The Wilhelminers were a noble

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 ...

n family of the 9th century. They rose to prominence mid-century under the brothers

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Engelschalk I Engelschalk I was the margrave (''comes terminalis'', "frontier count") of the March of Pannonia in the mid ninth century until his death on campaign against the Moravians in 871. In his day, the ''march orientalis'' corresponded to a front along t ...

, sons of

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...

, the founder of the family. The family held the

March of Pannonia The March of Pannonia or Eastern March ( la, marcha orientalis) was a frontier march of the Carolingian Empire, named after the former Roman province of ''Pannonia'' and carved out of the preceding and larger Avar march. It was referred to in so ...

until 871, but their possession of it was the cause of a dispute, the

Wilhelminer War Wilhelminer War was a minor war fought in the March of Pannonia (later Austria) from 882 to 884. It was initially a rebellion of the sons of the margraves William II and Engelschalk I, led by Engelschalk II, against the new margrave Aribo. Svatopl ...

, with the

Aribonids The Aribonids were a noble family of probably Bavarian origin who rose to preeminence in the Carolingian March of Pannonia and the later Margraviate of Austria (''marcha orientalis'') in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. The dynasty is name ...

. In the dispute the Wilhelminers had the support of

Arnulf of Carinthia Arnulf of Carinthia ( 850 – 8 December 899) was the duke of Carinthia who overthrew his uncle Emperor Charles the Fat to become the Carolingian king of East Francia from 887, the disputed king of Italy from 894 and the disputed emperor from Feb ...

and Svatopluk of Moravia. The Wilhelminers regained some of their lost importance after Arnulf became king in 887. In 893, however, they came into the hatred of the Bavarian aristocracy, who summarily blinded

Engelschalk II Engelschalk II was the margrave (''comes terminalis'', "frontier count") of the March of Pannonia in the late ninth century in opposition to Aribo. In his day, the ''march orientalis'' corresponded to a front along the Danube from the Traungau to ...

without royal approval. The subsequent years saw some Wilhelminers fleeing to Moravia and others expelled from court. They soon disappear from view.

Sources

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. *MacLean, Simon. ''Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire''. Cambridge University Press: 2003. *Reuter, Timothy (trans.)
The Annals of Fulda
'. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992. Wilhelminer dynasty Bavarian noble families Medieval Austria