County of Mansfeld Grafschaft Mansfeld | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1069–1580 | |||||||||
 Coat of arms | |||||||||
| Status | County of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||
| Capital | Mansfeld | ||||||||
| Government | Principality | ||||||||
| Historical era | Early modern Europe | ||||||||
| 1069 | |||||||||
| 1580 | |||||||||
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The House of Mansfeld was a princely German house, which took its name from the town of Mansfeld in the present-day state of Saxony-Anhalt. [1] Mansfelds were archbishops, generals, supporters as well as opponents of Martin Luther, and Habsburg administrators.
Upon the revolt instigated by the Wettin margrave Dedi I in 1069, Emperor Henry IV appointed the loyal House of Mansfeld counts ( Grafen ) in the Saxon Hassegau at Eisleben. The family progenitor, Count Hoyer I of Mansfeld, also known as Hoyer the Great, was a field marshal in the service of Emperor Henry V. He was killed at the Battle of Welfesholz on 11 February 1115, fighting the rebellious Saxon forces under Count Lothair of Supplinburg. [1]
The Mansfelds held extended fiefs both in the Archbishopric of Magdeburg and the Bishopric of Halberstadt. The male line became extinct for the first time upon the death of Count Burchard of Mansfeld in 1229; his daughter Sophia married a scion of the Lords of Querfurt, who assumed the comital title. In the 15th century, the primary house divided into cadet branches: Hinterort, Mittelort, and Vorderort, while their County of Mansfeld in 1512 joined the Upper Saxon Circle as an immediate Imperial estate.
Things worsened with the Protestant Reformation: While Count Hoyer VI of Mansfeld-Vorderort (1477-1540) remained a loyal supporter of the Catholic faith, the Mittelort and Hinterort branches sided with Martin Luther. When the county was devastated during the German Peasants' War, Count Albert VII of Mansfeld-Hinterort (1480-1560) not only fought with the Imperial troops in the 1525 Battle of Frankenhausen, but also signed the Protestant Augsburg Confession in 1530 and joined the Schmalkaldic League, wherefore he was banned by Emperor Charles V after the 1547 Battle of Mühlberg.
To settle the enormous debts of the Counts of Mansfeld, their mighty neighbour Elector Augustus of Saxony urged Emperor Maximilian II to appoint a committee. On 15 March 1574, and again on 5 July 1574, in Leipzig and Halle, respectively, the surviving counts Hans Hoyer, Hans Georg, Hans Albrecht and Bruno concluded an agreement for the repayment of debts incurred by Counts Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort, Hans Ernst and Bruno von Mansfeld. The family's assets were confiscated in 1579, whereafter Imperial immediacy was lost and mediatized between the Electorate of Saxony and the Archbishopric of Magdeburg.
The Mittelort and Hinterort branches died out in 1602 and 1666. The male Mansfeld-Vorderort line finally became extinct in 1780 with the death of Josef Wenzel Nepomuk, Prince of Fondi in Italy, [1] and their fiefs fell back to the Electorate of Saxony and the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg. Josef Wenzel's half-sister and heiress Maria Isabella was only able to retain the Bohemian possessions. In 1771 she had married Prince Franz de Paula Gundaker von Colloredo (1731–1807), last Vice Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1789, thereby establishing the House of Colloredo-Mansfeld, which claimed headship over the family after the German mediatization.
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Mansfeld is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg was Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. After pursuing an ecclesiastical career, he won a close election in the cathedral chapter of Cologne over Ernst of Bavaria. After his election, he fell in love with and later married Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben, a Protestant Canoness at the Abbey of Gerresheim. His conversion to Calvinism and announcement of religious parity in the Electorate triggered the Cologne War.
The Battle of Welfesholz was fought on 11 February 1115 between the Imperial army of the Emperor Henry V and a rebellious Saxon force.
Mansfeld Castle is a castle in the region of Mansfeld Land in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The castle, which is surrounded by forest, stands on top of a large rock overlooking the town of Mansfeld. The Late Gothic church of the castle, as well as the ruins, moats and the remains of the battlements from the time of the old fortress make Mansfeld castle a popular attraction. Martin Luther often visited the castle, as his parents lived in Mansfeld. His father worked in the local copper mine, while Luther himself attended the school of Mansfeld.
Mansfeld, sometimes also unofficially Mansfeld-Lutherstadt, is a town in the district of Mansfeld-Südharz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Ernest of Bavaria was Prince-elector-archbishop of the Archbishopric of Cologne from 1583 to 1612 as successor of the expelled Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He was also bishop of Münster, Hildesheim, Freising and Liège.
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The Cologne War was a conflict between Protestant and Catholic factions that devastated the Electorate of Cologne, a historical ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire, within present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany. The war occurred within the context of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and the subsequent Counter-Reformation, and concurrently with the Dutch Revolt and the French Wars of Religion.
Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben (1551–1637) was Countess of Mansfeld and the daughter of Johann (Hans) Georg I, of Mansfeld Eisleben. She converted Gebhard, Seneschal of Waldburg, the Prince-Elector of Electorate of Cologne and archbishop of the Diocese of Cologne to the Protestant faith, leading to the Cologne War (1583–1588).
Johann Gebhard von Mansfeld-Vorderort, born circa 1525–30, was Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. He died in Frankfurt on 2 November 1562.
The Battle of Werl occurred between 3–8 March 1586, during a month-long campaign in the Duchy of Westphalia by mercenaries fighting for the Protestant (Calvinist) Archbishop-Prince Elector of Cologne, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg.
Philipp von Mansfeld, was Graf von Mansfeld, Vorderort and Bornstedt who commanded troops during the Thirty Years' War. He first fought on the side of the Swedish Empire under his second-cousin, was captured, changed allegiance and raised a navy for General Albrecht von Wallenstein. Later, he commanded troops as Feldmarschall of the Holy Roman Empire.
Ernest II, Count of Mansfeld-Vorderort was a German nobleman from the Mansfeld-Vorderort line of the House of Mansfeld. He was the fifth child and third son of Albert III (V), Count of Mansfeld, Lord in Mansfeld and Lord in Heldrungen and succeeded him on his death.
