House of Winkhaus
The House of Winkhaus is among the oldest titled families in Germany dating back to the Saxon Wars (772-804 AD).
History
Winkhaus is the modern German abbreviation of the family’s original Saxon name Von Widukindhuus.[1][2] Widukind means the wolf (lit. forest child) in old Saxon language. It was the by-name Saxons gave to their aristocratic leaders.[3]
The earliest historic evidence of the Saxon House of Winkhaus is provided by the Lex Saxonum in 802 AD introduced by Carolingian emperor Charlemagne. This law recognised the rights of the Saxon Athelingi (nobles) and Frilingi (free men) after Charlemagne’s conquest of the tribe. It ensured that Saxon noble and freemen kept their legal standing and landed rights within the Carolingian empire, provided they fulfilled their duties to the king. The Saxons "gave up" their old pagan tribal ownership and received their lands back as protected, Christian property under the King's peace.[4]
The family’s allodial land recognised by the Lex Saxonum in 802 AD was called Widukindhuus. It still exists today under its modern name Winkhausen as a suburb of the city of Lüdenscheid in Westphalia, Germany. Its location is at the river Volme and along an ancient military road (Herweg) which was already used by the Romans during their military campaigns against German tribes.[5]
The oldest house still standing today in Winkhausen is the former family home, the „Lindenhof”, which was first mentioned in documents around 1500 AD.[2]
The bridge over the river Volme at Widukindhuus was in medieval times an important strategic traffic hub and used as location for holding the King’s Court which was the highest court in the Holy Roman Empire deciding cases of nobles and free men. The House of Winkhaus provided the logistics of the King’s Court, and family members participated as judges in the trials.[6]
Through the centuries the House of Winkhaus used Widukindhuus also for industrial wire production with several hammers powered by the Volme river. The products were marketed particularly through the Hanseatic league.The Westphalian Archive of Economy (WWA) in Dortmund, Germany, preserves many documents of the industrial history of the House of Winkhaus.
The legal standing and landed rights of the House of Winkhaus recognised by Charlemagne in the Lex Saxonum of 802 AD remained effective until 1807 the Napoleonic-French occupation of Westphalia introduced a new constitution heavily influenced by the French Revolution abolishing any pre-existing peerage- and privilege rights in the new Kingdom of Westphalia. Feudal privileges were further eliminated when in 1815 after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo the Kingdom of Prussia annexed Westphalia applying the Prussian October Edict of 1807 to their new Province of Westphalia.
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- ↑ Assmann, Rainer (10 September 2000). "Zur Besiedlung von Stadt und Land Lüdenscheid im ersten Jahrtausend n. Chr". Der Reidemeister (143): Chapter V.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Winkhaus, E. (1937). Wir stammen aus Bauern und Schmiedegeschlecht. p. Einl.14. Search this book on
Cite error: Invalid <ref>tag; name "Winkhaus Book" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Springer, Matthias (2004). Die Sachsen. Stuttgart. pp. 195–196. Search this book on
- ↑ Goldberg, Eric J. (July 1995). Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic Factionalism in the Early Middle Ages: The Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered (70 (3) ed.). University of Chicago Press. pp. 467–501. Search this book on
- ↑ Assmann, Rainer (30 January 2013). "Der Herweg von Köln nach Soest". Der Reidemeister. 193: A3.4, C4.
- ↑ Assmann, Rainer (27 March 2013). "Der Herweg von Köln nach Soest, Teil 2". Der Reidemeister. 194: C5.5 - C.6.
