Welfer V

Welfe was born around 1073 . His father, Welfe IV, was one of the opponents of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV during his struggle with the popes for investiture . Because of this, he was deprived of the Bavarian duchy .

The successful resistance of Welfa IV gradually led Emperor Henry IV to the idea of ​​returning Bavaria to him and making peace with him. Negotiations began on Christmas Day 1089 in Regensburg and continued in February 1090 in Speyer. However, back in 1089, Pope Urban II, thanks to diplomacy, secured a secret marriage between the adversary of Henry IV, the Margraine of Tuscany Matilda and the eldest son of Welfare IV - Wulf V. Because of this, peace negotiations between the emperor and Welfare IV did not succeed, but he himself Welfe entered into an alliance with the pope against Henry IV. The alliance led to the concentration of power in southern Germany and northern Italy in the hands of opponents of the emperor.

The marriage with forty-four-year-old Matilda and Welf V, who was about 16 years old at the time of marriage, was purely political and remained childless. Matilda remained the sovereign ruler of Tuscany. Welfe V and his wife participated in the struggle against Emperor Henry IV. But having matured, Welf V tried to come to the fore, which caused discord between the spouses. As a result, in the summer of 1095, Welf V, with the help of the pope, divorced his wife and returned to Germany.

This divorce led to the collapse of the Welfare-Tuscan Union. After the son’s divorce, Welf IV resumed negotiations with the emperor on reconciliation. As a result, in 1096, Bavaria was returned to Welfu IV. In addition, the emperor guaranteed that Welfare V would inherit the duchy after the death of his father.

In April 1101, the elderly Welfth IV went on a crusade , during which he died. He was succeeded by Welfe V (he was the Duke of Bavaria under the name Welfe II).

Having become a duke, Welf V remained a supporter of the emperor. Despite the attempts of the pope and Henry the Black to drag him into the camp of opponents of Henry IV during the uprising of Henry the Younger , son and heir of the emperor, Welf V remained faithful to him.

On Christmas Day 1105, Welf V was present at the Reichstag in Mainz , at which Henry the Younger, after the alleged abdication of Henry IV, was recognized as the ruler of the empire under the name Henry V.

In 1107, Welfe V was one of the envoys of Henry V, who in Chalon met with the pope and king of France to resolve the dispute over secular investiture.

In 1108, Welfe V participated in the unsuccessful campaign of Henry V in Hungary .

In the summer of 1110, Velf V with the Bavarian army joined Henry V to accompany him on a trip to Italian possessions, and in 1111 to Rome , where Henry V was crowned imperial crown.

In 1112, the emperor intervened in the internal affairs of the Duchy of Saxony, which caused dissatisfaction with the Saxon nobility. To resolve the dispute, the emperor sent to the Duke of Saxony Lothar Supplinburg and Bishop of Würzburg Erlung Welf V, who, apparently, had good diplomatic abilities, as his messenger.

In 1115, Matilda of Tuscany died. She bequeathed her possessions to the pope , however, the emperor filed a claim on her inheritance, who wished to annex wealthy possessions. The reason was that many of Matilda's possessions were imperial linen. In addition, Henry V was a relative of Matilda. At the same time, Velf V as the ex-husband of Matilda could claim the inheritance. Fearing that loyalty to Welfare V might be shaken, Henry V guaranteed that his brother Henry the Black would inherit the childless duke in Bavaria. In February, the emperor went to Italy, and Henry the Black went with him. As a result of the campaign, Henry V managed to capture the inheritance of Matilda

In September 1119, Welfer V in Strasbourg took part in negotiations on investiture between Henry V and Pope Calixtus II . Not later than December of that year, Welf returned to Germany.

Welfer V died on September 24, 1120 in the Bavarian burger Kaufering . His body was buried at Weingarten Monastery . Wife V had no children from his marriage to Matilda, and after the divorce he never married. His heir became the younger brother Heinrich Black.

Wife: from 1089 (secret marriage) Matilda Kanosskaya (1046 - July 24, 1115), Margraine of Tuscany, daughter of Margrave Boniface III and Beatrice of Lorraine , widow of the Duke of Lorraine Gottfried Gorbatov . In the winter of 1095, the couple divorced. There were no children from this marriage.

• Sigmund Ritter von Riezler. Welf V. // Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). - Bd. 41. - Lpz. : Duncker & Humblot, 1896. - S. 670–671. (German)
• Bulst Tile Maria Louise, Jordan Karl, Fleckenstein Joseph. The Holy Roman Empire: the era of formation / Per. with him. Drobinskaya K. L., Neborskaya L. N. edited by I. Ermachenko - St. Petersburg. : Eurasia, 2008 .-- 480 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-8071-0310-9 .
• Welsh // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Gregorovius F. History of the city of Rome in the Middle Ages (from V to XVI century) / Per. with him. M. Litvinova, V. Linde, V. Savina. - M .: Alpha-book , 2008 .-- 1280 p. - (Full edition in one volume). - 6000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-9922-0191-8 .

• Welf V. der Dicke als W. II. Herzog von Bayern (German) . Mittelalterliche Genealogie im Deutschen Reich bis zum Ende der Staufer. Date of treatment March 14, 2012. Archived on September 15, 2012.
• DUKES of BAVARIA (WELF ) . Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. Date of treatment March 14, 2012.