Hugo von Montfort

Hugo VII was a scion of the comital house of Montfort at Bregenz, head of an old and influential Swabian family of nobles, holding numerous high administrative posts.

In 1402 Hugo married, for the third time, the Bohemian noble Anna of Neuhaus, widow of the Styrian governor Hans of Stadeck.

As second-born son, he had prepared for an ecclesiastical career, but spent most of his adult life as a politician in the Habsburg service: as commander in chief of the ducal Austrian troops in Italy, as Hofmeister of Duke Leopold IV, as governor of Styria (1412–1415), and as Landvogt in the Thurgau, Aargau, and Black Forest regions of Further Austria.

Hugo died aged 66 at Pfannberg and was buried in the parish church of Bruck an der Mur in Upper Styria.

Though still standing in the shadow of his famous contemporary Oswald von Wolkenstein, he is today considered one of the last important representatives of the German Minnesang.