher, but an universal dilettante and I fear no science, if I need it.
A 'Lehen -fief-benefice' is a grant of land given to a member of the
aristocracy, a Bishop, or a monastery, for limited or hereditary use in
exchange for services, and the acceptance of a 'Lehen -fief-benefice' obligates the beneficiary to knightly military services and to loyalty. It is to differentiate of the property of his own (= allodium, allod) and of the rural and/or urban borrowing and interest property.
I don't know, if I have translated the ancient German law expressions correctly, but I hope the translation is understandable. And if somebody know more than I, please, please mail to me the right translation. Thanks a lot.
The feudatory (tenant, who has got the fief) owed to his lord to provide military service and the lord owed to his feudatory protection. In the 12. century the whole social order was organized according to the principles of the feudal system. Primary the 'Lehen -fief-benefice' fell back with the death of the lord or the death of the feudatory, called escheat, however soon the heritability of the 'Lehen -fief-benefice' was accepted generally . The "escheat" of a 'Lehen -fief-benefice', the right of a feudal lord to the return of lands held by his vassal, or the holding of a serf, was still possible, if the feudatory should either die without lawful heirs or suffer outlawry. To the Staufer period the feudal system had developed so far that at least for the king and/or emperor with the escheat of a 'Lehen -fief-benefice' existed an obligation to feoff again the reversed 'Lehen -fief-benefice'.
Visible expression of the feudal system in Germany was the 'Heerschildordnung -order of the army according to the coats of arms-' Originally it was the right to mobilize and to command the feudatories, in 12. century one understood the social ranking in the feudal system.
The 7 bucklers according to the 'Schwabenspiegel -mirror of Swabia-' (a book of rights) are:
1. king
2. clerical princes
3. secular princes
4. barons
5. middlefree persons (free knights and free landlords)
6. 'Ministeriale -servants of aristocrats, which lived like knights-'
7. other persons born of knights
The 7 bucklers according to the 'Sachsenspiegel - mirror of Saxony-' (a book of rights too) are:
1. king
2. clerical princes
3. secular princes
4. counts and barons
5. free men and 'Ministeriale -servants of aristocrats, which lived like knights-', which possess the lower jurisdiction
6. the men of the previous
7. the other people, which are knights too
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Nobody was allowed to take without reduction of his social rank a fief from buckler comrades. Of it only the church fiefs-benefices of the king and the secular princes were an exception. Its acceptance meant no rank reduction, it was considered lately as from the hand of the emperor. The king (emperor) headed at the feudal system, he has vasalls, without being even a vasall. It seemed almost to be a natural law, that the feoffees tried again and again with success, if the political surrounding field permitted it, to escape their feudal obligations, to loosen the bond to their feudal lord, if possible to alter the fief to a allod, to property of their own.
The power of the king was based on the extent of his allod -property of his own- and on the so-called Crown land -property of the state, that the king used to finance his court and his military-. He could not feoff great many of it without to diminish his power base and those of his house.
On the other hand he could remunerate free men for their military service only with landborrows, thus a fief-benefice. Here unfree royal servants seemed to offer a solution. They were not allowed to be feoffed. These unfree menials or 'Ministerialen', today you would call them executives - public officials or civil servants, seemed to be the ideal solution for military service and administration. They were remunerated by 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services-', which could be only so long used, when for it service was carried out.
The men of the king (emperor) were the 'Reichsministerialen -royal/imperial servants, which lived like knights-'. But also princes and lower lords had men and therewith 'Ministeriale -servants, which lived like knights-'. It wasn't allowed to such a 'Ministerialen -servants, which lived like knights-' to feoff their 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services-' to others or only within the circle of the own lord's men. Their knightly lifestyle and their political influence led to the advancement of the 'Ministerialen -servants, which lived like knights-. They reached the heritability of their 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services- and the admission into the 'Heerschildordnung -order of the army according to the coats of arms-'.
The difference between 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services-' and genuine 'Lehen -fief-benefice' began to blur in the age of the Staufer. Finally the 'Ministerialen -servants, which lived like knights-' acquired the ability to be feoffed by foreign lords. But they were received however loyalty obligations, which could conflict very fast with the obedience obligation to their own lord. Thus the 'Ministerialen -servants, which lived like knights-' grew together ever more with the old aristocratic upper class. The descendants constituted later the low aristocracy. Some families succeeded in advancement furthermore, e.g. the Reeves of Weida. They advanced to princes. The dynasty Reuß, so the descendants named themselves, governed in Greiz and Schleiz until 1918.
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| 3. The 'REICHSVOGTEI - Bailiwick of the Empire-' VOGTLAND |
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For the first time an Erkenbert of Weida is documented in the retinue of the count Adalbert von Eberstein 1122, concerning the occasion of the donation of the church St. Johannis in Plauen (= church in our document) by the bishop of Naumburg. 30 years later they appear in documents concerning fiefs of the Saxon Duke Heinrich the Lion, the large opponent of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. They were 'Ministeriale-servants, which lived like knights-' of the Welf's duke. Heinrich the Lion, a cousin of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, was after the emperor, as the most faithful vasall of him, feoffed with the duchies of Saxony and Bavaria, the most powerful man in the empire. This power he tried to develop constantly, also as in the year 1176 the emperor of him, even with prostration (more as a kneeling down), requested assistance for his 5. Italy campaign. Heinrich the Lion required for it the transfer of the important imperial city Goslar, which Friedrich Barbarossa rejected. After feudal law Heinrich wasn't obligated to military service, because an general asking for this Italy campaign had not been issued, but there was a moral obligation for assistance. The emperor in the arguments of Heinrich with his opponents had always stuck nevertheless to his cousin.
