Johann III, Count of Sponheim-Starkenburg

Count Johann III. of Sponheim, the Elder ( * 1315, † December 30, 1398 ) ruled the County of Sponheim 67. He also received the nickname " the superior man " and because of his failing eyesight in old age, " the blind man ".

Life

Johann III. of Sponheim was the first son of Count Henry II of Sponheim and his wife Loretta of Salm. He had two brothers, Henry and Gottfried. It was in 1331 with Mechthild von der Pfalz married, Louis the Bayers niece. Important events that took place during his reign include the establishment of the Holy Spirit Hospital in Enkirch and a war with the Archbishop of Trier, Bohemund II of Saarbrücken with major damage on both sides. Count Johann III. had of Sponheim, just as his mother, frequent quarrels with the generic geometry church. Johann led a feud against the Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg; this was tolerated by atonement from April 13, 1347. Archbishop Baldwin put him on January 4, 1351 to a top official man of the right of the Moselle in Trier lying land. Baldwin's successor, Bohemund, came in 1356 with Johann and his brother Prince Elector Ruprecht I of the Palatinate in dispute over the tariff in Enkirch. This feud has many other generic geometry places ruinous by robbery and fire, but Bohemund destroyed Starkenburgring, Kirchberg and drove Sponheim so cornered that Johann had to ask for peace in 1360. The subsequent feud between John and his cousin Walram was of no great importance, as it was soon compensated. On May 9, 1368, he gave the by the death of Simon of Waldeck completed sponheimische Erbmarschallamt and associated with this Lehendorf Sevenich the Lord Friedrich von Ehrenburg. For winter castle, Koppenstein and Birkenfeld he acquired city rights in 1330 by the Emperor Ludwig. In Trarbach he built a church; what year is not known; Only an early age he began an abbot from the monastery Himmeroder to Traben for daily, and in the absence of the count, three times a week, read in Trarbach fair had. Whether he took against the left bank of the Rhine devastating Englishman in the course of the Count Kuno II of Falkenstein and Count of Sponheim Walram 1362 participated, is uncertain. Johann III. is the builder of the Grevenburg ( Castle of the Counts ) about Trarbach, which was first mentioned by name on October 3, 1357. He was buried in the monastery Himmerod.

Family

Johann III. was married in 1331 with Mechthild von der Pfalz († 1375 ). Mechthild was a daughter of the Count Palatine of the Rhine and Rudolf I of Mechthild von Nassau. Father's side, she was so great-granddaughter of King Rudolf von Habsburg, maternal granddaughter of King Adolf of Nassau. The reigning since 1314 Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian was a brother of her father. Her two daughters Matilda and Loretta were eventually to the extinction of the two Sponheim lines 1437 to the posthumous heirs of the entire County of Sponheim between Baden and Veldenz. Children:

• John IV, Count of Sponheim ( * before 1338, † 1413/14 ), ∞ 1346 Elisabeth von Sponheim - Kreuznach ( † after 1394)
• Mechthild (* 1345, † 1407/10 ), ∞ 1356 Margrave Rudolf VI. of Baden ( † 1372 )
• Loretta (* 1347, † after 1364 ) ∞ 1374 by Count Henry III. of Veldenz († 1389 )