Adolf I (died 13 November 1130) was the first

Count of Schauenburg The Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein were titles of the Frankish Empire. The dynastic family came from the County of Schauenburg near Rinteln (district Schaumburg) on the Weser in Germany. Together with its ancestral possessions in Bückebur ...

from 1106 and the second

Count of Holstein The Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein were titles of the Frankish Empire. The dynastic family came from the County of Schauenburg near Rinteln (district Schaumburg) on the Weser in Germany. Together with its ancestral possessions in Bückeburg ...

from 1111. He made an important contribution to the colonisation and Germanisation of the lands north of the

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...

. He was appointed to hold as fiefs Holstein and Stormarn, including

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, by

Lothair, Duke of Saxony Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg (1075 – 4 December 1137), was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before b ...

, in 1111. By this appointment Adolf became the leader of the defence of Germany against the

Wagri The Wagri, Wagiri, or Wagrians were a tribe of Polabian Slavs inhabiting Wagria, or eastern Holstein in northern Germany, from the ninth to twelfth centuries. They were a constituent tribe of the Obodrite confederacy. In the Slavic uprisings of 9 ...

. Allied with

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

, the prince of the

Obotrites The Obotrites ( la, Obotriti, Abodritorum, Abodritos…) or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (german: Abodriten), were a confederation of medieval West Slavs, West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in norther ...

, he repeatedly waged war on

Wagria WagriaArnold, Benjamin (1991). ''Princes and territories in medieval Germany'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, p. 156. . (german: Wagrien, ''Waierland'' or ''Wagerland'') is the northeastern part of Holstein in the German state ...

and the Rugians. After Henry's death (1127), Adolf remained allied with his sons Canute and Sventepolk, but they were soon dead and Lothair, by then

King of Germany This is a list of monarchs who ruled over East Francia, and the Kingdom of Germany (''Regnum Teutonicum''), from the division of the Frankish Empire in 843 and the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 until the collapse of the German Empir ...

, had made

Canute Lavard Canute Lavard ( Danish: Knud Lavard; cognate with English Lord) (12 March 1096 – 7 January 1131) was a Danish prince. Later he was the first Duke of Schleswig and the first border prince who was both a Danish and a German vassal, a position ...

, a Danish prince,

Duke of Schleswig The following is a list of earl, jarls and dukes, who ruled over Schleswig respectively Southern Jutland (Sønderjylland). First jarls/dukes Houses of House of Estridsen, Estridsen and House of Schauenburg, Schauenburg (1080–1460) House of ...

. Feeling his authority threatened by the Danish upstart, Adolf attacked his castle of Albergs, captured the garrison, and destroyed its defences. He left his counties intact to his second son, Adolf II, since his eldest, Hartung, had been killed in the

Second Battle of Chlumec :''See Battle at Chlumec (1040) for a possible earlier battle, and Battle of Kulm for the Napoleonic battle.'' The Battle of Chlumec was the culmination of a 12th-century war of succession in the Duchy of Bohemia. It occurred on 18 February ...

in 1126.

Sources

"Adolf I. (Graf von Holstein)."
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' by the Historischen Kommission of the Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Volume 1, from page 105, Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe in Wikisource (Retrieved 10 July 2007, 18:09 UTC). {{DEFAULTSORT:Adolf 01 of Holstein Year of birth unknown 1130 deaths Counts of Holstein House of Schauenburg