Dietrich or Theoderic of Oldenburg (c. 1398 – 14 February 1440) was a feudal lord in
Northern Germany
Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...
, holding the counties of
Delmenhorst
Delmenhorst (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Demost'') is an urban district ('' Kreisfreie Stadt'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It has a population of 74,500 and is located west of downtown Bremen with which it forms a contiguous urban area, whereas the ...
and
Oldenburg. He was called "Fortunatus", as he was able to secure Delmenhorst for his branch of the Oldenburgs.
Dietrich was the father of
Christian I of Denmark
Christian I (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he was also duke of Schleswig (within Den ...
, who would go on to start the current dynasty of the
Danish throne.
Lineage
Dietrich of Oldenburg was the son of
Christian V of Oldenburg, who became the Count circa 1398 and died in 1403. His mother was the Countess Agnes of Honstein. His grandfather,
Conrad I of Oldenburg, who died circa 1368, left his lands divided between Dietrich's father and uncle, Conrad II.
Dietrich’s father, Christian V, managed to gain the upper hand when Conrad II's son Maurice II died in 1420. After this, most of the Oldenburg family patrimony was under the rule of Dietrich’s branch. However, the house had several minor branches with estates and claims, as was usual in any medieval
fief
A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form ...
.
Dietrich of Oldenburg was the grandson of Ingeborg of Itzehoe, a Holstein princess who had married Count Conrad I of Oldenburg. After the death of her only brother, Count Gerhard V of Holstein-Itzehoe-Plön in 1350, Ingeborg and her issue were the heirs of her grandmother Ingeborg of Sweden (d. ''ca.'' 1290, the first wife of Gerhard II of Holstein-Plön), the eldest daughter of King
Valdemar of Sweden
Valdemar (English: Waldemar; sv, Valdemar Birgersson; 1239 – 26 December 1302) was King of Sweden from 1250 to 1275.
Biography
Valdemar was the son of the Swedish princess Ingeborg Eriksdotter and Birger Jarl, from the House of Bjelbo. ...
and Queen Sophia, who herself was the eldest daughter of King
Eric IV of Denmark
Eric IV, also known as Eric Ploughpenny or Eric Plowpenny ( da, Erik Plovpenning), ( – 10 August 1250) was king of Denmark from 1241 until his death in 1250. His reign was marked by conflict and civil wars against his brothers.
Early life
E ...
and his wife Jutta of
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a ...
who had no male descendants. Since there were no other living legitimate descendants of King Valdemar by this time, Dietrich was considered the heir general of Kings Valdemar I of Sweden and Eric IV of Denmark.
Dietrich succeeded his father as head of the House of Oldenburg in 1403.
Marriages and children
During his childhood, Dietrich married a distant cousin, the Countess Adelheid of Oldenburg-Delmenhorst, daughter of Oldenburg Count Otto IV of Delmenhorst, for reasons of succession and uniting the hereditary fiefs. Countess Adelheid is presumed to have died in 1404. In 1423, Dietrich married again, to
Helvig of Schauenburg
Helvig of Schauenburg (german: Heilwig von Holstein) (1398–1436) was a duchess of Schleswig and a countess of Holstein from the family of Schauenburg.
She was the mother of King Christian I of Denmark and ancestor of the Danish Royal houses of ...
(born between 1398–1400 and died in 1436), widow of Prince Balthasar of Mecklenburg and daughter of the murdered
Duke Gerhard VI of Schleswig and Holstein and his wife
Elisabeth of Brunswick and, thus, sister of the reigning Duke Adolf VIII. All his legitimate children were born by his second wife.
His second marriage strengthened this interest in the Scandinavian monarchies since Helvig was a descendant of King Eric V of Denmark,
King Haakon V of Norway and King Magnus I of Sweden.
At this time, Scandinavia was ruled by the
Kalmar Union
The Kalmar Union ( Danish, Norwegian, and sv, Kalmarunionen; fi, Kalmarin unioni; la, Unio Calmariensis) was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed at Kalmar in Sweden, that from 1397 to 1523 joined under a single monarch the three kingdo ...
, established by
Queen Margarethe I of Denmark. In 1387, she had lost her heir Olav IV of Norway, who was succeeded as heir by
Eric of Pomerania and his sister
Catherine
Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria.
In the early Christ ...
, who was married to a prince of the
Palatinate and
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...
.
Dietrich of Oldenburg is said to have been a rival claimant to the crowns of Sweden and Denmark during the reign of Eric VII/Eric XIII, whose succession was through Christopher I of Denmark, the younger brother of the murdered Eric IV, and through Magnus I of Sweden, younger brother of the deposed King Valdemar.
Count Theodoric had three surviving sons and one daughter:
Christian (1426–1481); who succeeded him as Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, and later became King Christian I of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (following the deposition of Charles VII of Sweden), as well as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein. He would found the House of Oldenburg Dynasty in Denmark that still rules to this day.
Maurice V of Delmenhorst (1428–1464); when his elder brother became king, he was given the County of Delmenhorst.
Gerhard VI, Count of Oldenburg (1430–1500); two years after his eldest brother had become king, he was given the county of Oldenburg, and from his other brother's heirs, he also inherited Delmenhorst in about 1483. The third son got his name from usages of the mother's Holstein clan.
Adelheid (1425–1475), first married Ernest III, the Count of Hohnstein (d. 1454) and then, in 1474, Gerhard VI, Count of Mansfeld (d. 1492).
Male line of descendants
Dietrich of Oldenburg is a direct ancestor of the
Danish royal family
The Danish royal family is the dynastic family of the monarch. All members of the Danish royal family except Queen Margrethe II hold the title of ''Prince/Princess of Denmark''. Dynastic children of the monarch and of the heir apparent are accor ...
having given birth to the first House of Oldenburg King of Denmark, Christian I. He is also a direct ancestor of the
British Royal Family, the pretenders to the
Kingdom of the Hellenes
The Kingdom of Greece ( grc, label=Katharevousa, Greek, Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος ) was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constant ...
, the
Norwegian royal family, and the last Russian czars of
Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp.
Ancestry
Notes
*Alternate names include:
**
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
: ''Teudericus de Oldenburg''
**
Medieval Scandinavian: ''Didrik af Oldenborg''
**
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ''Dietrich von Oldenburg''
**
Medieval French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligi ...
: ''Thierry d'Oldenbourg''
References
{{Authority control
Counts of Oldenburg
1390s births
1440 deathsArchaeologisches Landesmuseum/Bibliothek - Schloß Gottorf, Schleswig