Princely count (; feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility and later also of the Russian nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title ...

William III of Henneberg-Schleusingen (12 March 1434 – 25 May 1480 in Salorno) was a member of the

House of Henneberg The House of Henneberg was a medieval German Graf, comital family (''Grafen'') which from the 11th century onwards held large territories in the Duchy of Franconia. Their county was raised to a Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, princely county ( ...

. He was the son of William II of Henneberg and Catherine of Hanau. William III inherited the princely county of Henneberg in 1440, when his father died in a hunting accident. In 1469, he married Margaret (1451 – 13 February 1509), the daughter of Duke Henry the Peaceful of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1463 or 1464, the imperial city of

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a town#Germany, city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding Schweinfurt (district), district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultur ...

transferred the office of Imperial bailiff to William and made him patron of the city.Eckart Henning: ''Die gefürstete Grafschaft Henneberg-Schleusingen im Zeitalter der Reformation'', Böhlau, Cologne, 1981, , p. 90 This combination of competencies offered Schweinfurt some degree of protection against the

Bishopric of Würzburg In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

. Apparently out of personal piety, William promoted pilgrimages and founded churches and monasteries. William died in 1480 in Salorno, when he was returning from Rome. His grave stone can be found in the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic Mariology#Dogmatic teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of w ...

Church in

Bolzano Bolzano ( ; ; or ) is the capital city of South Tyrol (officially the province of Bolzano), Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The ...

, near the altar. In 1482, his body was transferred to the Henneberg family vault in the church of the monastery at Kloster Veßra.Ulrike Stein: ''Die Darstellung der Grafen Wilhelm II. (1426-1444) und Wilhelm III. (1444-1480) von Henneberg in der hennebergischen und mitteldeutschen Geschichtsschreibung'', in: Ellen Widder (ed.): ''Manipulus Florum. Aus Mittelalter, Landesgeschichte, Literatur und Historiographie. Festschrift für Peter Johanek zum 60. Geburtstag'', Waxmann, Münster, 2000, , p. 31–42, in particular: p. 36 The epitaph in Bolzano was sculpted by Erasmus Forster in Gardolo near

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin language, Ladin and ; ; ; ; ; ), also known in English as Trent, is a city on the Adige, Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the Trentino, autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ...

and installed in the Church in 1495 or 1496. Like his father, he left only underage children, including his heir,

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded hi ...

. His widow, however, succeeded in securing their inheritance.

Footnotes

Counts of Henneberg William 03 1434 births 1480 deaths 15th-century German people 15th-century counts in Europe {{Germany-noble-stub