Wichmann I the Elder (also spelled ''Wigmann'' or ''Wichman'') (died 23 April 944) was a member of the Saxon

House of Billung The House of Billung was a dynasty of Saxon noblemen in the 9th through 12th centuries. The first known member of the house was Count Wichmann, mentioned as a Billung in 811. Oda, the wife of Count Liudolf, oldest known member of the Liudol ...

. He was a brother of Amelung,

Bishop of Verden This is a list of bishops, prince-bishops, and administrators of Verden. The Catholic Diocese of Verden (german: link=no, Bistum Verden), was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mainz. From the 12th century, the Bishop of Verden was also, ''ex offi ...

, and

Herman, Duke of Saxony Hermann Billung (900 or 912 – 27 March 973) was the margrave of the Billung March from 936 until his death. The first of the Saxon House of Billung, Hermann was a trusted lieutenant of Emperor Otto I. Though never Duke of Saxony himself, w ...

Biography

In 938, Wichmann rebelled because his younger brother Herman had been given military command of the northern reaches of the

Duchy of Saxony The Duchy of Saxony ( nds, Hartogdom Sassen, german: Herzogtum Sachsen) was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 and incorporated into the C ...

. He believed that he had a better claim to the office by virtue of his seniority and his ''Königsnähe'' (closeness to the king), because he was related by marriage to the queen dowager

Matilda Matilda or Mathilda may refer to: Animals * Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder * Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse * Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...

. He was joined by

Eberhard of Franconia Eberhard III (c. 885 – 2 October 939), a member of the Conradine dynasty, was Duke of Franconia, succeeding his elder brother, King Conrad I, in December 918. From 926 to 928, he also acted as ruler of Lotharingia. Life Eberhard was the seco ...

, and

Thankmar Thankmar (or Tammo) (c. 908 – 28 July 938) was the eldest (and only) son of Henry I of Germany by his first wife, Hatheburg of Merseburg. His mother had been previously married and widowed, after which she entered a convent. Because she left the ...

, the half-brother of King Otto I. The revolt was soon suppressed. Thankmar died the same year he and Eberhard came to terms. Wichmann allied with some

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

and made war against his former compatriots.Thompson, 599–600, records that

Widukind of Corvey Widukind of Corvey (c. 925after 973) was a medieval Saxon chronicler. His three-volume ''Res gestae Saxonicae sive annalium libri tres'' is an important chronicle of 10th-century Germany during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty. Life In view of ...

was condoning of Wichmann's behaviour. He reconciled to Otto in 941.

Personal life

Wichmann married Frederuna (or Fridaruna), niece of Queen Matilda. She became a nun after her husband's death and died on 18 January 971. She left him at least three sons and a daughter: * Wichmann II * Bruno, Bishop of Verden * Egbert the One-Eyed * Hathui, married Siegfried, son of

Gero the Great Gero I ( – 20 May 965), sometimes called the Great ( la, magnus),Thompson, 486. Also se was a German nobleman who ruled an initially modest march centred on Merseburg in the south of the present German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which he expande ...

, possibly mother of

Gero, Count of Alsleben Gero (died 11 August 979), Count of Alsleben, conjectured to be the son of Siegfried and therefore grandson of Gero the Great. If so, his mother was Hedwig, daughter of Wichmann the Elder. Gero was the brother of Tetta, who established a monastery ...

. Wichmann and Frederuna may have been the parents of Dietrich, Margrave of the Nordmark.

Sources

* * Thompson, James Westfall. ''Feudal Germany, Volume II''. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1928. *Bernhardt, John W. ''Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Notes

944 deaths Dukes of Saxony House of Billung Year of birth unknown Counts of Stade 10th-century Saxon people {{Germany-noble-stub