House of Zähringen

Zähringen Castle, c. 1500

The earliest-known ancestor of the family was one Berthold, Count in the Breisgau (d. 982), who was first mentioned in 962. In view of his name, he may have been related to the Alemannic Ahalolfing dynasty.

Count Berthold's great-grandson, the later Berthold II, Duke of Carinthia (posthumously known as Berthold I of Zähringen, c. 1000–1078), held several lordships (Herrschaften) in the Breisgau, in Thurgau, Ortenau and Baar. By his mother, he was related to the rising Hohenstaufen family. Emperor Henry III had promised his vassal Berthold the Duchy of Swabia, but this was not fulfilled, as upon Henry's death, his widow Agnes of Poitou appointed Count Rudolf of Rheinfelden to the position of Duke of Swabia in 1057. In compensation, Berthold was made Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona in 1061. However, this dignity was only a titular one, and Berthold subsequently lost it when, in the course of the Investiture Controversy, he joined the rising of his former rival Rudolf of Rheinfelden against German king Henry IV in 1073.

Berthold's son Berthold II (c. 1050–1111), who like his father fought against Henry IV, inherited a lot of the lands of Rudolf's son Count Berthold of Rheinfelden in 1090 (though not his comital title, which stayed with the family von Wetter-Rheinfelden). Berthold II is so named both as Duke of Swabia (following Berthold of Rheinfelden, the first duke of Swabia of this name) and as head of the House of Zähringen (following his father, who is counted as Berthold I of Zähringen in spite of not historically having used the name Zähringen). Berthold II did use the name Zähringen, although he moved his main residence from Zähringen Castle to the newly built Freiburg Castle in 1091.

In 1092, Berthold II was elected Duke of Swabia against Frederick I of Hohenstaufen. In 1098, he reconciled with Frederick, renounced all claims to Swabia and instead concentrated on his possessions in the Breisgau region, assuming the title of Duke of Zähringen. He was succeeded in turn by his sons, Berthold III (d. 1122) and Conrad (d. 1152).

In 1127, upon the assassination of his nephew Count William III, Conrad claimed the inheritance of the County of Burgundy against Count Renaud III of Mâcon. Renaud prevailed, although he had to cede large parts of the eastern Transjuranian lands to Conrad, who thereupon was appointed by Emperor Lothair III as a 'rector' of the Imperial Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles. This office was confirmed in 1152 and held by the Zähringer dukes until 1218. As a result, they are sometimes referred to as 'Dukes of Burgundy', although the existing Duchy of Burgundy was not an Imperial fief but a French one. Duke Berthold IV (d. 1186), who followed his father Conrad and founded the Swiss city of Fryburg (today's Fribourg-Freiburg) in 1157, spent much of his time in Italy in the train of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa.

His son and successor, Berthold V, showed his prowess by reducing the Burgundian nobles to order. This latter duke was the founder of the city of Bern in 1191, and when he died in February 1218, the ducal line of the Zähringer became extinct. Among other titles, the Zähringen family acted as Reichsvogt of the Zürichgau area.

After the extinction of the ducal line in 1218, much of its extensive territory in the Breisgau and modern-day Switzerland returned to the crown, except for the allodial titles, which were divided between the counts of Urach (who subsequently called themselves the counts of Freiburg) and the counts of Kyburg, both descended from the sisters of Berthold V. Less than fifty years later, the Kyburgs died out, and large portions of their domains were inherited by the House of Habsburg. Bern achieved the status of a free imperial city, whereas other cities (such as Fribourg-Freiburg) only obtained the same status later in history.

Territories of the dominant noble houses in Swabia and Upper Burgundy around 1200; Zähringen possessions shown in green

Berthold I (ancestor of both the House of Zähringen and the House of Baden) held the comital titles of Breisgau and Thurgau, as well as being reeve in Stein am Rhein (owned by the bishop of Bamberg). The county of Thurgau was lost around 1077.

In 1098, Berthold II, founder of the House of Zähringen proper, received Zähringen Castle and the jurisdiction over Zürich (alongside the Counts of Lenzburg until 1173). Ownership of the county of Rheinfelden and of Burgdorf also dates to c. 1198.

The 'rectorate' of the county of Burgundy was granted in 1127 (inheritance of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy). Ownership of Burgundy was contested, and Zähringer de facto rule was limited to the parts of Upper Burgundy east of the Jura and north of Lake Geneva. The territories south of Lake Geneva were conceded to Savoy and Provence in 1156. In compensation, Berthold IV received the investiture right for the bishops of Geneva, Sion and Lausanne, de facto realised only in the case of Lausanne.

The extinction of the counts of Lenzburg in 1173 strengthened the Zähringer position south of the Rhine, but their territorial expansion was halted following their support of the Welfs in the unsuccessful feud against Conrad III of Germany during 1138–1152. This frustrated their ambitions to carve out a contiguous territorial duchy wedged between Swabia and Burgundy, in spite of late attempts on the part of Berthold V to increase his territorial sway (who as late as 1210 aimed at receiving the jurisdiction over St. Gallen).

Instead of territorial expansion, the dukes of Zähringen from the 1150s focused on attaining more immediate feudal control over the territories they already had. This included their policy of expanding settlements into fortified towns or cities and the construction of new castles, mostly in their territories north of the Rhine. Their encroachment on the rights of the comital nobility south of the Rhine seems to have been resisted, mostly passively, but in the case of the lords of Glâne and Thun in an open revolt in 1191.

The fragmentation of the Zähringer possessions after 1218 was an important factor in the communal movements of the late medieval period in the region, including the imperial immediacy of Bern and Zürich, and the growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century.[1]

Cities

Berthold V, shown on the Zähringer monument in Bern, Switzerland

Among the cities founded or expanded by the Zähringer dukes (German: Zähringerstädte) are:

• in Swabia, west of the Black Forest (Baden): Freiburg im Breisgau (1120), Offenburg (before 1148), Neuenburg am Rhein (1175);
• in Swabia, east of the Black Forest (Württemberg): Sankt Peter (1093), Villingen (1119), Bräunlingen (c. 1200), Weilheim an der Teck (Limburg castle c. 1060);
• in Burgundy (western Swiss plateau):
  • on the Rhine: Rheinfelden (c. 1150);
  • Aare basin: Fribourg (Freiburg im Üechtland, 1157) Bern (1191), Burgdorf (castle before 1175), Murten (c. 1180), Thun (c. 1190).

Other towns owned by or under the jurisdiction (Reichsvogtei) of the Zähringer include: Solothurn (acquired 1127), Zürich (acquired 1173), Schaffhausen (acquired 1198) and Stein am Rhein.

The city of Morges on Lake Geneva is not a Zähringer foundation (having been founded in 1286 by Louis I of Vaud) but shared the characteristic layout of the Zähringer cities.

• Zähringerbrunnen

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Zähringen (family)" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Zähringen" . Encyclopedia Americana.

• Media related to House of Zähringen at Wikimedia Commons
• Zähringen Castle – original castle of the Zähringer