Welf II ( - died 10 March 1030) was a Swabian count and a member 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 ...

Life

He was a younger son of Count

Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg), Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–160 ...

and Ita, a daughter of Duke Conrad I of Swabia of the Conradine dynasty. He constructed a castle at Ravensburg. In the 1020s, Welf feuded with the

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

and

Freising Freising () is a university town in Bavaria, Germany, and the capital of the Freising ''Landkreis'' (district), with a population of about 50,000. Location Freising is the oldest town between Regensburg and Bolzano, and is located on the Is ...

bishops. He pillaged the treasury of Bishop

Bruno of Augsburg Bruno (or Brun) von Bayern (c. 992–1029) was the son of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria (the Wrangler or Quarrelsome) and Gisela of Burgundy. He was the younger brother of St. Henry II of Germany,Gerd Tellenbach, ''The Church in Western Europe from the ...

, brother of

Emperor Henry II Henry II (german: Heinrich II; it, Enrico II; 6 May 973 – 13 July 1024), also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor ("Romanorum Imperator") from 1014. He died without an heir in 1024, and was the last ruler o ...

, and sacked the city of

. Welf opposed the election of 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 ...

count

Conrad II Conrad II ( – 4 June 1039), also known as and , was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1027 until his death in 1039. The first of a succession of four Salian emperors, who reigned for one century until 1125, Conrad ruled the kingdoms ...

King of the Romans King of the Romans ( la, Rex Romanorum; german: König der Römer) was the title used by the king of Germany following his election by the princes from the reign of Henry II (1002–1024) onward. The title originally referred to any German k ...

in 1024 because it did not suit his interests, but he had to eventually relent. The next year he joined a rebellion launched by the

Babenberg The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia (present-day Bavaria), the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria from its creation in 976 AD until its e ...

duke

Ernest II of Swabia Ernest II (c. 1007 – 17 August 1030) was Duke of Swabia from 1015 to 1030. A member of the House of Babenberg, he was the son of Ernest I and Gisela of Swabia. Ernest became duke following the senior Ernest's death in 1015. Since he was a minor ...

, but finally submitted in 1027. He died, probably in captivity, in 1030. He was buried at

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 ...

.Schneidmüller: ''Die Welfen'', p. 123.

Marriage and issue

Welf II was married to Imiza, 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 ...

. With Imiza, Welf had at least two children: *

Welf, Duke of Carinthia Welf III (13 November 1055), the last male member of the Duchy of Swabia, Swabian line of the Elder House of Welf, was Duchy of Carinthia, Duke of Carinthia and March of Verona, Margrave of Verona from 1047 until his death. Life Welf III was the ...

(''Welf III''; d. 1055) *

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 ...

(also called ''Chuniza''; c. 1020 – 31 August 1054)

Sources

* * *F-R. Erkens, ''Konrad II. Herrschaft und Reich des ersten Salierkaisers'' (Regensburg 1998). *

Reuter, Timothy Timothy Alan Reuter (25 January 1947 – 14 October 2002), grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical i ...

. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056''. New York: Longman, 1991. *B. Schneidmüller: ''Die Welfen. Herrschaft und Erinnerung (819–1252).'' (Stuttgart, 2000), pp. 119–123. *A. Thiele, ''Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte Band I, Teilband 1'' (Frankfurt/Main 1993). *T. Zotz, 'Welf II.,' in: ''Lexikon des Mittelalters'' (LexMA), Volume 8 (Munich, 1997), cols. 2143–2144.

External links

Welf II, Graf von Altdorf
(in German)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Welf 02 1030 deaths Elder House of Welf Year of birth unknown Year of birth uncertain Burials at Schönau Abbey 11th-century German nobility Counts of Germany Swabian nobility