House of Rötteln

The areas governed by Dietrich von Rötteln included the churches of Lörrach, Hauingen [de] and Kandern as well as property in Rheinweiler and Ambringen.

[2] In the following years, Saint Alban's possessions on the right bank of the Rhine continued to expand, with a certain concentration in the area around Lörrach.

[6] This also explains why Dietrich III, mentioned from 1175 onwards, referred to the cleric Konrad von Tegerfelden as his brother.

Conversely, Konrad later also donated a death anniversary memorialization for the salvation of his "brother" Dietrich von Rötteln, among others.

[8] With them, the four brothers Walter/Walther, Lüthold, Konrad and Dietrich (IV), the family became more clearly recognisable and reached a peak of power and development.

Walther's brother Lüthold [de] had also joined the cathedral chapter of Constance in the meantime, appearing in documents as a canon from 1215.

[24] After the reconciliation of the two parties, Otto also appears to have moved closer to the Habsburgs and received the offices of Burgrave of Rheinfelden and Imperial Bailiff of Basel from King Albrecht.

[26] Two months before this will, Dietrich had already agreed with the Basel cathedral chapter that the fiefs he held from the monastery would revert to the latter if he died without male heirs.

The family's entitlement to high ecclesiastical offices may have been one reason for the financial problems: This necessitated an appropriate, expensive lifestyle with marriages befitting their status, in which the daughters had to be endowed with property accordingly.

His family is listed in the deed of sale of 1289 and included his wife Richenza, his son Walter and his two daughters Agnes and Benedicta, one of whom was married to Margrave Rudolf von Hachberg-Sausenberg.

He and his opponent Berthold von Rüti appealed to the Pope, who asked them both to renounce and made Peter of Aspelt bishop instead.

Lüthold therefore initially took over the administration of the lordship of Rötteln, albeit with his niece's husband, Margrave Rudolf von Sausenberg, as his new co-ruler.

[36] In 1313, Rudolf von Sausenberg also died, leaving behind three underage sons, so Lüthold once again became the sole ruler of Rötteln.

In December 1315, he drew up a will in which he bequeathed his entire estate to his great-nephew, Rudolf's son Heinrich, and on 19 May 1316 he died as the last male member of the Lords of Rötteln.

[39] Their time also saw a pronounced competitive situation between the Zähringers and the Bishopric of Basel, which also had an impact on the local nobility and led to the formation of groups.

[40] Concerning the lords of Rötteln, Otto Roller noted a close relationship with the Zähringers and characterised the Röttlers as "highly ecclesiastical".

[43] Similar conflicts between the Röttler and Rotenbergers also seem to have occurred later: While the Röttler main line is counted among the Psittichers,[24] Dietrich V von Rotenberg appeared several times in the circle of the Sterners and chose several members of Sterner families as heirs with Peter [de] and Matthias Reich [de] as well as Wernher von Eptingen.

[43] The regional importance of the nobles of Rötteln is also emphasised by the fact that three members of the family once occupied the bishop's seat in Basel.

They were certainly named after the hamlet of Rötteln, whose parish church was mentioned in documents as early as 751, long before the noble family.

On the one hand, it is assumed that the Röttler originally came to southern Breisgau from central Swabia with the Zähringen dynasty and descended from a family that was wealthy near Weilheim an der Teck.

[47] The possessions of the Rötteln lords lay in southern Breisgau, particularly around Lörrach and in the valleys of the Great and Little Wiese [de].

According to Thomas Simon, the Lordship of Rötteln formed a "conglomerate of numerous bailiwicks and manorial estates" and was probably also endowed with high court rights.

Further property existed in the Kleines Wiesental valley around Tegernau, where there was a connection between land ownership and bailiwick, which may have been due to an inheritance from the Lords of Waldeck, who died out in the middle of the 12th century.