Description

Adolf, Count of Nassau was born in 1255 to the House of Nassau. He married Imagina of Isenburg-Limberg with whom he fathered eight children. His inheritance included the lands of the Lahn River and Wiesbaden as well as land adjacent to the castles of Nassau and Laurenburg.

Rulership selection of German nobility by the prince-electros (in cases not determined by military force) involved payments in land, money and/or promises of political patronage. His homage to the electors being unknown, Adolf was elected King of Germany in 1292. For equally unknown reasons, his elevation to king lacked being crowned by the Pope.

A skilled warrior, Adolf was successfully engaged in two wars where little use of his sword was needed. The war with France concluded with only the enmity of Pope Boniface VIII toward both Adolf and Philip of France. The war in Thuringia did bring additional territories into the German Empire. Despite reliable rule and expansion of the empire through diplomacy and minor warfare, Adolf was deposed as king due to the machinations of the Duke of Saxony and the King of Bohemia. Adolf refused to accept his being deposed, and the decision was made on the battlefield. Armies of Adolf and Albert (King Adolf’s successor) met in July 1298 at Göllheim battlefield. Adolf and his standard-bearer fell in the action. With the demise of their commander, his army fled the field.

King Adolf’s portrait hangs today in the Kaissersaal (Hall of Kings) in Frankfurt.