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The House of Sponheim or Spanheim (also called Sponheimer or Spanheimer) was a medieval German noble family, which originated in Rhenish Franconia. They were immediate Counts of Sponheim until 1437 and Dukes of Carinthia from 1122 until 1269. A cadet branch ruled in the Imperial County of Ortenburg-Neuortenburg until 1806. ==History== The family took its name from their ancestral seat at Sponheim Castle in the Hunsrück range, in present-day Burgsponheim near Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate. From the 11th century the family was divided in two closely related branches. One of these branches, probably the senior one, retained the Duchy of Carinthia and originated the County of Ortenburg in Bavarian. The other one remained in Rhenish Franconia, retaining the County of Sponheim. The founder of the ducal branch was Count Siegfried I (1010–1065), a Ripuarian Frank by birth and retainer of the Salian emperor Conrad II. For this reason the family is sometimes termed the Siegfrieding. Siegfried followed Conrad in his 1035 campaign against Duke Adalbero of Carinthia, who for unknown reasons had fallen out of favour with the emperor. By his marriage to Richgard, daughter of one Count Engelbert of the Bavarian Sieghardinger noble family, he became heir to large territories in Carinthia and Tyrol. In 1045 Siegfried received the title of a margrave in the Hungarian March by Emperor Henry III. His sons Engelbert, Margrave in Istria from 1090, and Hartwig founded St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal on their mother's estates in 1091. When the ducal House of Eppenstein finally became extinct in 1122, Siegfried's grandson Henry inherited the title and became the first Sponheim Duke of Carinthia as well as Margrave in the Italian March of Verona. Upon his death only one year later, he was succeeded by his brother Engelbert, whose descendants ruled in Carinthia until the death of Duke Ulrich III in 1269. Engelbert's younger son Rapoto became the ancestor of the Bavarian Ortenburg dynasty. The Spanheim dukes tried to consolidate their possessions by being loyal liensmen of the Imperial House of Hohenstaufen, they nevertheless had to struggle with reluctant local nobles like the Carinthian Ortenburger. The margravial title in Verona was lost to Herman III of Baden in 1151. Under Bernhard of Sponheim, Carinthian duke from 1202 until 1256, the dynasty reached the height of its power. In 1213 he married Judith, a daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, which affiliated the ducal line with the Czech royal Přemyslid dynasty. Bernhard's son Ulrich III by marriage with Agnes of Merania in 1248 also inherited the title of a margrave in the adjacent March of Carniola. However, as he outlived his children, he bequested his Carinthian and Carniolan lands to his Přemyslid cousin King Ottokar II of Bohemia according to a secret inheritance agreement of 1268. These estates were among the territories which Rudolph of Habsburg after his election as King of the Romans in 1273 seized due to their acquisition in suspicious circumstances. The founder of the Rhenish branch was Count Stephan I of Sponheim (d. 1080), who may have been a 1st cousin, a son or a nephew of Siegfried. One of his successors Gottfried III (1183–1218) married Adelheid of Sayn, sister and heiress of the last Count of Sayn, Henry II. In 1437 this branch's ruling male line in Sponheim died out, and female line descendants, namely the Margraves of Baden and the Counts Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, took on the title of Count to Sponheim, along with the Elector of the Palatinate, who had received a small part as dowry.〔Rupert of Germany's firstborn Rupert Pipan married Elisabeth of Sponheim-Kreuznach; the marriage remained childless.〕 The branch of the Counts of Ortenburg is still living today in Tambach (Bavaria). A lateral line of the Rhenish branch survives also with the Princes of Sayn-Wittgenstein. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「House of Sponheim」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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