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– GLEIBERG – (continued)
The heirs: The counts palatine of Tübingen began to exercise jurisdiction in part of the Gleiberg inheritance. Yet the comital title of Gleiberg passes to the house of Solms. The first of that house to document as count is Henry II (fl. 1212-23), whose mother can be reconstructed as another daughter of Count William, partly with the aid of a papal dispensation for a 4:4 marriage (1289) between Gertrud of Solms and Hartrad V of Merenberg. The Merenbergs, who are occasionally documented as lords of Gleiberg castle, clearly descended from another of William’s daughters. By the mid-thirteenth century the counts of Solms were heavily engaged in the practice of territorial division and title sharing among sons, which is indicative of the final demise of the old constitution. Equally significant is the fate of the court of Hüttenberg, very probably the ancient seat of justice in Upper Lahngau. The fourth part of the proceeds of this court fell to the counts of Kleeberg when that county was detached from Gleiberg as a consequence of the imperial schism. The other three parts were held by Clementia, Konrad of Luxembourg’s widow, but they were returned to Hermann of Salm’s heirs probably when they married Clementia’s granddaughters. No part of Hüttenberg arrived to the house of Solms. Rather, the three parts pertaining to Gleiberg were divided equally between the counts palatine of Tübingen and the lords of Merenberg. The Tübingen part was eventually sold to the landgraves of Hessen, while the Merenberg part descended by inheritance to the counts of Nassau. Presumably Solms inherited from Gleiberg new and more exclusive courts which were less representative of the ancient justice of the pagus, and more conducive to territorial lordship. The comital title could have passed to Solms at almost any point in the second half of the twelfth century.
SHIELD The Gleiberg comital title was inherited by Solms, and at some point in the first half of the thirteenth century Solms adopted a lion shield. It is speculative to suggest that the counts of Gleiberg had previously borne a lion shield, yet they were among Emperor Lothar of Supplinburg’s close relatives. Hermann II of Salm, whom we regard as William of Gleiberg’s father, was related to the emperor in the first place through their mothers, Sophie and Hedwig of Formbach, who were first cousins. Hermann II of Salm was also a second cousin of Lothar’s wife Richenza of Northeim, whose paternal grandmother Richenza is inferable as sister of Hermann’s paternal grandmother. It is this form of descent from the house of Laach which brought the palatine office to Otto of Rheineck, younger brother of Hermann II of Salm, granted that his claim was supplemented through marriage to Richenza of Northeim’s sister Gertrud. The circumstances suggest that William of Gleiberg can hardly have avoided a lion shield. We understand that his younger brothers accepted the two-salmon device in keeping with their cognomens, yet this device was inappropriate for William.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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