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– SAARWERDEN –
[Pagus:- 1. Upper Saargau from c. 1111. Numbering conventions: Lay numbering.] The counts of Saarwerden can be accepted as a cadet line of the house of Blieskastel, itself a junior line of the Folmars. Count Frederick I of Saarwerden emerges in 1111, and thereafter the genealogical progression can be established satisfactorily. His affiliation as second son of Godfrey I of Blieskastel must be inferred. On the strength of estate inheritances we can be confident that either he or his wife was of the house of Blieskastel, and there is no reason to imagine that he could have become count in this region on the basis of his wife’s right. During the twelfth century the family of the Folmars often divided their inheritance with a comital title for each son involved. The rise of the counts of Saarwerden fits this pattern very well. In the second half of the twelfth century we find Ludwig I of Saarwerden, whose brother is Ludwig II. This is among the earliest known instances of brothers bearing the same name, a not uncommon occurrence in the German aristocracy of later times. The brothers were probably born of different mothers, each of whom could bring the name Ludwig into the family. Both bore comital title, and in the next Saarwerden generation both Ludwig III and Henry I were counts. The family was not prolific, however, and the county passed undivided to the lower Rhenish counts of Moers in 1417. As to the pagus on which Saarwerden county was based, an educated guess is Upper Saargau, but it is doubtful whether this can be confirmed.
SHIELD The arms of Saarwerden are of particular interest. The bicephalous eagle in argent on field of sable has a quality of unutterable pallor, a desolation that is a distinctly conscious effect. The two heads are partly to blame, and they would not have been present on the twelfth-century shield. Yet the development of arms – the ‘sprouting’ of a second head, as it were – shows that there was an interest in enhancing the effect. Indeed, even in the late fourteenth century the eagle had no mitigating sundries such as colored beak or talons, so popular at that time. A contrast with the arms of the still younger line of Homburg, with its lion in the conventional coloration of argent on gueules, seems to be intended. Without proper documentation, developments must remain speculative, yet there are many reasons for believing that the eagle was chosen in defiance of the lion of Homburg. The eagle, therefore, would not have been received in the reign of Lothar of Supplinburg, when we assume the earliest systematization of arms took place in Germany. The Saarwerden eagle would have arisen at a time when the counts of Homburg were not in the good graces of the emperor, and this situation actually occurred after the throne passed to the Staufer. Probably the counts of Saarwerden, who carried the name Frederick, were related with the Staufer, whereas the Homburg line was not. Originally it was no doubt difficult for the counts of Saarwerden to countenance the higher office of their juniors the counts of Homburg, landgraves of Lower Alsace, and the eagle might symbolize a moral superiority in this regard. Yet by the mid-thirteenth century these antagonisms belonged to the distant past. Count Frederick of Homburg married a daughter of Ludwig III, and on at least one occasion their son Ludwig actually employed the cognomen of Saarwerden, in honor, it seems, of his cousins.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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