Dietrich or Theoderic of Oldenburg ( – 14 February 1440) was a feudal lord in
Northern Germany
Northern Germany (, ) 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 and the two city-states Hambur ...
, holding the counties of
Delmenhorst
Delmenhorst (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Demost'') is an urban district (''List of German urban districts, Kreisfreie Stadt'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It has a population of 74,500 and is located west of downtown Bremen (city), Bremen with which ...
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 ''(Christiern I)'' (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a German noble and Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), King of Norway, Norway (1450–1481) and King of Sweden, Sweden (1457 ...
, 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 (; ) 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 of feudal alle ...
.
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 and Queen Sophia, who herself was the eldest daughter of King
Eric IV of Denmark and his wife Jutta of
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
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, and is patrilineal 14x great-grandfather of
King Charles III of the United Kingdom.
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
Hedvig of Holstein (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 Hedvig 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 was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed at Kalmar in Sweden as designed by Queen Margaret I of Denmark, Margaret of Denmark. From 1397 to 1523, it joined under a single monarch the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden (then in ...
, established by
Queen Margrete I of Denmark. In 1387, she had lost her heir
Olav IV of Norway
Olaf II of Denmark (December 1370 – 3 August 1387) was King of Denmark as Olaf II (though occasionally referred to as Olaf III) from 1376 and King of Norway as Olav IV from 1380 until his death. Olaf was the son of Queen Margaret I of Denmark ...
, who was succeeded as heir by
Eric of Pomerania
Erik of Pomerania ( 1381/1382 – 24 September 1459) ruled over the Kalmar Union from 1396 until 1439. He was initially co-ruler with his great-aunt Margaret I of Denmark, Margaret I until her death in 1412. Erik is known as Erik III as King of ...
and his sister
Catherine
Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...
, who was married to a prince of the
Palatinate and
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 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 ruled Denmark until the abdication of queen Margaret II on the 14th of January 2024 in favour of her son Frederick, a member of the House of Monpezat.
* 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 of Denmark. While some members of the Danish royal family hold the title of ''Prince(ss) of Denmark'', descendants of Margrethe II additionally bear the title '' Count(ess) of Monpe ...
having fathered the first House of Oldenburg King of Denmark, Christian I. He is also a direct male ancestor of the
British royal family
The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...
, the pretenders to the
Kingdom of the Hellenes, the
Norwegian royal family
Members of the Norwegian royal family are people related to King Harald V of Norway or former Norwegian monarchs who are royals and who hold royal titles. The term does not include non-royal relatives. The current family who holds the throne a ...
, and the last Russian czars of
Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp
The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russia. Nic ...
.
Notes
*Alternate names include:
**
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...
: ''Teudericus de Oldenburg''
**
Medieval Scandinavian: ''Didrik af Oldenborg''
**
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
: ''Dietrich von Oldenburg''
**
Medieval French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
: ''Thierry d'Oldenbourg''
References
External links
Archaeologisches Landesmuseum/Bibliothek - Schloß Gottorf, Schleswig
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dietrich, Count of Oldenburg
Counts of Oldenburg
1390s births
1440 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
14th-century nobility from the Holy Roman Empire