Fulda

Who holds it

Name

Heinrich III of Kronberg

Title

Abbot of Fulda, prince of the Empire

Since

1192

Confidence

high

Abbot 1192-1216, in the list of Fulda's abbots between Konrad II (1177-1192) and Hartmann I (1216-1217). His stance in the throne war is not pinned in the sources consulted.

What it holds

• Fulda: the abbey with Boniface's tomb and the market town that grew at its gate
• The lordship around Fulda in the Buchonia, the abbey's oldest and most compact block
• Hünfeld: the abbey's collegiate church and market to the north
• Hammelburg on the Franconian Saale: an old Fulda estate centre (from the abbey's earliest endowments)
• Vast scattered estates across Hesse, Thuringia and Franconia, much of them held by vassals and ministerials

How it was acquired

Royal and noble endowments from the 8th century on, around Boniface's tomb (754). Princely rank from 1170; formal princely abbey from 1220.

How things stand that morning

Heinrich holds the abbey and its lands; the extent of real lordship outside the Fulda block is uncertain because so much is enfeoffed.

Wealth

Estates and rents across Hesse, Thuringia and Franconia; pilgrims to Boniface's tomb; the Fulda market and the roads from Frankfurt to Thuringia.

Threats

• The Ziegenhain advocates
• Alienation of estates to vassals
• The armies of the throne war crossing between the Rhine and Thuringia

Advocates and rivals

The counts of Ziegenhain, high advocates of the abbey; the abbey's own ministerials, who hold much of its land; the Thuringian landgraves and the bishop of Würzburg as neighbours; the townsmen of Fulda, who will later storm the abbot's castles with the advocate's help.

Places of note

• Fulda Abbey: Tomb of St Boniface

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The abbot and the abbey's princely status are attested; the bounds of the Fulda block in 1200 are not, so it is drawn as town territories around the main centres. Hammelburg is from general knowledge of the abbey's early endowments. The drawing uses the fuller list of abbey places gathered for the eastern region.

On the map: The core block is drawn as a 12 km territory around Fulda; the real 1200 lordship had no fixed border and the outlying estates are not drawn.

Primary sources for Empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Marbach (compiled to 1238, the section on 1198 to 1210 written in the early 13th century). Alsatian annals on the Staufen side of the Upper Rhine. Read online
• Annals of Reiner of Saint James, Liège, Reiner of Liège (1197 to 1230, kept year by year). Contemporary annals kept inside Liège. Read online
• Chronicle of Burchard of Ursberg, Burchard of Ursberg (about 1229 to 1230, reworked by Conrad of Lichtenau). Written a generation later by a fierce partisan of the Staufen and a critic of Innocent III. Read online
• Chronicle of Otto of St Blasien, Otto of St Blasien (about 1209 to 1210). A Swabian continuation of Otto of Freising written from the Staufen side. Read online
• Chronicle of Reinhardsbrunn; Chronicle of St Peter's, Erfurt (Erfurt chronicle in the 13th century; Reinhardsbrunn compilation about 1340 to 1349 from older annals). The two Thuringian chronicles. Read online
• Chronicle of the Slavs, by Arnold of Lübeck, Arnold of Lübeck (about 1209 to 1210). Arnold continues Helmold and writes from Lübeck, close to Danish, Welf and Baltic affairs. Read online
• Royal Chronicle of Cologne (in stages from about 1175 to about 1250; the section on 1198 to 1220 written soon after the events). The fullest German narrative of the throne war from the Welf and Cologne side. Read online
• Chronicle of Hainaut, Gislebert of Mons (about 1195 to 1196). Ends in 1195, so it has no 1200 entries, but it is the indispensable background for Flanders and Hainaut: the career of Count Baldwin V of Hainaut (VIII of Flanders), his union of the two counties, the settlement with Philip over Artois, the rights, castles, fiefs and vassals of Hainaut listed by a man who ran its chancery, and the youth of Baldwin IX, who held both counties in 1200. Read online

8 more in the sources library for The Rhineland, the Low Countries and the Swiss Lands.