Welf III (13 November 1055), the last male member of the Swabian line of the

Elder House of Welf An elder is someone with a degree of seniority or authority. Elder or elders may refer to: Positions Administrative * Elder (administrative title), a position of authority Cultural * North American Indigenous elder, a person who has and tr ...

, was

Duke of Carinthia The Duchy of Carinthia (german: Herzogtum Kärnten; sl, Vojvodina Koroška) was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial Sta ...

and Margrave of Verona from 1047 until his death.

Life

Welf III was the only son of the Swabian count Welf II of Altdorf (died 1030) and Imiza, a daughter of Count

Frederick of Luxembourg Frederick of Luxembourg (965 – 6 October 1019), Count of Moselgau, was a son of Siegfried of Luxembourg and Hedwig of Nordgau. Frederick married Irmtrud, daughter of Count Herbert of Wetterau. They had issue: * Henry VII (d. 1047), Count of Lu ...

and niece of the later empress

Cunigunde of Luxembourg Cunigunde of Luxembourg, OSB (german: Kunigunde) ( 975 – 3 March 1033), also called Cunegundes, Cunegunda, and Cunegonda and, in Latin, Cunegundis or Kinigundis, was Empress of the Holy Roman Empire by marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Henry II ...

. His sister

Kunigunde of Altdorf Kunigunde of Altdorf (also known as ''Cunegonde'' or ''Chuniza''; – 31 August 1054) was a member of the Swabian line of the Elder House of Welf. She was also the ancestress of the younger House of Guelph, a cadet branch of the House of Este ...

(1054) married Margrave Albert Azzo II, of Milan, a member of the Italian

House of Este The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries. The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...

, and became the ancestor of the House of Welf-Este of (Younger)

House of Welf The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconia, Franconian family from ...

. Upon the death of his father, Welf III succeeded him in the family's extended estates in Swabia 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 lan ...

. Through the intervention of his aunt, Richlind of Altdorf, he also inherited the property of her late husband Count Adalbero II of

Ebersberg Ebersberg is the seat of the similarly named Ebersberg ''Landkreis'' (district) in the Oberbayern ''Regierungsbezirk'' (administrative region) in Bavaria, southern Germany. The ''Ebersberger Forst'' (forest) is one of Germany’s largest continu ...

in 1045. Probably through his mother, Imiza's, intervention Emperor Henry III enfeoffed Welf in 1047 with the Duchy of Carinthia and the adjacent March of Verona, which after the death of Duke

Conrad the Younger Conrad I (; c. 881 – 23 December 918), called the Younger, was the king of East Francia from 911 to 918. He was the first king not of the Carolingian dynasty, the first to be elected by the nobility and the first to be anointed. He was chosen a ...

in 1039 both had been held personally by the

Salian The Salian dynasty or Salic dynasty (german: Salier) was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. The dynasty provided four kings of Germany (1024–1125), all of whom went on to be crowned Holy Roman emperors (1027–1125). After the death of the l ...

emperor. Together with Duke

Bretislaus I of Bohemia Bretislav I ( cs, Břetislav I.; 1002/1005 – 10 January 1055), known as the "Bohemian Achilles", of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Duke of Bohemia from 1034 until his death. Youth Bretislav was the son of Duke Oldřich and his low-born concubine ...

, Welf accompanied Emperor Henry III on his 1051 campaign against King

Andrew I of Hungary Andrew I the White or the Catholic ( hu, I. Fehér or ; 1015 – before 6 December 1060) was King of Hungary from 1046 to 1060. He descended from a younger branch of the Árpád dynasty. After spending fifteen years in exile, he ascended ...

. Later however, he turned against the emperor and got involved in a conspiracy around the deposed Duke

Conrad I of Bavaria Conrad I ( 1020 – 5 December 1055), also known as Cuno or Kuno, was the duke of Bavaria from 1049 to 1053. He was of the Ezzonen family, his parents being Liudolf, Count of Zütphen and eldest son of Ezzo, Count Palatine of Lorraine, and Matil ...

, who with Hungarian support raided the Carinthian

March of Styria The March of Styria (german: Steiermark), originally known as Carantanian march (''Karantanische Mark'', ''marchia Carantana'' after the former Slavic principality of Carantania), was a southeastern frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire. It was ...

. A plot to assassinate Henry failed, when Duke Welf became confined to his sickbed and revealed the plans. Welf III never married and had no children when he died at his castle in Bodman on

Lake Constance Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...

on 13 November 1055. He bequeathed his property to

Weingarten Abbey Weingarten Abbey or St. Martin's Abbey (german: Reichsabtei Weingarten until 1803, then merely ) is a Benedictine monastery on the Martinsberg (''St. Martin's Mount'') in Weingarten near Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg (Germany). First founda ...

in Altdorf, where his mother was abbess. She in turn gave the property to Duke Welf I of Bavaria, the son of Welf III's sister Kunigunde and Margrave Albert Azzo II of Milan.Störmer, 'Die Welfen in der Reichspolitik,' p. 261. Welf III was the last male heir of the Elder Welfs, his patrimonial lands went to the senior branch of the House of Este and the Younger House of Welf. In 1057 Emperor Henry's widow

Agnes of Poitou Agnes of Poitou ( – 14 December 1077), was the queen of Germany from 1043 and empress of the Holy Roman Empire from 1046 until 1056 as the wife of Emperor Henry III. From 1056 to 1061, she ruled the Holy Roman Empire as regent during the m ...

ceded the Carinthian duchy to the

Ezzonid The Ezzonids (, ) were a dynasty of Lotharingian stock dating back as far as the ninth century. They attained prominence only in the eleventh century, through marriage with the Ottonian dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors. Named after Ezzo, Count P ...

scion Conrad III. Welf was buried at Weingarten Abbey.

Notes

References

*E. Steindorff, ''Jahrbücher des Deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III.'', 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1874–1881), accessible online at
archive.org
*B. Schneidmüller, ''Die Welfen. Herrschaft und Erinnerung (819–1252).'' (Stuttgart, 2000) *H. Dopsch, 'Welf III und Kärnten' in D. Bauer, et al., eds., ''Welf IV. - Schlüsselfigur einer Wendezeit: Regionale und europäische Perspektiven'' (Munich, 2004), pp. 84–128. *K. Jordan, ''Heinrich der Löwe'' (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1993). *H. Renn, ''Das erste Luxemburger Grafenhaus (963-1136)'' (Bonn, 1941). *K-E. Klaar, ''Die Herrschaft der Eppensteiner in Kärnten'' *W. Störmer, 'Die Welfen in der Reichspolitik des 11. Jahrhunderts,' ''Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung'' 104 (1996), 252–265.

External links

(in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Welf, Duke of Carinthia 11th-century births 1055 deaths Dukes of Carinthia Elder House of Welf Year of birth unknown