Liudger of Saxony (Billung)

Liudger (also Liutger, Ludiger, Liudiger or Luderus, Low German: Lüder; died 26 February 1011) was the younger brother of the Saxon Duke Bernhard I of the Billung dynasty.[16] Despite this finding, part of the medieval research assumes that Liudger played an important role for the rule of the Billung dynasty in Saxony, without determining it in more detail.And Bernhard's II son Herrmann even represented his older brother Duke Ordulf for several years at the head of the princely house.[22] In a record of the outcome of the boundary negotiations between the bishoprics of Hildesheim, Minden and Verden from the period between January 15 and May 13, 993, "Duke Bernhard and his brother Liudger" head the list of secular witnesses (Bernhardi ducis suique fratris Liudgeri).[23] Gerd Althoff, in his study on group ties in the Middle Ages published in 1990, shows the limits of Liudger's position within the noble family of the Billung.Only the recognition of Bernhard's primogeniture and the subordination to his claim to rule would have made it possible for Liudger to remain at the court in the first place, in order to step in in the interest of the family in case of the regent's failure.In no case Liudger's participation in the rule of the Billung dynasty had been presented as co-rule, and in the inheritance of the father he had been involved at most in smaller extent.In contrast to this, Althoff in his habilitation thesis from 1984 still held the view that Liudger as the younger brother had directly participated in the rule of the ducal dynasty.[31] Nestor of Billung research, the Lüneburg archivist Anton Christian Wedekind, interpreted the joint consent in 1835 with a co-ownership of both brothers in the forest.[32] Wedekind generally assumed that the statements of the Lüneburg chronicle about a joint succession of the brothers to the inheritance of their father were correct.At the intervention of his brother Bernhard I and the Bishop of Paderborn Meinwerk, he received the manor house Stiepel with all living and dead inventory in a document issued in Ravenna, Italy, on April 27, 1001.[34] The location of the manor house is described in the document as "in the county of this Count Liudger and in the Westfalengau" (in comitatu ipsius Liutgeri comitis et in pago Westfalon).