Philip of Hachberg-Sausenberg

Reign

Philip succeeded his father as Margrave of Hachberg-Sausenberg and Count of Neuchâtel in 1487. He administered the County of Neuchâtel from afar, although with the same desire to defend his sovereign rights and prerogatives as his father. As Count of Neuchâtel, Philip continued his father's cooperation with the neighboring Swiss Confederation, a policy directed against Maximilian I. In 1494, he inaugurated a new mansion at his Rötteln Castle. The lavish interior of Neuchâtel Castle is also attributed to him. Philip died in Montpellier on 9 September 1503, aged about 49. He was succeeded by his daughter and only child Johanna of Hachberg-Sausenberg.

Family

As part of his alliance with France, Philip married Maria of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus IX of Savoy, and one of the nieces of Louis XI, King of France, in 1478. With Philip's death, the male line of the Hachberg-Sausenberg family died out.

Philip's father, Rudolf IV, had begun negotiations with the senior line of the House of Zahringen (of which Rudolf's Hachberg-Sausenberg line was a cadet branch), which ruled the margraviate of Baden on the possibility of an inheritance treaty. Philip continued the negotiations with Christopher I, Margrave of Baden and on 31 August 1490, they came to an agreement on reciprocal inheritance. The treaty is known as the "Rötteln Match". The background of this treaty was that Christopher I intended his son and heir Philip I to marry Joan, the heiress of Hachberg-Sausenberg. This marriage did not materialize, due to political pressure from the French king.

His daughter, Johanna of Hachberg-Sausenberg (born ca. 1485 – died 1543), became Countess of Neuchâtel after her father's death in 1503, while Christopher obtained Sausenberg, Rötteln, Badenweiler and Schopfheim. In 1504, she married Louis d'Orléans-Longueville who, not yet having inherited his father's dukedom of Longueville, became known, jure uxoris, as the Marquis de Rothelin (Rötteln) (after Joan died in 1543, her son François assumed the title of Marquis de Rothelin, thereby starting the cadet line of Orléans-Rothelin). Joan and the House of Orléans-Longueville contested the Rötteln treaty and they tried to rally support for their case from the Swiss cantons of Solothurn, Lucerne, Fribourg and Bern. The dispute was settled in 1581, with the House of Baden paying 225000guilders to the House of Orléans-Longueville, but securing for Christopher's great-grandson Margrave Georg Friedrich of Baden-Durlach Sausenberg, Rötteln and Badenweiller in 1584.

References and sources

Fritz Schülin: Rötteln-Haagen, Beiträge zur Orts-, Landschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte, Lörrach, 1965, pp. 80–82.

Fritz Schülin: Binzen, Beiträge zur Orts-, Landschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte, Schopfheim, 1967, p. 525/526 (Genealogy of the House of Hachberg-Sausenberg).

Karl Seith: Die Burg Rötteln im Wandel ihrer Herrengeschlechter, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Baugeschichte der Burg, special edition published by Röttelbund e.V. in Haagen, place and year unknown, pp. 23–28; cited by Schülin as In: Markgräflerland, vol. 3, issue 1, 1931

Hans Jakob Wörner: Das Markgräflerland – Bemerkungen zu seinem geschichtlichen Werdegang, in: Das Markgräflerland, issue 2/1994, Schopfheim, 1994, p. 64

August Huber: Über Basels Anteil am Röteler Erbfolgestreit im Jahre 1503, in: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, vol. 4, 1905, online

Johann Christian Sachs: Einleitung in die Geschichte der Marggravschaft und des marggrävlichen altfürstlichen Hauses Baden, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1764, part 1, pp. 575–588

The inheritance treaty is reprinted in: John Staub: The contract of inheritance between Margrave Christoph I of Baden, Margrave Philip of Hachberg of 31 Aug. 1490, in: The Markgräflerland, No. 1 / 1991, Schopfheim, 1991, pp. 93–103