Irmengard of Oettingen

Irmengard von Oettingen ( * ca 1304, † November 6, 1389 in Worms) was a princess of the Counts of Oettingen, by marriage Countess Palatine of the Rhine, and as a widow Dominican.

Life

Countess Palatine

Irmengard von Oettingen was the daughter of Count Louis VI. von Oettingen (1288-1346) and his wife Agnes of Württemberg (1295-1317), a daughter of Eberhard of the illustrious, of Württemberg.

In 1320 married Princess Irmengard Count Palatine Adolf the upright from the house of Wittelsbach. This office from 1319 until his death in 1327 formally known as Count Palatine of the Rhine. However, the actual governmental power exercised his uncle Ludwig ( IV ).

The couple resided under the suzerainty of Emperor Louis IV in Heidelberg, but moved around 1326 to Oggersheim back. It was here that Count Palatine Adolf build the destroyed by fire community again, surrounded with Wall or ditch and raised them to the city. Already in January 1327 died Count Palatine in Neustadt on the Wine Route, and was buried in the Cistercian monastery of Schoenau near Heidelberg.

Count Palatine Adolf von Oettingen and Irmengard had 4 children:

• Ruprecht II (1325-1398), later Elector Palatine;
• Friedrich ( died young );
• Adolf ( died young );
• A daughter († 1389 ).

Widow and nun

Even in the year of death of her husband to Countess Palatine Irmengard moved with her children to the monastery at Worms Liebenau back; the latter received the Austro -minded Count John of Nassau guardian. In 1329 it came in the house Treaty of Pavia to balance between Louis IV, Count Palatine of Bavaria and brothers Adolf and Rudolf II Ruprecht I. In place of his late father Adolf joined the four -year-old son Ruprecht II and into the inheritance. It was after the death of his two uncles Rudolf II and Ruprecht I. her successor as Count Palatine and Elector.

First Irmengard von Oettingen had lived as a guest in the monastery. To 1344 it appeared there as a Dominican nun and lived there as a nun until her death in 1389 (various sources mention also the year 1399 ). Already in 1344 acquired the Liebenauer nuns " with the introduced property of their contemporaries and choir sister Irmegard, the Count Palatine Adolf Widow", from the Abbey Neuweiler in Alsace, patronage and tithes of the church of St. Martin to Einselthum, and there even the cloister and the so-called Stone House; as Country Estate in Rüssingen.

In Liebenau Pfalzgräfin Irmengard founded on December 1, 1381 a to sing daily Mass, the so-called Convention Exhibition.

Irmengards brother Ludwig died in 1346 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He had bequeathed the gift of a magnificent reliquary cross at the monastery Liebenau, which was made ​​according to the inscription on behalf of the father. The cross came in a roundabout way to Freiburg im Breisgau and is now in the treasury of the Augustinian Museum.

Here in Liebenau monastery held at times even Irmengards daughter Beatrice of Sicily -Aragon with her on. The Dominican chronicler Johannes Meyer (1422-1482) reported that Pfalzgräfin Beatrix in Liebenau her son Ruprecht gave birth and this was raised there until the age of 7 by the grandmother Irmengard von Oettingen. Ruprecht, who later became the Palatinate Elector Ruprecht III. and German king Rupert I had Irmengards great niece Elisabeth von Oettingen as maid of honor.

Countess Palatine Irmengard was buried in the monastery Liebenau, of which no more remains are preserved today. The historian Johann Friedrich Schannat has handed down the now non-existent grave inscription in his Historia episcopatus Wormatiensis. In it is noted that the princess lived for 40 years as a nun.