Welf
(d. ca. 825)
The Welfs were originally descended from Frankish nobility, landowners in Alsace and in Lorraine. In the Historia Welforum, in which this famous Welf family tree is also recorded, an absolute boast was made: "They are descended from those Franks who once migrated from Troy." The Welfs were able to develop a single dynastic house in Swabia between Bodensee and the river Lech, where their main castle of Altorf (Weingarten) was situated, after which they were also named.
The origin of the "Elder House of Welf" is controversial, since "Welf" was apparently a rather common baptismal name in the Carolingian period. Count Welf, who had possessions in Bavaria in the first quarter of the 9th century, is the first clearly discernible ancestor of the dynasty. His daughters Judith and Hemma married, respectively, the Frankish Emperor Ludwig I. the Pious (d. 840) and Ludwig the German (d. 876), and with these marriages began the social and political ascent of the Welfs in the Empire. These royal connections turned the Welfs into the most influential family in southern Germany. Count Welf's grandson, Welf I. (d. before 876), founded the Swabian, or south German, line of the Welfs.
--Adapted from the website, Die Welfen
Sources
- Schneidmüller, Bernd. In the catalog for the exhibition: "Heinrich der Löwe," Brunswick 1995.