Dietrich, Count of Oldenburg

Dietrich or Theoderic of Oldenburg (c. 1398 – 14 February 1440) was a feudal lord in Northern Germany, holding the counties of Delmenhorst and Oldenburg. He was called "Fortunatus", as he was able to secure Delmenhorst for his branch of the Oldenburgs.

Dietrich of Oldenburg
Count of Oldenburg
Predecessor	Christian V of Oldenburg
Successor	Christian VII
Born	c. 1398
Died	14 February 1440 (aged 41–42) Delmenhorst,Germany
Buried	Roskilde Cathedral, Roskilde, Denmark
Noble family	House of Oldenburg
Spouses	Countess Adelheid of Oldenburg-Delmenhorst Hedvig of Holstein
Issue	Christian I of Denmark Maurice V of Delmenhorst Gerhard VI, Count of Oldenburg Adelheid, Countess of Hohenstein and Mansfeld
Father	Christian V, Count of Oldenburg
Mother	Countess Agnes of Honstein

Dietrich was the father of Christian I of Denmark, who would go on to start the current dynasty of the Danish throne.

Lineage

Dietrich of Oldenburg was the son of Christian V of Oldenburg, who became the Count circa 1398 and died in 1403. His mother was the Countess Agnes of Honstein. His grandfather, Conrad I of Oldenburg, who died circa 1368, left his lands divided between Dietrich's father and uncle, Conrad II.

Dietrich's father, Christian V, managed to gain the upper hand when Conrad II's son Maurice II died in 1420. After this, most of the Oldenburg family patrimony was under the rule of Dietrich's branch. However, the house had several minor branches with estates and claims, as was usual in any medieval fief.

Dietrich of Oldenburg was the grandson of Ingeborg of Itzehoe, a Holstein princess who had married Count Conrad I of Oldenburg. After the death of her only brother, Count Gerhard V of Holstein-Itzehoe-Plön in 1350, Ingeborg and her issue were the heirs of her grandmother Ingeborg of Sweden (d. ca. 1290, the first wife of Gerhard II of Holstein-Plön), the eldest daughter of King Valdemar of Sweden and Queen Sophia, who herself was the eldest daughter of King Eric IV of Denmark and his wife Jutta of Saxony who had no male descendants. Since there were no other living legitimate descendants of King Valdemar by this time, Dietrich was considered the heir general of Kings Valdemar I of Sweden and Eric IV of Denmark.

Dietrich succeeded his father as head of the House of Oldenburg in 1403, and is patrilineal 14x great-grandfather of King Charles III of the United Kingdom.

Marriages and children

During his childhood, Dietrich married a distant cousin, Countess Adelheid of Oldenburg-Delmenhorst, daughter of Count Otto IV of Delmenhorst, for reasons of succession and to unite the hereditary fiefs. Countess Adelheid is presumed to have died in 1404. In 1423, Dietrich married again, to Hedvig of Holstein (born between 1398–1400 and died in 1436), widow of Prince Balthasar of Mecklenburg and daughter of Duke Gerhard VI of Schleswig and Holstein and his wife Elisabeth of Brunswick. Hedvig was the sister of the reigning Duke Adolf VIII. All Dietrich's legitimate children were born by his second wife.

His second marriage strengthened the Oldenburg ties to the Scandinavian monarchies, as Hedvig was a descendant of King Eric V of Denmark, King Haakon V of Norway and King Magnus Ladulås of Sweden. During Dietrich's lifetime, the three kingdoms were united under the Kalmar Union, and these dynastic connections would later prove important for his eldest son, Christian.

Count Dietrich had three surviving sons and one daughter:

• Christian (1426–1481); who succeeded him as Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, and later became King Christian I of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (following the deposition of Karl Knutsson in Sweden), as well as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein. He founded the Oldenburg dynasty in Denmark.

• Maurice V of Delmenhorst (1428–1464); when his elder brother became king, he received the County of Delmenhorst.

• Gerhard VI, Count of Oldenburg (1430–1500); two years after his eldest brother had become king, he received the county of Oldenburg; from his other brother's heirs, he also inherited Delmenhorst around 1483. His name followed the naming traditions of his mother's Holstein family.

• Adelheid (1425–1475), married first Ernest III, the Count of Hohnstein (d. 1454) and in 1474, Gerhard VI, Count of Mansfeld (d. 1492).

Male line of descendants

Dietrich of Oldenburg is a direct ancestor of the Danish royal family having fathered the first House of Oldenburg King of Denmark, Christian I. He is also a direct male ancestor of the British royal family, the pretenders to the Kingdom of the Hellenes, the Norwegian royal family, and the last Russian czars of Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp.

Notes

• ^ Alternate names include:
  • Medieval Latin: Teudericus de Oldenburg
  • Medieval Scandinavian: Didrik af Oldenborg
  • German: Dietrich von Oldenburg
  • Medieval French: Thierry d'Oldenbourg