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– KATZENELNBOGEN –
We know that Henry I of Katzenelnbogen died shortly before 1102 and that his widow Liutgard of Gladbach was remarried to Goswin of Stahleck. Son of that second marriage was Count Palatine Hermann III of the Rhine, who often appears together with his frater Henry II of Katzenelnbogen. Another member of the family was Bishop Philip of Osnabrück, undoubtedly Henry II’s brother. In the following generation there are Henry III and Berthold I of Katzenelnbogen, one of whom – most likely Berthold – married a woman of Lauffen, daughter of an Arnstein heiress. By virtue of this relationship the family was able to purchase the comital title of the Einrich pagus from Reginbold of Isenburg around 1160. It is also likely that Count Berthold I merely augmented his own preexisting right through marriage to Adelheid of Lauffen, for she was a lesser heiress. Berthold and Henry III are both found bearing comital titles in 1157, before the right to jurisdiction in Einrich pagus was purchased from the Isenburgs. It is strange that a family adorned already with two comital titles would part with riches in order to acquire a further one. A much deeper claim to inheritance of the Einrich pagus must have existed. Heirs of Arnstein by marriage, the Katzenelnbogens must also have descended from them. For documentation of such a connection there is the advocacy for St. Goar, a part of the Arnstein inheritance that quickly fell to the Katzenelnbogens by arrangement with the abbot of Prüm in or shortly after 1139. In 1089, however, Prüm’s advocate for St. Goar was Diether, undoubtedly identical to the first Katzenelnbogen in view of his very rare name. Clearly this advocacy had passed to the counts of Arnstein at the premature death of Henry I of Katzenelnbogen ante 1102. The location of Katzenelnbogen castle in the Taunus hills above the Lahn valley also strongly suggests that this family stemmed from Einrich. The precise nature of its Arnstein descent is nevertheless obscure. Earliest county: The family already carried a comital title since the 1130s. It is sometimes traced to the counts of Lindenfels. In all likelihood Berthold of Lindenfels had a niece who married Henry II of Katzenelnbogen. Berthold and Henry appear together in witness lists, and the name Berthold was given to Henry’s son. The woman in question was probably a Henneberg, since Hermann, the Katzenelnbogen bishop of Münster, was a consanguineus of Burgrave Poppo of Würzburg, grandson of Berthold of Lindenfels’ sister. Clearly Katzenelnbogen could inherit from the counts of Lindenfels. In 1159, however, there is a Count Berthold of Craichgau who readily identifies as the Katzenelnbogen, and the pagus of Craichgau does not appear to have been held by Lindenfels. In the later eleventh century the counts of Sponheim held Craichgau, and there are a number of reasons for believing that the first identifiable Katzenelnbogen, Diether I, married a daughter of the Sponheim count Zeisolf († 1072). It is very likely that Zeisolf’s mother was a sister of the Rhenish count palatine Henry I. The house of Katzenelnbogen can acquire the name Henry in this manner, and its rapid rise from obscurity becomes understandable. The Royal Annals of Cologne, when mentioning the installment of Hermann of Stahleck as count palatine in 1142/3, describe him simply as Henry II of Katzenelnbogen’s brother, then proceed to recount hostilities that broke out between Hermann and the rival claimant Otto of Rheineck: this thematic development implies that Henry II of Katzenelnbogen had his own claim to the palatinate. Second title: The counts of Katzenelnbogen became the dominant power in Rheingau, but the title of count of the pagus of Rheingau appears to have been continued by the Rhinegraves, despite their absence from the main region of Rheingau that lay south of the Main. Accordingly, the second comital title held before the purchase of 1160 is likely to have been furnished by the inheritance of Berthold of Lindenfels. Indeed, Count Berthold I of Katzenelnbogen and his wife of Lauffen both were Lindenfels descendants. The pagus in question may have been Elsenzgau or Gartachgau, but need only have been held very briefly, since subsequently there is no significant trace of Katzenelnbogen influence in southern Franconia. In later generations the family continued to assign counties to two sons. The elder would receive the Katzenelnbogen cognomen after the castle in existence by the late eleventh century. The younger for a time received the Hohenstein cognomen after a castle built somewhat deeper in the hills. Around 1260 division was made between territories north of the Main and south, though both lines adhered to the Katzenelnbogen cognomen. In the fifteenth century reunification was followed by extinction (1479).
SHIELD The arms of Katzenelnbogen show a lion-leopard in gueules on field of or. Judging from the evidence of Sayn, where the lion-leopard is associated with, and clearly preceded by, a lion, the Katzenelnbogen leopard is a modernism. Thus it is probable that at some point in the twelfth century reason was found for designing a lion shield for the Katzenelnbogen counts. The original basis for lion shields was high office in Lotharingia, and beyond that, relationship with Emperor Lothar of Supplinburg. The house of Katzenelnbogen met the criterion of relationship with Lothar, because Liutgard of Gladbach was a niece of Gerhard I of Jülich, an apparent nephew of Emperor Lothar’s ‘non-imperial’ Ezzoner antecedent. However, the lion may not have been designed at all. Rather, it may have arrived as inheritance from Arnstein, after Ludwig III of Arnstein entered his monastery in 1139 and the rights in Einrich pagus arrived to Katzenelenbogen definitively around 1160. For Ludwig too was connected by descent from the ‘non-imperial’ Ezzonen. In this question the finer details are best left aside.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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