It was the cause and the beginning of their alienation. In addition it came that everywhere in the empire the territorial politics of Hohenstaufen and Welfen collided. It concerned the power in the empire. In the year 1177 the fights between Heinrich and his Saxon opponents flamed up again. Both parties complained in front of the emperor. In former days Friedrich Barbarossa had mediated, now he allowed free play to the legal procedure. Agreeable to the common law he summoned the duke 1179 to Worms. Heinrich the Lion didn't appear and got threatened by the Princes of the Empire during further refusal of law the ban of the Empire. He didn't follow also new summonings and therefore the ban of the Empire was imposed on him by the 'Reichstag -parliament-' 1179 in Magdeburg.
The fights in Saxony continued. At the same time the emperor opened a second feudal procedure against Heinrich because of disrespect of the imperial Majesty by the disregard of the summonings. Also in this procedure Heinrich did not follow three summonings. Thus 1180 to Würzburg by verdict of the princes his benefice of the Empire were deprived him.
You will ask, what the conflict between Hohenstaufen and Welfen deals with the reeves of Weida. The Weida had followed in the fights first the Welfen, because they were 'Ministeriale -servants of aristocrats, which lived like knights-' of the Welfen. After the ban of the Empire and the smashing of the power base of Welfen they changed the sides and followed the Hohenstaufen.
Since after their defection they were not able to remain in their hitherto fiefs in the Eichsfeld, that could not be taken to Heinrich the Lion concerning the feudal law, because its belonged to his allod -property of his own-, on the other hand they might hope for remuneration by the emperor, the Weida withdraw from North Thuringia.
Yet they had some properties in the area of the Elster river nearby Zwickau and the area of Pleissen. For the emperor it stood to reason there to settle the Weida in a continuing basis, particularly because the Mark of Zeitz was still border area to the Slavs and there he did not have available efficient administrative families in sufficient number. From where did this tenures come?
Erkenbert II. of Weida had married the hereditary daughter of the last palsgrave of Saxony about 1160. It was usual that the emperor and/or the feoffer determined the husband for the hereditary daughter, if a fief was fallen back (escheat/reversion).
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One will have to presume this also with the Weida. Anyway Erkenbert II. married those hereditary daughter Jordana and he was feoffed with the fallen back benefice Weida (was called at that time still differently), in fact not as a 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services-', but as a genuine 'Lehen -fief-benefice'. I may remind of the fact that Erkenbert II. was 1160 still 'Ministerialer-servant, which lived like knights-' of Heinrich the Lion and the antogonism of Hohenstaufen and Welfen for the first time 1176 was broken open.
After strict feudal law Erkenbert II. could not have received from third hand such a fief as 'Ministerialer -servant, which lived like knights-'. But the favour of the emperor, he had been active already as imperial envoy in this area, and the general social advancement of the 'Ministerialen -servants, which lived like knights-', made possible it. Already there were many free gentlemen of lower nobility, which became voluntarily 'Ministeriale -servants, which lived like knights-', because they expected of it economic advantages and larger reputation.
For Jordana however was combined with that not coequal marriage a lowering of her class. It remains still to annotate that the later city Weida developed from Jordana's castle Veitsberg, the family name became the city name.
Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa feoffed to the family of Weida the south of the Mark Zeitz as 'Reichsvogtei -Bailiwick of the Empire-' to remunerate them for the loss of their 'Dienstlehen -fiefs for provided services-' in North Thuringia. But what means however 'Reichsvogtei -Bailiwick of the Empire-'?
First of all the 'Reichsvogtei -Bailiwick of the Empire-' was a hereditary benefice/fief and no office, which ends with the death of the office holder. Therefore later, after the distributions of the fiefs, all stirps of the Weida carried the title 'Vogt = advocatus -bailiff-'.
Tersest you can define the term of those 'Reichsvogtei -Bailiwick of the Empire-' perhaps in such a way that you regard it as representation of the emperor in practice of the royal/imperial force in an area of the Empire.
To this royal force belonged above all the practice of the high jurisdiction, i.e. the 'Vögte -bailiffs-', as country judges, could impose body and death penalties. Besides they attained still the possession of further royal regalia (= king rights), e.g. the 'Heerbann -levy-', the 'Münzgerechtigkeit -coinage prerogative-', customs duties, escort on the roads (= protection against payment), 'Jagdgerechtigkeit -game law-' and 'Fischereigerechtigkeit -fishery law-', 'Bergwerksberechtigung -authorization for mining-', 'Lehensherrlichkeit -the right to feoff their men-' and not too forget the 'Bodenregal -the right to acquire ownerless property-'. Only this 'Bodenregal -the right to acquire ownerless property-' permitted them in the royal protective forests to stub/assart and new villages to establish. They could strengthen thereby their power base in such a way that they exceeded some count dynasty in property and wealth. Not wrongly Heinrich II., a grandchild of the Erkenbert II. above, was named 'the Rich".
Thus the Weida took a medial position between free aristocracy and unfree 'Ministerialen-servants, which lived like knights-'. Their, from the 'Ministerialen-servants, which lived like knights-' singled out position, they documented by the title 'Vogt -bailiff-' and in such a way the Vogtland was named ultimately.
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