John, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg
Johann von Nassau ( † 1328 in Wetzlar ) was the third son of Count Otto I of Nassau and his wife Elisabeth of Leiningen- Landeck ( † about 1303), daughter of Count Emich IV of Leiningen- Landeck. Johann was a cousin of King Adolf of Nassau.
Heritage of Nassau- Dillenburg
Johann was initially intended as a younger son for an ecclesiastical career and was a canon in Worms. However, after the death of his mother in 1303, he resigned from the clergy and denied his brother Henry his paternal inheritance. The county was named after a long dispute in 1303 divided among the three surviving brothers. The eldest, Henry († 1343 ), was awarded Nassau-Siegen with the Ginsburg and the reign of the Westerwald, Emich († 1334 ) was Nassau- Hadamar Hadamar with, Driedorf and Esterau, and Johann of Nassau- Dillenburg received with Herborner Mark, haiger and Beilstein. A fourth brother, Otto ( † 1302), was also made canon in Worms, but already died. Johann was already in 1306, with the approval of the Landgrave Henry I of Hesse, his possession the oldest brother Henry fief on, with the provision that should drop his home county part at his death his brother.
On November 8, 1308 Johann succeeded to bring the territory of the diocese of Worms within the Kalenberg center as a fief itself. There the men of Hachenburg grasping stone and the Lords of Merenberg governors of the Bishopric of Worms had hitherto been that Johann now pushed out of their local rights and possessions. Soon afterwards, on March 31, 1310, the last male scion of the house Merenberg, Hartrad VII sold him († 1328 ), his shares in Kalenberg center including the " Court in the hall " to Nenderoth and the court Heimau. The son of the last Lord of Hachenburg grasping stone, Count Engelbert I. von Sayn compared herself on May 3, 1325 because of the wormsischen After feud with John of Nassau- Dillenburg: Johann enfeoffed him with the consent of his brother Henry III. Was " to fief by Wormser feudal law " with the former Greifensteiner fiefs in the area of the counties Diez and Solms, whereas Engelbert renounced in favor of the Count to his people in the Kalenberg center and in the Herborner Mark and Burgmann to Beilstein.
Like his father, Johann was in long and bitter feuds with the local gentry, against whom he sought to enforce its sovereignty, in particular the men of Dernbach and those of Bickenbach, with whom he has been around for about 1230 ongoing Dernbacher feud supremacy in the Herborner Mark continued. He fell and his brother Henry III. in heavy clashes with the Landgrave of Hesse, which the local nobility supported as feudal lords against the ambitions of the Nassauer and where Dernbacher Ganerben had sold their castle Dernbach already in 1309. However, Johann other hand, was also involved in the agreement signed on June 26, 1312 compared between Landgraf Otto I the one hand and the Count Henry, Emich and John of Nassau, in which committed both sides to build no castles against each other, and conceded the Nassauer that they were not allowed to restrict the lords of Dernbach and Wilnsdorf their rights, which they had possessed at the time of Count Otto von Nassau.
Main hissing Nassauer captain
When the Archbishop of Mainz, Matthias von Buchegg from 1324 forced his feud with the Landgrave Otto, he first secured numerous allies among the central Hessian and Wetterau Count and noble families, including the nassauern. Johann von Nassau- Dillenburg was ordered on March 24, 1327 as a captain. He commanded the main hissing of Nassau troops defeated a country Gräfliches army in the same year at the Battle of Seibertshausen in Gladenbacher Bergland. Although Landgraf Otto died in January 1328, but his son Henry the Iron continued the war. On August 10, 1328 he added the main Wetzlar sizzling - Nassau army under John of Nassau a heavy defeat at. This and the four weeks was on death of Archbishop Matthias led to the termination of the feud.
Johann von Nassau- Dillenburg died in the battle. He was unmarried, and his inheritance fell to his nephew Otto II, the son of Henry III. , Who later took also his father's legacy. Although John's brother Emich initially joined as a co-heir, but later renounced to the inheritance in favor of his nephew. With John's death went out the first and only consisting of himself Nassau- Dillenburg line.