Markward von Annweiler
Mark Ward of Annweiler († 1202 in Patti, Sicily) was under the Emperor Henry VI. (1190-1197) Reichstruchsess and was used by him shortly before his death in 1197 as executor. To 1195, he became Duke of Romagna and Ravenna, Margrave of Ancona, Count of Abruzzo and Molise. From 1198 he was a Regent of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Origin
A native of unfreiem service nobility Mark Ward was one of the most influential people at the Hohenstaufen court. It may have belonged to an influential family also previously, as have marriage connections with the noble free family of Hausen (Mannheim) already open for his father's generation. It could have originally traded to vassals of the bishops of Speyer, who had been drawn to the Reich ( Schaab ). According to Breuer and Schaab belong to Mark Ward's relatives and descendants of the families of Hausen (Pfalz, younger line ), of Kirrweiler ( Speyer ministeriales ), Knights of Dahn, the Speyer taverns of Wersau ( Reilingen ) and Mark Ward of Wunnenberg ( Reich Schultheiss von Oppenheim ).
Life
Mark Ward is the latest since the Mainz court day and the knighting of the sons of Emperor Barbarossa in 1184 in the wake of Henry ( the future Emperor Henry VI. ) Detectable, from 1185 as Steward ( Head of the Court ). In 1186 he traveled to Milan for the wedding of King Henry with Constance of Sicily. In 1189 he followed the Emperor Barbarossa at the Third Crusade. There he was sent as an envoy to the Byzantine imperial court in Constantinople Opel, 1191, he returned to Germany.
1192 he is in the wake of the now Emperor Henry VI. detectable in Haguenau, the end of 1193 in Saxony. Beginning in 1194, he moved with the army to take possession of Sicily to Italy, where he won at Syracuse and Catania as Imperial commander of the Pisan and Genoese fleets combined 1195 on the Norman party, creating the conditions for the collection of Henry VI. created in Palermo.
In April 1195 he gave the Emperor for his services the freedom and appointed him among other things, to the Duke of Romagna and Ravenna to secure the connection paths between Germany and Sicily. End of 1195 / beginning of 1196 he was again in Germany, on the court day to Gelnhausen, since the summer of 1196 he returned no more to Germany.
After Henry's death in 1197, his widow Constanze Mark Ward supported initially with the Government of Sicily. As part of the repossession former papal territories by Celestine III. and Innocent III. however, he was excommunicated and finally, directed by Constance, who had received from the Pope as a fief, the Kingdom of Sicily in the country.
After the death of Constance he pulled the end of 1198 as of the Hohenstaufen party ( Philip of Swabia, the brother of Henry VI. ) Appointed Regent of the Kingdom of Sicily ( procurator regni Siciliae ) to the south. In the castle of Rocca d' Arce (in the middle between Rome and Monte Cassino ) the allied Diepoldsberg had ignored by Schweinspeunt the commands to be passed to the Pontifical of the Empress Constance. Beginning in 1199 destroyed Mark Ward the San Petro castle and a little later he captured San Vittore in the storm and let it rob. After operations in the area around the Abbey of Monte Cassino Mark Ward drew on February 20, 1199 further to the south. In March, Mark Ward Avellino besieged and plundered Isernia. Not least because of this anti-papal military action that is handed out very negative image, especially in the ecclesiastical sources by Mark Ward.
In 1201, Mark Ward gained control of Palermo, where the still immature son of Constance, Frederick II was staying. Despite the opposition of Pope Innocent III. Mark Ward was thus guardian of Frederick II, however, Mark Ward died soon after, in 1202 probably due to dysentery.