Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lorraine

Gottfried III. the Bearded ( † 21 December and December 30, 1069 in Verdun ) was Duke of Upper Lorraine, Lower Lorraine and Margrave of Tuscany.

Life and work

Gottfried comes from the family of Wigeriche. His father Gotzelo I was Duke of Upper and Lower Lorraine. As Gotzelo I. 1044, died enfeoffed Henry III. Gottfried with Upper Lorraine and Gotzelos eponymous second son Gotzelo II with Lower Lorraine. After his brother's death, Gottfried also claimed Lower Lorraine, Henry III. continued, however, Frederick II of Luxembourg in there. Gottfried rebelled in part with the support of the French king Henry I. against the emperor, but was not able to sit down and was replaced by the Alsatian Count Adalbert, after his death in 1048 by his brother Gerhard than Duke.

After the death of his wife Oda Gottfried moved back to Italy, where he married in 1054 Beatrix of Lorraine, the Margrave Boniface widow ' of Tuscany and daughter of Frederick II of Luxembourg. Henry III. deposed and Beatrix 1055 Gottfried caught. Only a year later reached Pope Victor II reconciliation with Gottfried Heinrich and his reinstatement. Gottfried now not only had the Margraviate of Tuscia, but also about the extensive properties Beatrix ' that reached in the Emilia -Romagna and the Po Valley, and was thus able to build a leading position in Italy. When the imperial court during the reign of Agnes of Poitou increasingly lost touch with cluniazensisch oriented reform group in Rome, Gottfried offered the reform clerics who, in no small part with Leo IX. came from Lorraine to Rome, an important back and consolidated with the election of his brother Frederick Pope ( Stephen IX. ) in 1057 on his position.

Also, by the marriage of his son Gottfried IV of Lower Lorraine with his stepdaughter Matilda of Tuscany he could substantially expand his power and influence.

After the death of Frederick II of Luxembourg in 1065, he received the duchy of Lower Lorraine by King Henry IV back and focused in his last years to this rule, while his wife Beatrix in Tuscia led the regency.

Gottfried died in 1069 as Duke of Lower Lorraine and Margrave of Tuscany. His son Gottfried followed him into Lower Lorraine; his daughter Ida became the mother of Godfrey of Bouillon.

Count

Godfrey the Bearded was by Godfrey I ( Lower Lorraine ) from the family of Matfriede and Gottfried II ( Lower Lorraine ), as Gottfried III. from the family of Wigeriche, the third Duke of that name in Lower Lorraine. The counting of the ducal bearer of this name is in the historical literature, however, not uniform, so that the bearded man is sometimes used also the atomic number II for Gottfried.