Dietrich of Groitzsch

Who he is

Name

Dietrich

Title

Count of Groitzsch and of Sommerschenburg; advocate (Vogt) of Pegau abbey; also styled count of Landsberg

Since

1190 (on his father Dedo's death)

Born

not pinned (a canon of Zeitz in 1169, so born by the early 1150s)

Family

Wettin, elder son of Dedo 'the Fat'; brother of Margrave Conrad II. Married before 1190 Jutta of Thuringia, daughter of Landgrave Louis III (so a niece of Landgrave Hermann). Daughters Mechtild (later wife of Count Henry III of Sayn) and Agnes; no son.

Confidence

medium

FMG Medieval Lands (Meissen), citing the Genealogia Wettinensis and the Chronicon Montis Sereni

Overlord

The king

What it holds

• Groitzsch castle on the White Elster
• The advocacy of the Benedictine abbey of Pegau and its market town
• The title of count of Sommerschenburg (the castle itself, north of the Harz, is outside this sheet's area and its holder in 1200 is not pinned)
• A share in the Dedonid castle of Landsberg (not pinned)

How it was acquired

From his father in 1190; Groitzsch came to the Wettins after the Groitzsch line died out in 1135.

Allies and rivals

His brother Conrad and cousin Dietrich of Meissen; his wife's kin, the Ludowingians.

How things stand that morning

Holds Groitzsch and the Pegau advocacy. His side in the throne war is not attested; his whole house backs Philip.

Wealth

The Elster valley farmland and the Pegau market.

Military

Groitzsch castle. No numbers.

Threats

• No son: the county will pass to his brother

Places of note

• Groitzsch castle: Wiprecht's castle
• Pegau abbey: Benedictine abbey, founded by Wiprecht of Groitzsch

Where the sources disagree

• FMG gives this Dietrich a wife Jutta of Thuringia, daughter of Louis III; she is a different Jutta from Margrave Dietrich's wife, Hermann's daughter.

Evidence: Known mainly from the Wettin genealogies and the Lauterberg chronicle.

On the map: Rough block; the abbey's own estates are inside it.

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.