Adelheid of Katzenelnbogen


Adelheid of Katzenelnbogen, Adelheid von Katzenelnbogen was a countess from the House of Katzenelnbogen and, by marriage, countess of Nassau. She is a direct ancestor of the Walramiam branch of the House of Nassau and of the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg.

Biography

Adelheid was the daughter of Count Diether IV of Katzenelnbogen and Hildegunde. She married before 1250 to Count Walram II of Nassau. On 16 December 1255, her spouse divided the county of Nassau with his younger brother Otto I, on which occasion Walram obtained the area south of the river Lahn, containing Wiesbaden, Idstein, Weilburg and Bleidenstadt.
From this union came the following children:
  1. Diether, was Archbishop of Trier 1300-1307.
  2. Adolf, succeeded his father as count of Nassau, was King of Germany 1292-1298.
  3. Richardis, was a nun in the St. Clara monastery in Mainz and later in Klarenthal Abbey near Wiesbaden.
  4. Matilda.
  5. Imagina, may have married Frederick of Lichtenberg.
Walram died – allegedly in mental derangement – on 24 January 1276. As a widow, Adelheid was a Clarissan nun in Wiesbaden and in Mainz. It is believed that Adelheid and her daughter Richardis led a very devout life.
The necrology of the St. Clara monastery in Mainz recorded the death of ‘Alheidis … comitissa de Nassowe’ on ‘Non Kal Mar’ in 1288, and her burial ‘in habitu soror’. So she died on 22 February 1288 and was buried in the St. Clara monastery in Mainz.